Speculation: Caps General Discussion (Coaching/FAs/Cap/Lines etc) - 2021 Off-Season Pt. 3

[CapitalsCupReality]

The goal is, or should be, to ice the best team possible. Suppose Alexeyev is better than Chara, but not so much better as to force Laviolette's hand to play him over Chara. Of course we can just say that Alexeyev should perform even better so as to force Laviolette's hand. But shouldn't we also look at Laviolette and say why aren't you playing the better player? I imagine some people here are using this logic when saying they'd like to move on from Chara.

By taking away a trusted veteran as an option, it could force Laviolette into icing a better team. I'm not saying Alex Alexeyev is better than Chara. I don't know who is better. But I get where people are coming from when they say they want to ice a younger roster.

I feel like you’re either outplaying the guy in front of you enough to make the coach feel comfortable or you’re not.

And since GMBM made the acquisition, it seems like at least last year, this was supported if not orchestrated by management.

we’ve all been posting here long enough to know why people clamor for the next new shiny toy…it’s the same every year. A guy plays well, time to trade him away for a bounty of picks and prospects. A guy plays poorly, it’s even more of that.

this isn’t HF for nothing….

First and foremost the Caps are a business. Making the playoffs is the minimum required result each year. Often, that will be the best result in a season. Don’t be surprised by roster-building and coaching decisions that lean towards a more stable veteran team.

 

[Ridley Simon]

Nope. That's entirely missing my point. It's not that the Caps only got to play those really bad teams.

It's that since it was only divisional games last year, and with the 4 top teams qualifying for the playoffs, that any decent team with a heartbeat would have made it to the playoffs in the East last year.

As long as you are a slightly better team than Buffalo, New Jersey, and Philadelphia (who were 3 really really bad teams), you automatically are given a playoff berth.

The Rangers were the exception and we knew they weren't ready. And yet they still gave us trouble.

Ok, so we know those 3 teams were “really bad” based on what? Their performance against the other 5?

how is that really any different than the other divisions? Let’s not lose sight of how close NYI came to beating Tampa. Far closer than anyone else.

yet we want to pain their division as something less than the others?

Appreciate your posting my friend, but there are a lot of holes in making any real “evaluations” from last years RS. Good and bad. Caps finished 2nd (mathematically) in what was a pretty tough group of teams, recent history shows.

so….???

 

[twabby]

How does that compare to other top minute-getters per team on the PK around the league?

On my phone now so I can’t post the table easily, but Chara was ranked 32nd of 68 D who played more than 100 minutes on the PK. Dillon was 2nd, Jensen was 19th.

 

[SherVaughn30]

GMBM thought Fever would be in the NHL last season and still brought in vets to play over him for the full season. If GMBM is saying Alexeyev might get some games but isn’t ready to be a full time NHLer, I think the odds are against Alexeyev making the roster.

We'll find out for sure what Fever/Alexeyev are made of during training camp/preseason. To predict before hand their chances, is just a waste of time and pointless.

 

[tenken00]

Ok, so we know those 3 teams were “really bad” based on what? Their performance against the other 5?

how is that really any different than the other divisions? Let’s not lose sight of how close NYI came to beating Tampa. Far closer than anyone else.

yet we want to pain their division as something less than the others?

Appreciate your posting my friend, but there are a lot of holes in making any real “evaluations” from last years RS. Good and bad. Caps finished 2nd (mathematically) in what was a pretty tough group of teams, recent history shows.

so….???

Of course. That's why you have to take it with a grain of salt is all I'm saying. And why making assumptions based on the regular season last year, both good and bad, are pointless.

I feel like I'm repeating this like a broken record over and over lol. I'm just gonna stop.

 

[Roshi]

@Roshi there's some truth to what you said, but a lot of the rest of your post is speculative and also ignoring some of the existing evidence.

