The Penguins and Capitals will revisit their rivalry again tonight as the two teams face each other for the second time this season. A lot has changed since the last time these two teams have met. Both teams have been hit hard by player departures and the early returns on their replacements hasn't been great. Although, it's gone better for the Penguins.
The Washington Capitals were all-in last year as they should have been. They outplayed the Penguins in round two, but found themselves losing yet another playoff series to Pittsburgh. The Capitals were a good shot generation and suppression team last year while the Penguins played loose and generated a lot, but gave up a lot. It took Marc-Andre Fleury outplaying Braden Holtby in his Penguins swan song to overcome that disadvantage.
Fast forward to this year and the Penguins are still that same team. Generating a lot, giving up a lot. The Capitals on the other hand are having a terrible start to the 2017-2018 season as far as the quality of their play. Here's a snapshot of the last four years for both Pittsburgh and Washington
Washington has been strong for a while as you can see, but this year things are drastically different. Things are totally flipped while Pittsburgh continues to trade chances. The Capitals xGF% went from 51.23% last year to 45.21% this year. That's a huge drop off. We are only at the ~16 game mark for most teams and things do change over the course of a long year, but the early returns are not good. What is good is that the Capitals have banked some standings points despite this brutal xGF%. They sit three points back of the Penguins with a game in hand. Tonight's game could be a wild swing for either team.
My hypothesis for the Capitals early season struggles starts and ends with their defensemen. Or I should say the defensemen that haven't been available. For some reason the Capitals valued their backup goalie more than Nate Schmidt in the expansion draft and are down a nice asset on a nightly basis instead of one every four games the backup plays in Washington.
In a bit of bad luck the underrated Matt Niskanen has only played in five games so far this year. In no way should the Capitals have invested in Karl Alzner, but it is still a hole to fill with Brooks Orpik and Taylor Chorney being 44% possession players. Kevin Shattenkirk also predictably moved on. Add all this up and it is a huge change this year even with Christian Djoos off to a nice start.
Alexander Ovechkin started the year with seven goals in only two games. The next 11 only saw him score three times. That's how these things go. Things are on the upswing again as Ovie has scored a goal in each of his last three games. He has 13 goals in 16 games which is a 66 goal pace over 82 games. That's super impressive given his age and the era he plays in.
The Penguins Riley Sheahan is eight games into his Penguins career and so far he's been... there. Possession wise he's been fine. He's 50% and that is all the Penguins need from the 3C spot. The problem is his 0.39 5v5 points per 60. That's a problem for a fourth line center let alone a 3C that gets to play behind Crosby and Malkin. The search for a third line center must continue if the Penguins are serious about winning it all again. That's the reality of the situation. I just don't think Sid and Geno have the same super powers they used to. Sidney Crosby has 13 points in 18 games. He's 30 now. He's not going to be chasing down the Art Ross Trophy anymore. He's still going to be really great, but we are going to start seeing some age related decline at some point. Is this that point? Too early to say, but it will come sooner than later.
Thanks for reading!