Now that another odd Washington Capitals season is in the books it's time to grade each player who has contributed to the lineup one by one. We'll start off with defenseman Nick Jensen. Before he was injured just prior to the end of the regular season, Jensen had a good year.
He finished with one goal and 13 assists for 14 points in 78 games. He did appear in one playoff game but by then the Caps were already going to get swept by the New York Rangers. Still for the most part he was very reliable as he had a career low 10 penalty minutes and an average of 19:38 minutes of ice time per game.
The one weakness is his plus/minus was a -9 which was a career worst but I wouldn't read too much into that.
Analytics
Per Natural Stat Trick, Jensen finished with a corsi for percentage of 44.67 percent in the regular season as well as an expected goals for percentage of 44.49 percent and a high danger chances for percentage of 45.35 percent so about in the middle OK as far as advanced stats go.
What hurt the Caps in the playoffs was not having Nick Jensen. You can't rely on Bears players against the big dawgs like the New York Rangers and expect to win. The Rangers were the better team throughout and they proved that and it's another reason why they're gearing up for the Eastern Conference Finals after eliminating the Carolina Hurricanes.
Jensen's injury at the time was a scare and it occurred on Saturday April 13 on a shove from Michael Eyssimot late in the first period in a game against the Tampa Bay Lightning. Per Stephen Whyno of The AP, Jensen was OK after the game as he was seen walking out of the arena with his family.
""Scary situation. Initially when you see something like that, someone stretchered off, you're thinking the worse case situations. He's doing better. "Spencer Carbery after the game to media
Final Grade B-: Jensen proved his reliability up until that bitter play which earns an above average grade from us.