The Washington Capitals are off to a hot start this season. At the time of writing this the Caps are 10-4-1, good for 21 points in the standings. Those 21 points puts them ahead of teams like Boston, Tampa Bay, the Rangers, Dallas, Colorado, Edmonton and Vancouver. All teams people talked about potentially being able to make runs for a Stanley Cup before the season started.
There are plenty of reasons for this good start. Alex Ovechkin has found the fountain of youth apparently. New guys have come in and played well for this team. Younger guys, specifically Connor McMichael has found another gear early on. The goaltending has also been pretty good.
There's one stat you can easily look at and point to and say this is why Washington is off to a hot start and getting the results they want. 5v5 shooting percentage.
There are some good shooting percentages out there right now. Percentages that would easily finish at the top of the league last season if this season stopped right now. Buffalo is second in the league in 5v5 shooting percentage, scoring on 11.84% of their shots. Vegas is third with 11.59%, Tampa is fourth at 11.54%.
Currently, the Capitals rank first with a whopping 13.99 5v5 shooting percentage.
To put some of these numbers into perspective, the highest shooting percentage in the league at seasons end since 2020-21 came last season when the Canucks shot 10.6% at full and even strength.
Here's another comparison for you. The Capitals were a dominant offensive team in 2009-10. That season they scored 313 goals total. The next best team, being Vancouver, scored 268. The Caps scored 208 goals while 5v5 that season. Chicago was behind them at 178. The shooting percentage for the Capitals that season? 10.35%
It should also be noted that we are in a time where goal scoring is up. Individual player goals shows that too. Auston Matthews nearly scored 70 goals in a season. McDavid had a 60 goal season. Pastrnak also has a 60 goal season. You're seeing more players hit 40, maybe even 50 goals. Where a couple of years ago it was basically only Ovechkin who was capable of hitting these numbers.
Team shooting percentages still mostly end up in the 10.5% area. Again, going back to the shortened 2021 season the best team finished at 10.6%. If the Capitals finish with a number higher than that it will be the highest shooting percentage in years.
This number will obviously fall. The questions after that is, how much will it fall, and what will the team look like when it does?
Another question I think we have to ask right now is how long can they keep this great shooting percentage going?
The Capitals are getting ready to go on a quick three game road trip out west. Two of those three teams do not have great 5v5 save percentages. The Caps kick off this road trip by playing in Colorado. The Avalanche have the 29th ranked 5v5 save percentage at 88.72%. They then go to Vegas. The Golden Knights are 24th in save percentage at 89.58%.
They'll finish this road trip in Utah, their first ever visit to the "beehive state". Utah's save percentage is pretty good. They rank 12th overall at 91.83%.
Then the Capitals come back to D.C. to play Colorado again. We just talked about the Avs and their bad save percentage. No need to point that number out again.
Three of the next four games are against teams with not very good save percentages at 5v5. If things for all of these teams stays the same Washington's very high shooting percentage could continue for at least another week.
Hopefully what I'm about to say doesn't end up hurting the Capitals. But I am a person who believes in things evening out. The Capitals could have a stretch of twenty games where their shooting percentage is very high. Does that mean that at some point this season they are going to have an extended period where they have a shooting percentage in the 6 or 7% range? The Ducks, Sharks, Blackhawks, Penguins, these are the kinds of teams that are shooting in that range right now.
Could the Capitals find themselves in Nashville's shoes in the not so distant future? The Predators are shooting a woeful 4.9% so far this season.
At this point it wouldn't be surprising if the Capitals led the league in shooting percentage to end the season. At some point this 13.99 shooting percentage is going to fall. If you're looking at past seasons it's going to fall by over 3%. How much will that hurt when it does start to fall? We'll just have to wait and see I suppose.