First off, a 7 goal differential over the course of a season is pretty huge (especially in a shortened season). The Caps only gave up 26 short handed goals last year, 7 goals in a whopping 27% of their grand total. The Caps had the fifth ranked raw % PK in the league. If the Caps swing 7 goals in the positive direction, they're the #1 PK in the league by about 1.5% better than Vegas. If the Caps swing 7 goals in the negative direction, their 5th ranked PK plummets all the way to a tie with Ottawa and Columbus for 20th at a very pedestrian 79%. 7 goal on the PK is a lot

(There's also a parallel conversation about using raw PK% vs Net PK%, which accounts for how many shorthanded goals a team scores. Chara wasn't doing them many favors in the latter department, and the Caps only scored 2 SHG last year, which drops their 5th rated raw PK% to 8th in Net PK%)

Next, there are metrics that incorporate a lot of what you describe, but some folks around here just eyeroll as soon as you bring them up. So I'm using the "actual stats" and "actual goals" that txpd won't groan about as soon as they're mentioned. Rest assured that the relative stats, QoC stats, and expected stats don't paint Chara in a much better light. But even with just these traditional numbers, we have a control factor to look at. Nick Jensen. Zdeno Chara performed significantly worse than his most frequent PK partner, Jensen. Both of them saw similar total ice time, deployments (def zone faceoffs% vs on the fly%), and match-ups. Yet Chara's GA/60 was notably worse than Jensen's (and Hagelin and Dowd's for that matter).

There is some truth to first-wave PKers having worse stats than 2nd/3rd wave PKers (namely because the offensive team gets a chance to set-up without having to gain the zone if they win the initial draw), but the degree to which Chara's stats are worse than his teammates outpaces that significantly. Especially when his stats are worse than other first wave PKers on the Caps. And the first wave PKer rule isn't even entirely universal (Boston's 1st and 2nd pairings are about equal in GA/60, Whitecloud has a worse GA/60 than the top pair in Vegas, Hamilton faired worse than the top D in Carolina, etc)

Yeah like i said i can see something there, but im not agreeing the part Chara was some sort of anchor that he is painted to be here with adjusted stats.

The thing is that as much as i had speculative thoughts, its as much speculative to assume that if you reverse the ice times of Chara and Dillon that their GA/60 or any other metric doesnt reverse as well. The advanced stats only equate what actually happened and to assume that differating the variables dont have a huge effect is not safe.

Sure, in fact, Dillon is very good at PK actually. But what i saw watching 60 Caps games last year, my eyes just disagree on the part that Chara wasnt ”a factor”. I liked them both a lot and im concerned they are both out.

 

[Roshi]

Just for some context, if you remove 7 GA from last year's Caps, their team save percentage jumps from .906 to .911, and they go from 17th in GA/G to a tie for 11th. It's a bigger deal than it might initially seem.

We are still +21 team, ahead of Rangers who were 5th on the division. Its one goal per 7,4 games difference. Even if you want to assume thats a goal that always costs us a point (which it rarely is), that puts at 70 points, which is still 10 more than the Rangers and makes us comfortably a playoff team in any other division aswell.

I like to think that the overall effect Chara had to our D, and whole team, easily overweights that. But its all speculative, as we dont ever find out what happens if we never signed Chara.

Like posted above, i dont think the actual difference is even that 7 goals, as if you reverse their shorty time its more likely Charas GA/60 goes down and Dillys go up.

 

[Kalopsia]

We are still +21 team, ahead of Rangers who were 5th on the division. Its one goal per 7,4 games difference. Even if you want to assume thats a goal that always costs us a point (which it rarely is), that puts at 70 points, which is still 10 more than the Rangers and makes us comfortably a playoff team in any other division aswell.

I like to think that the overall effect Chara had to our D, and whole team, easily overweights that. But its all speculative, as we dont ever find out what happens if we never signed Chara.

Like posted above, i dont think the actual difference is even that 7 goals, as if you reverse their shorty time its more likely Charas GA/60 goes down and Dillys go up.

Here's the relationship between SH TOI/GP and PP GA/60 for every defenseman who played at least 50 minutes on the penalty kill last season. There's very clearly no correlation between playing more minutes shorthanded and having higher GA/60.

