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Caps Heading for Disappointing Second Half

January 16, 2018, 10:14 AM ET [21 Comments]
James Tanner
Washington Capitals Blogger • RSSArchiveCONTACT
It will never cease to amaze me how people view sports.

Even after the so-called statistical revolution - whose entire reason for existing was because judging teams and players off of results only is a horrible way to judge them - we are no closer to having reasonable conversations about sports.

If a team is doing well, they are a good team.

If a player is in a slump, he almost certainly will be complete garbage going forward.

That is just how it works. Sure, there's pockets of more nuanced analysis, but by-and-large, even the blurring of lines between the mainstream and the hobbyists hasn't done much in this regard. If you want easy answers and broad-strokes narratives, the mainstream media is the best place to go. If you want something a bit more intelligent, you'll usually find it on a blog. (Not this one).

That's not necessarily a bad thing, but it's an observation after four years of writing about hockey and about twenty five or thirty years reading about it.

Which brings me to the Washington Capitals.

The main narrative is that they've exceeded expectations and that they have exorcised past demons, and are still the Cup Contender that they've been for years.

But in a league where the majority of people are willing to overlook parity, luck and what people do when they have a day off in Vegas, in order to pretend the Golden Knights are actually good, I don't know what you'd expect.

I'll Quote Neil Greenberg from the Washington Post:


The Capitals’ underlying numbers aren’t very good. And after adjusting their shot quantity to account for quality, they have the worst expected goal differential in the NHL (minus-26), a huge difference from their actual goal differential of plus-13.


If you account for luck, it appears the Capitals are one of the NHL's worst teams.

They have four rookies, five AHL players and T.J Oshie - what did you expect?

People think I make this stuff up to account for the fact that I picked the Capitals to miss the playoffs -which is what anyone paying attention should have done. But I don't care about being right - the Capitals are a legitimately bad team playing way over their head and getting extremely lucky.



The only reason no one has noticed is because they are expected to be good after years of contention.

- The Capitals are the NHL's tenth worst possession team.
- Last in shots for per game.
- 15th in shots against per game.
- 2nd highest shooting percentage in the NHL
- 2nd highest PDO.

The stats state exclusively - with no room for error - that the Washington Capitals' record is a mirage. They are not the best team in their division and they are not a contender.

It is 100% guaranteed at this point that they qualify for the Playoffs. Once there, anything can happen. Given the age of their team, and their cap situation, they'd be smart to mortgage as much of the future as possible for one last run.


Remember the Senators last year? Many people, including me, picked them to be one of the last place teams, but they finished high in the standings and had some playoff success. It couldn't just be luck, they must really be good. They defied all the stats that said they should have sucked and got within a game or two from the Stanley Cup Final. Then this year.......nothing. One of the last place teams in the league. Predictable, but not to anyone who bases their analysis strictly on results. This year, they're exactly where they belong.

The Capitals can do the same thing. A bit of luck in the playoffs and who knows? They were powerfully unlucky last year when they actually where a good team. So who is to say the reverse can't happen? Realistically, when the luck runs out, as it always does, they're a basement team. They're hiding it well currently, but all you have to do is take a look at their top heavy roster. After the first line, the goalie, and the first three defenseman, it's a bad team.

The best thing they can do is trade for a few guys to try and improve enough to go on a miracle run, because once this luck wears off, it's going to be ugly.

In recent memory Calgary, Florida, Colorado and Ottawa all defied what the stats said and had pretty good years. Without exception, they followed it up with a huge decline that was predictable to anyone paying attention to the right things. This years Capitals are no different.

The end of the Capitals competitive window closed last year when they lost to the Penguins. They're propping it open this year by getting lucky - there is always one or two teams doing that, and this year, it happens to be them - but the fact is that they're a bad team on a PDO run.

End of story.
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