Washington Capitals: Stars Of The Week – Kovalchuk Is A Capital
What a week it was for the Washington Capitals.
The on ice results were mixed. A 4-3 shootout win vs the Jets after Washington had a 3-0 lead. A 3-0 loss to the same Winnipeg team, this time up in Canada. Then a 4-3 win in Minnesota over the Wild.
It’s now time for us to name our stars of the week. If you don’t know how we do this let me remind you. The stars of the week will be based on how much a player contributed on the score sheet, how good his advanced stats were and finally how noticeable he was during the games.
Simple as that. With that being pointed out it’s now time to name the stars of the week.
Ilya Kovalchuk
While the on ice results were mixed, the week was an exciting one thanks to the trade deadline acquisition of Ilya Kovalchuk. The 36-year-old played his first game with Washington against the Jets on the 25th.
Kovalchuk didn’t wow you with incredible stats this week. I thought he was one of the most noticeable players however. Not sure how much that’s saying on this team this season though. He managed to get one point this week. That was an assist vs the Wild on an Alex Ovechkin goal.
Kovalchuk had some good advanced stats as well this week. He had a 51.95 Corsi rating, having 40 shots attempts for and 37 against while on the ice. He also had 23 scoring chances for while on the ice and 21 against. That gave him a 52.27% rating.
On the downside he did have nine high danger attempts for and 12 against while on the ice and zero high danger goals for and three against. That has to get better going forward.
Kovalchuk ranked third in shots on the team this week with nine shots on goal. He ranked third in scoring chances as well with, once again, nine. Finally he also was third in high danger attempts with four.
Lastly, he tied for the most penalties drawn this week with two, the other man to draw two penalties was Garnet Hathaway.
Being one of the more noticeable guys when it’s your first week with the team I think is a pretty good accomplishment. Kovalchuk was that, he put up the stats and had some good advanced numbers. For all of that I think he definitely deserves to be one of our stars of the week.
Alex Ovechkin
Maybe we should rename this thing we do weekly to “Two stars of the week, and how did Alex Ovechkin do?” Not as catchy maybe? But that’s what it has turned into for a lot of this season. He makes our list seemingly every week and this week is obviously no different.
This week was another good week stats wise for the great 8. He led the team in points with four points, three of those were goals and the other was a primary assist. Ovechkin is not up to 45 goals for the season and 703 for his career.
His advanced stats were OK, he wasn’t on the ice for the majority of shot attempts, but he was on the ice for more scoring chances. His Corsi rating was 47.42% being on the ice for 46 attempts for and 51 against. He was on the ice for 27 scoring chances for and 24 against for a 52.94 percentage. He was also on the ice for 11 high danger attempts and 5 against, that’s about 68%.
Don’t be too surprised, but Ovechkin led the team in shots this week. He had 12 shots on goals this week, the next highest total was nine by Jakub Vrana. Ovechkin had 21 scoring chances this week, that was more than double the second highest on the team which was 10 by T.J. Oshie. He also had 5 high danger attempts, one behind Oshie for the team lead this week.
When you’re as great a player as he is it shouldn’t be shocking you make a top players of the week list almost every week. That’s exactly what he does. Welcome to stars of the week again Mr. Ovechkin, see you next week most likely.
Evgeny Kuznetsov
This could go to maybe a couple of guys, but Evgeny Kuznetsov at the end of the day ticked every box you need to make our list. His stats were good, his advanced numbers were good and I thought he was one of the more noticeable Capitals almost all week.
Kuznetsov had three points this week behind only Ovechkin. All three of his points were assists, two of those helpers were primary. Being easy to see almost all week surely helped him on the score sheet.
His advanced stats look similar to Ovechkin, go figure playing on the same line. His Corsi rating was 47.42%, the same as Ovechkin. He scoring chance for percentage was 53.85% being on the ice for 28 chances for and 24 against. He was also on the ice for 11 high danger attempts for and 8 against.
He didn’t have the best individual stats, but he still had numbers. He had seven shots on goal this week, among the leaders, that was tied for fifth. He only had three scoring chances though and had the same amount of high danger chances.
Kuznetsov, who usually struggles at the faceoff dot had a pretty good week this week winning over 55% of the draws he took. He won 24 of 43 on the week.
Getting Kovalchuk seemed to ignite Kuznetsov. If he plays like this for the rest of the season and into the playoffs, lookout. We could be seeing Kuznetsov make out stars of the week a lot more frequently.
Trending. Capitals defeat Minnesota Wild 4-3. light
An honorable mention I think should go to Hathaway. He had a goal this week and his advanced stats were pretty incredible. His Corsi rating was 62.79%, his scoring chance percentage was 83.33% and his high danger attempts percentage was 85.71%. The only reason he didn’t crack our list was due to him being less noticeable than the three we named. But still, he deserves to be pointed out.