It was not a very good week for the Washington Capitals.
It ended with a bang though. Four games were played, just one win goes in the books for the Caps. The one win did come against the arch rival Pittsburgh Penguins, so if you’re going to get a win that’s the one to get.
It’s now time to wrap up the week and give out our stars of the week. With the Capitals playing poorly recently it’s been difficult to hand these things out. A lot of guys have been somewhat invisible making it hard to pick standouts. This week, even with the losses, I think it was pretty easy to name our stars of the week. So we’ll start with…
Alex Ovechkin
It wasn’t Ovechkin’s best week honestly. With four games played he had two goals. I guess you could call that a pretty typical week for the great eight. Lets be honest, he’s on this list for one reason and one reason alone. He now has scored 700 career goals in the National Hockey League. If that doesn’t give you a star of the week then what does?
I still thought Ovechkin was one of the better Capitals this week. With the whole team not playing well he was still getting plenty of chances. Even during his goalless spell he had plenty of chances.
His advanced stats don’t look too great. His Corsi% was 46.34%. Out of the 20 players to skate with the Capitals this week that ranked 13th. His scoring chance for% was 51.06%, over fifty percent which is good, but while on the ice the Capitals had 24 chances for and 23 against. It’s nearly the same thing for high danger chances. With Ovechkin on the ice the Caps had 13 high danger attempts for and 12 against.
Like always, Ovechkin got plenty of individual stats. His 14 shots this week was second on the team, second behind someone we’ll talk about shortly. He also had 15 scoring chances, behind another guy we’ll talk about in just a minute. His seven high danger attempts ranks second on the team as well, the high this week was nine which was shared by…the two guys we’re going to show you in a second now.
Two goals, some okay stats, among the team leaders in individual stats, and oh yes, made some history. If you don’t think Ovechkin deserves to be one of our stars of the week I don’t know what to tell you. Go watch him score his 700th goal and relax I guess.