Post-Game Talk: Caps v. Flyers

[AlexBrovechkin8]

List of U.S. metropolitan areas by GDP - Wikipedia

Right... so they're behind DC, NY, Chicago, and LA. I said it's a cool city and it's in the second tier of cities with regards to industries. Anywho.

 

[Empty Goal Net]

Place your bets here ...

 

[Devil Dancer]

Glad to see the team wake up a little after TR called the time out after the third goal. That's the most animated I've seen him on the bench, and the team reacted appropriately on the ice, shutting down the Flyers from that point on.

That used to be more common, before teams had to save their time out to challenge bad calls.

 

[Hivemind]

Right... so they're behind DC, NY, Chicago, and LA. I said it's a cool city and it's in the second tier of cities with regards to industries. Anywho.

The difference between NYC and DC is thirteen times larger than the difference between DC and Philly. NYC and LA are miles ahead of anyone else. DC and Philly are in the same tier of cities, in terms of economic activity. Philly is clearly above the tier with Baltimore, Denver (Philly has twice the activity of either), and Nashville (3x) that you said it was in.

 

[Carlzner]

nvm.

 

[ovikovy817]

Nice W.
Ovi one point away from 1200. Hope he'll score a goal for his next point.

1st place in the division.

 

[Raikkonen]

I liked our team since before 2nd period!

 

[artilector]

I don't know why some of you are happy about this game overall, how very naive. The devil is in the details, and the details are damning: the faceoff battle was lost 14 to 32, for a hellacious 30% win rate. This is basically a disaster -- unless drastic measures are taken, the Caps are an iceberg that's headed right for the Titanic.

 

[Melkor]

I don't know why some of you are happy about this game overall, how very naive. The devil is in the details, and the details are damning: the faceoff battle was lost 14 to 32, for a hellacious 30% win rate. This is basically a disaster -- unless drastic measures are taken, the Caps are an iceberg that's headed right for the Titanic.

People that think faceoffs are not important have an unpleasant surprise ready for them in the playoffs.

 

[AlexBrovechkin8]

Didn't watch the third. Turtle special?

 

[Corby78]

Didn't watch the third. Turtle special?

Stopped pressing, phili started skating, and we started chasing.

 

[Hivemind]

Faceoffs are the trees. Play on ice is the forest. Don’t lose the forest for the trees.

 

[Hivemind]

My take from the nosebleeds last night:

The first 30 minutes were the most dominant I’ve seen the Caps play all season. They were out skating, out shooting, out hitting, and utterly out playing the Flyers in every aspect of the game. They forced a plethora of turnovers in the Flyers zone, hemming Philadelphia in for prolonged periods by denying the breakout. They were jumping passes well (I remember one scenario where Ovie clearly read Ghost’s eyes to see where the pass was going, although he didn’t quite pick it off). They were forechecking well. They were slowing Philly through the neutral zone. And they were scoring at will.

That being said, a large chunk of that early success was also putrid play from the Flyers. They weren’t skating. They were set to scramble mode on the defensive zone, often prematurely abandoning the zone to attempt to break out up ice (including OVs PP goal). They were losing defensive checks, as shown on Backstroms goal when both defenders turned their back to the slot to watch Vrana and let 19 walk down the middle of the ice. And even when they had the puck, their passing was god awful. They wasted multiple chances by putting the puck two feet in front of an open player in the offensive zone or letting a puck go through their feet. And Elliott was less than stellar in net (especially on Buras goal).

After the game reached 5-0, the Caps stopped skating. The Flyers didn’t really capitalize on this for a while, but they started to pick it up at the very tail end of the 2nd and into the 3rd. I’m not terribly upset about this because it was a 5-0 game. Shit happens when it’s 5-0. I’m glad that crap was that it became 5-3 and not a brawlfest in which a Caps player got hurt and Willy got ejected, or some shit like that.

 

[Melkor]

Faceoffs are the trees. Play on ice is the forest. Don’t lose the forest for the trees.

Ummm...this metaphore actually makes more of an argument in favor of faceoffs. Forrest doesn't exist without trees lol.

 

[Hivemind]

Ummm...this metaphore actually makes more of an argument in favor of faceoffs. Forrest doesn't exist without trees lol.

You clearly don’t understand the saying....

 

[RandyHolt]

People that think faceoffs are not important have an unpleasant surprise ready for them in the playoffs.

We are in first place in our division with the worst face in the league. Isn't regular season play at least, partially indicative of future playoff performances? Don't forget, those pesky bubble faceoff savvy teams are busting their humps to get to.... just 55%?? The 2nd best team, is just at 52.7%... As Benny Hill would say, BIG... deal.

I doubt our 1C Kuz has even started trying.

The spread from the best to the worst team is < 6 losses per game. That equates to maybe giving up an extra goal maybe every 2-3 games if we played Philly. We won 30% last night and basically blew them out.

If we play Pitt and both teams maintain our RS numbers, that is roughly one maybe 2 extra goals for Pitt in a 7 game series. You think we cannot dodge those bullets? Our opposition will be dodging Willy and Ovi and friends.

You know what decides playoff games much more than faces? Goaltending, and I think the more shots they face, the more the groove they can get in. We have all seen the low shot facing playoff losses we have incurred enough to know.

And in there somewhere, is coaching. Dare I think Todd will start targeting specific faceoff match-ups. Maybe Eller had some other C's number. Or we use more Dowd. The situation is not helpless.

 

[Hivemind]

Among the 100 players with the most face off attempts, Lars Eller ranks 4th in the league in post-faceoff possession. Backstrom is 25th. Even if the Caps aren’t always winning the draw, two of their top three centers are doing an excellent job in limiting pucks towards their net and maximizing pucks on the other net in the time immediately following a face off. Kuznetsov, unsurprisingly, is the one who struggles here (92nd among the top 100 faceoff attempts in this metric).