As for your first point, the Caps +28 is already factoring in Chara's effect, so talking about where they'd be with an extra 7 goals against due to Chara doesn't really make sense. It would make more sense to consider where the Caps would be without those 7 goals against, which considering they were literally tied with Pittsburgh would've definitely been enough to win the division. Hypotheticals aside though you have to keep in mind we're talking about one player's effect on one special teams unit. If he could've just been average while playing on a team with the #1, 3, and 15 ranked PKers of the last 5 years they probably would've been the best PK unit in the league. The fact that PKing was supposed to be Chara's bread and butter and we're talking now about him singlehandedly knocking the team 6 spots down the GA ranks and 4 spots down the PK ranks despite pairing with a demonstrably elite PKer in Jensen is pretty damning.

 

[HTFN]

Passes the eye test to me. All season I watched other players have to over-extend to cover Chara's lack of mobility while he directed traffic and told everybody that he's got the front of the net, only to not really make a meal out of people down low either. Still fine making safe plays but 50/50 ones were kind of... not really his bag this year, and he backed off of them a lot.

That's fine 5 on 5 from an older, bigger guy but on the PK it really wasn't what I wanted to see. He was too passive in his new role, I think because he's still not really used to being a full step behind.

 

[Roshi]

Here's the relationship between SH TOI/GP and PP GA/60 for every defenseman who played at least 50 minutes on the penalty kill last season. There's very clearly no correlation between playing more minutes shorthanded and having higher GA/60.

As for your first point, the Caps +28 is already factoring in Chara's effect, so talking about where they'd be with an extra 7 goals against due to Chara doesn't really make sense. It would make more sense to consider where the Caps would be without those 7 goals against, which considering they were literally tied with Pittsburgh would've definitely been enough to win the division. Hypotheticals aside though you have to keep in mind we're talking about one player's effect on one special teams unit. If he could've just been average while playing on a team with the #1, 3, and 15 ranked PKers of the last 5 years they probably would've been the best PK unit in the league. The fact that PKing was supposed to be Chara's bread and butter and we're talking now about him singlehandedly knocking the team 6 spots down the GA ranks and 4 spots down the PK ranks despite pairing with a demonstrably elite PKer in Jensen is pretty damning.

Jensen averaged very close last two seasons (2,39min vs 2,66min) on SHTOI average, this season his numbers got better pretty much in every category. The player is still the same, so what changed comparing to last season? - A lot. How does the correlation, relationship or whatever analytical diagram, take that into account? Is it just that solid PKer Jensen suddenly became elite PKer? Might be, but its alteast a suspectively speculative thing to say.

Nick Jensen played a lot with Chara. Dont you think that has nothing to do with it? Can we just conclude that Jensen has the same advy stats he has now if he played more with Dillon, or better actually since he is playing with so much better PK-specialist?

Im not trying to fully disclose that advy stats, just saying in many cases its making it look worse (or better) than it actually is. The same applies for the whole Caps in fact. People like to trash our team with different advy stats, and keep ignoring that we constantly over perform on those. Or that Habs team that had lots of terrible advanced stats figures throughout couple last years, just went unexpectly completely out of their way and beat Toronto, Vegas and Jets on their way to SC finals.

As for the correlation, do you think that if we reduce Charas SHTOI, his GA/60 is still over 7? And if we increase Dillon, his GA/60 is still 3,51? All that relationship shows me is that Dillons advy stat numbers are very good and yet again comparing Chara to him is unfair as he played remarkably less SHTOI and different kind of minutes (and role too) aswell. But atleast those two guys play for the same system and on the left side so theres a little less variables than comparing to a guy who plays RD or for Buffalo.

edit.

I appreciate a good and healthy advy stats discussion and the effort you guys put into it, but Id hope that we dont make heavy conclusions (like, Chara sucks) on the diagrams and declare them as truth. I mean, if your opinion is that Chara sucks and you use advanced stats to showcase your point, thats all fine to me and I get it. Its just that I disagree, I liked Chara and -stats aside- I think he did pretty well for his role and expectations, and had a very positive impact for our team as a whole. I will miss him. Especially since we lost Dillon too.

