Washington Capitals Report Card: Grading defense against Penguins

The Washington Capitals dropped a 4-3 decision to the Pittsburgh Penguins that ultimately came down to a shootout. If you missed our grades for the offense you can check that out here.

Here’s a look at the defensive pairings for the game:

Orlov-Carlson
Dillon-Schultz
Chara-Jensen

Overall I thought the defense played better in the second game of the season than they did in the first game of the season. That season opener against the Buffalo Sabres saw a combined 10 goals scored among the teams.

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Despite the high scoring affair, Peter Laviolette kept the defensive lineup the same. It worked out well in the second game of the season that saw the Caps hang on for a 2-1 win. The defense in front helped out Vitek Vanecek shine in his NHL debut.

The Caps turned back to Ilya Samsonov on Sunday afternoon against the Penguins. He allowed a goal 19 seconds into the game by Evan Rodrigues before allowing two more in the second period to Colton Scheviour and Marcus Pettersson. All of the goals allowed came on even strength.

The Caps were whistled for five penalties the other night in Buffalo in the second game of the season. Despite this, they stood tall and didn’t allow a single power play goal. The Caps also did not have a power play opportunity throughout that game.

Only Nick Jensen and Brenden Dillon were the lone defensemen called for penalties in Sunday’s game against the Penguins. Jensen was called for tripping at 4:57 in the first period.

Let’s dive into some advanced stats for the defensemen. For this exercise, we’ll go with the numbers of the defensive pairings that we’ve seen over the course of the three games.

Starting with Dmitry Orlov and John Carlson, those two have a Corsi For percentage of 42.62 percent. That’s not good as the two are usually expected to generate offense going with the top line.

The middle pair of Brenden Dillon and Justin Schultz is a tad bit better with a 46.30 Corsi For percentage, a 47.73 percent Fenwick For percentage and a 51.14 percent expected goals for percentage.

Finally there’s Zdeno Chara and Nick Jensen. They had the best Corsi For percentage at 53.45 percent. Their Fenwick For percentage was at 50 percent while their expected goals for came out at 47.91 percent.

Grade B-: The defense has proven to be good so far in this young season as Peter Laviolette has left the pairs the same. We have yet to see Trevor van Riemsdyk and Jonas Siegenthaler this season.