Have The Washington Capitals Been Good Or Lucky

It has been a very good start for the Washington Capitals, at least when you talk about the overall record. Ten games into the season they have a record of 6-1-3 which of course adds up to fifteen points. As we speak, that is tied for first place in the East division with the Philadelphia Flyers.

A 6-1-3 record is nothing to scoff at. It doesn’t really matter what kind of season it is, shortened or not, every team wants to get off to a good start. The Capitals have. Thanks to this start they don’t have to chase the rest of the league or division and they can settle into the rest of the year.

While the record is good, I doubt I’m alone in the belief that this team has yet to play anything close to their best hockey. The reason for that can be a pretty wide variety of things.

One reason could be the new coach. The Capitals had very little training camp, just like everyone else which means they had little time to adapt to a new system or way of doing things.

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The other big reason this team hasn’t hit their best yet is the fact that four of their key players were forced to sit out four games, some of those four even more than that. Alex Ovechkin, Evgeny Kuznetsov, Dmitry Orlov and Ilya Samsonov have all been forced to sit out do to COVID protocols. Ovechkin and Orlov have since returned and Ovechkin especially had an immediate impact.

You can take just those things into account and figure out why this team hasn’t hit its stride just yet. But so far this team’s good has been able to outdo the bad.

If we look at some important advanced stats though there is plenty of things the Capitals need to improve on if they want to get better and potentially make a run come playoff time.

The first stat to look at is Corsi%. The Capitals currently have the third worst Corsi% in the NHL at 46.25%. That’s above only the Anaheim Ducks at 44.79 and the Flyers who have a league worst 44.07%.

Shot attempts are just that though. They’re just shot attempts. It’s a stat that can tell us who will control a game more often than not. Which side of the rink is the puck on and who allows pucks to be fired towards their net.

The stat you need to look at after that is scoring chance percentage and high danger attempts percentage. Next to goals, this is the point of the game. Can you limit the chances you give up while getting your own? Unfortunately, the Capitals are not very good in these stats right now either.

The Capitals have the eighth worst scoring chance for% at 46.65%. They have given up 183 scoring chances, which is tenth worst, and have generated 160 chances for, that ranks 23rd in the NHL.

Now when you see that something else needs to be pointed out. The Capitals right now have one of the highest shooting percentages on scoring chances. The Caps shooting percentage on scoring chances currently is 19.80%. That is the fifth best percentage in the league. That will likely fall. Going back the last several seasons, the league leaders in this stat hover around 15%.

If that percentage does fall for the Capitals and it falls the expected 4-5% (at least) how much does that affect them? That’s TBD.

When you look at scoring chances you can also look a little deeper on that and figure out if the chances are coming from the danger areas on the ice. The Capitals have the seventh worst high danger attempts percentage in the NHL right now. Their HDCF% is 45.11%. They have given up 73 high danger attempts, which is 13th most and have made 60 attempts for which is twentieth in the league.

The teams shooting percentage in high danger attempts is 23.91% which is fifth best. That will likely drop as well, but how much is a question. Over the last couple of seasons the league leader has bounced around 20-22% Washington right now isn’t too much higher than that, this might not fall too much, but keep an eye on it.

Just to fill all of this out, the Capitals save percentage on scoring chances is 87.93% which ranks ninth, and their high danger save percentage is 82.14%, that’s eighteenth. To me goaltending has been fine. You can’t and shouldn’t expect more from them. If they decline it could be a problem, but that is a bridge to cross if we ever get there.

I personally think this Capitals team is one of the very best in the NHL. They are legitimate Stanley Cup contenders and should be talked about more in my opinion. It’s early in the season, and they have yet to find their best game.

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There are things that need to improve. This is a very good team with a very good coaching staff. I tend to think they will figure it out. But those are numbers and areas of the game to keep an eye on. If they stay where they are it could mean trouble down the road.

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