Post face-off possession- 2018-19 regular season - 2018 - Puckbase

 

[Melkor]

You clearly don’t understand the saying....

I understand it literally. If there's another way, feel free to enlighten me.

 

[Melkor]

We are in first place in our division with the worst face in the league. Isn't regular season play at least, partially indicative of future playoff performances? Don't forget, those pesky bubble faceoff savvy teams are busting their humps to get to.... just 55%?? The 2nd best team, is just at 52.7%... As Benny Hill would say, BIG... deal.

I doubt our 1C Kuz has even started trying.

The spread from the best to the worst team is < 6 losses per game. That equates to maybe giving up an extra goal maybe every 2-3 games if we played Philly. We won 30% last night and basically blew them out.

If we play Pitt and both teams maintain our RS numbers, that is roughly one maybe 2 extra goals for Pitt in a 7 game series. You think we cannot dodge those bullets? Our opposition will be dodging Willy and Ovi and friends.

You know what decides playoff games much more than faces? Goaltending, and I think the more shots they face, the more the groove they can get in. We have all seen the low shot facing playoff losses we have incurred enough to know.

And in there somewhere, is coaching. Dare I think Todd will start targeting specific faceoff match-ups. Maybe Eller had some other C's number. Or we use more Dowd. The situation is not helpless.

I don't think this is how that works in the playoffs. And even if that will be the case, those 2 extra goals might be the ones that decide two games which is huge.

 

[txpd]

Faceoffs are the trees. Play on ice is the forest. Don’t lose the forest for the trees.

In a critical playoff game against a team that is competitively near the level of the Capitals, getting killed in the faceoff circle is going to be a real problem. There's just no way around it. When 7 out of 10 pk's start with the opposing pp getting possession and set up, is playing with fire. particularly when your pp starts behind its own net after losing the face off and chasing a clear. If you don't think that's a disadvantage, I don't get it.

 

[txpd]

Who made the schedule to put all 3 tampa games within a span of two weeks at the very end of the season. Thats just weird. Would think to have played them at least once by now.

Playing Tampa in mid to late March when they have a 25pt lead isn't really a bad thing for the Caps

 

[Hivemind]

@txpd Its a disadvantage, but a rather small one. The difference between a “great” face off center (54%) and a “terrible” face off center (46%) is about 1 face off per game (slightly less actually). Even in a historically bad 30% face off night for the whole team, the difference between winning 30% and winning 50% was only 9 faceoffs all game. And guess what, the Capitals still dominated that game until it became 5-0. And the Caps aren’t a 30% faceoff team, they’re a 46% team.

You want to be good at faceoffs, but the quality of play after the face off is dramatically more important. The Caps were a 49.1% faceoff team in the playoffs last year, far from their best face off performance in the playoffs (they were a 55% team in 2015). The Blackhawks won a Cup as a 46.8% team in the playoffs. Faceoffs help, but they aren’t the end all, be all.

I understand it literally. If there's another way, feel free to enlighten me.

Apologies if English isn’t your first language, but it’s a common saying in English. It means not to lose sight of the big picture because of an individual detail.
https://idioms.thefreedictionary.com/can't+see+the+forest+for+the+trees

 

[hb12xchamps]

Among the 100 players with the most face off attempts, Lars Eller ranks 4th in the league in post-faceoff possession. Backstrom is 25th. Even if the Caps aren’t always winning the draw, two of their top three centers are doing an excellent job in limiting pucks towards their net and maximizing pucks on the other net in the time immediately following a face off. Kuznetsov, unsurprisingly, is the one who struggles here (92nd among the top 100 faceoff attempts in this metric).

Post face-off possession- 2018-19 regular season - 2018 - Puckbase

To make that even more interesting is that Kuz was the one who made the comments about how easy it is to get the puck back if you lose the draw

 

[RandyHolt]

I don't think this is how that works in the playoffs. And even if that will be the case, those 2 extra goals might be the ones that decide two games which is huge.

That's true but hockey is a crazy ass more random than most sport, and I am not sure a single series is a big/long enough sample size to have faceoffs be deemed our downfall. A big part of the playoffs is overcoming diversity and having the will to win.

If Beagle's faceoffs (the real difference between this years teams and last years) were the key to our cup, it was not easy to see using everyone's favorite, the eye test. He had a big hand but its tough to say bigger than Holts Kuz Ovi Oshie Willy Nick Carly Orpik etc.

 

[Melkor]

Apologies if English isn’t your first language, but it’s a common saying in English. It means not to lose sight of the big picture because of an individual detail.
https://idioms.thefreedictionary.com/can't+see+the+forest+for+the+trees

Okay, thanks. Still disagree. As was pointed out it's a critical advantage for special teams and one goal games (doesnt matter if its a one goal lead or deficit). Especially for the situations when to secure the win you gotta win that draw because there's no time on the clock to get the possession back. The opponents will take the puck, get it to the trigger man and go crashing the net. You gotta have a reliable player to not let that happen.

That's true but hockey is a crazy ass more random than most sport, and I am not sure a single series is a big long enough sample size to have faceoffs be deemed our downfall. A big part of the playoffs is overcoming diversity and having the will to win.

If Beagle's faceoffs (the real difference between this years teams and last years) were the key to our cup, it was not easy to see using everyone's favorite, the eye test. He had a big hand but its tough to say bigger than Holts Kuz Ovi Oshie Willy Nick Carly Orpik etc.

No, of course I'm not saying that Beags was more important than any of the big guys. But if you have two more or less equal teams going for it, an attention to details is what gonna decide the outcome.