Grading Nic Dowd after a fantastic season

When one thinks of Nic Dowd of the Washington Capitals, lots come to mind. Whether it's his face off wins, clutch timely goals, the penalty kill, or his work off the ice, Dowd is a good dude and he just had a birthday. But that isn't the only reason he had a fantastic season, there's several others two.

The basics

Dowd finished with 12 goals and 10 assists for 22 points in 64 games. He also added two game winning goals while averagine 15:12 minutes of ice time per game. The bad is his plus/minus was a -2 but that comes with a bad goal differential as a team. He also had a career high 47 penalty minutes but that also came from sticking up for his teammates like when Nick Jensen went down just before the playoffs started.

In the playoffs Dowd had six penalty minutes while averaging 13:57 minutes of ice time while winning 48.3 percent of his face off draws. That's just a tad bit more than the 48.1 percent in the regular season per Hockey Reference.

The advanced stats

Not so good. Dowd had a corsi for percentage of 41.20 percent at five on five per Natural Stat Trick. His high danger chances for percentage was at 43.41 percent while his expected goals percentage came out to 42.12 percent. In the playoffs they were around the same at five on five as the Rangers dominated the Caps.

Dowd's corsi for percentage was at 41.18 percent, his expected goals for percentage at 31.47 percent and his high danger chances for percentage at 42.86 percent.

Final Grade B+

Miss me with the advanced numbers. The Caps lineup was depleted all season long and the fact that Dowd is still a Capital when three others left the team during trade deadline season shows that the fourth line center can keep his head in the game no matter who his line mates are.

Dowd was very close to having a career season. He played just one less game than the previous year because of the injury bug. Still though this was a good grade and we wish Dowd a happy belated.