 

[g00n]

Here's the relationship between SH TOI/GP and PP GA/60 for every defenseman who played at least 50 minutes on the penalty kill last season. There's very clearly no correlation between playing more minutes shorthanded and having higher GA/60.

I don't think that's what it means, necessarily. It could simply mean some guys have been on the ice for PKs longer than others without a goal going in the net, on average. It may not speak to their situational deployment (leading, trailing, facing PP1 vs PP2, relative PP % of the opponent, PK system & team, goaltending, etc)

I suppose the point of going through all these stats is an attempt to find some pattern and we can do that all day. But in the end the PK is a team effort that relies heavily on several factors, especially opponent/score effect/goaltending.

Additionally, is that the standard deviation line creeping up a little right in the middle? Would that place Chara right about "average"?

 

[Ridley Simon]

Of course. That's why you have to take it with a grain of salt is all I'm saying. And why making assumptions based on the regular season last year, both good and bad, are pointless.

I feel like I'm repeating this like a broken record over and over lol. I'm just gonna stop.

I made my comments before reading your clarifications to Tex. Negatives of being off for a day or so. Catching up leads to responses that look like “old news”.

I get it.

long view — this is the year for this team to make a mark. I know they are “weakened” and old. I know they have some holes. But this is an important year.

 

[twabby]

Jensen averaged very close last two seasons (2,39min vs 2,66min) on SHTOI average, this season his numbers got better pretty much in every category. The player is still the same, so what changed comparing to last season? - A lot. How does the correlation, relationship or whatever analytical diagram, take that into account? Is it just that solid PKer Jensen suddenly became elite PKer? Might be, but its alteast a suspectively speculative thing to say.

Nick Jensen played a lot with Chara. Dont you think that has nothing to do with it? Can we just conclude that Jensen has the same advy stats he has now if he played more with Dillon, or better actually since he is playing with so much better PK-specialist?

Jensen's shorthanded numbers have been good for pretty much his entire career aside from his rookie year, across two different teams. Both the xGAR and simple GA/60 numbers show this:

Season	4v5 TOI	4v5 GA/60	SHD xGAR/60
2016-17	75	7.2 (92nd of 135)	-0.846 (125th of 135)
2017-18	153.65	5.86 (32nd of 119)	0.617 (13th of 119)
2018-19	187.37	5.76 (29th of 112)	1.19 (2nd of 114)
2019-20	157.38	3.05 (1st of 103)	1.276 (1st of 103)
2021	138.98	5.61 (19th of 106)	0.269 (32nd of 106)

[TBODY] [/TBODY]

Especially coming off last year where his numbers were even better than this season's, it seems tough to make the case that Jensen's improved play on the PK was due to Chara.

Im not trying to fully disclose that advy stats, just saying in many cases its making it look worse (or better) than it actually is. The same applies for the whole Caps in fact. People like to trash our team with different advy stats, and keep ignoring that we constantly over perform on those. Or that Habs team that had lots of terrible advanced stats figures throughout couple last years, just went unexpectly completely out of their way and beat Toronto, Vegas and Jets on their way to SC finals.

The problem with saying the Capitals overperform their advanced stats is that it's not true in the postseason. Relying on high on-ice shooting percentages may work in the regular season but it demonstrably has not worked in the postseason. Indeed, since 2014-15 the Capitals have scored 2.69 goals/60 in the regular season while only producing 2.34 xGF/60, for a difference of +0.35. However, in the playoffs, they have only scored 2.07 goals/60 while producing 2.24 xGF/60, for a difference of -0.17.

And over the past 3 seasons the Capitals are the 3rd worst scoring team at 5v5 in the postseason out of 25 teams, despite being the highest scoring team in 5v5 in the regular season over that same span. Whatever they are doing in the regular season is not translating to the postseason.

It's also false to say Montreal had terrible advanced stats over the last couple of years. Over the past 3 years only two teams had a better 5v5 xGF differential: Vegas and Carolina. Montreal's problem over the past few years has been poor special teams and poor goaltending. They finally got a good run of goaltending and shored up the special teams for one run, and unsurprisingly they had some postseason success as a result.

I appreciate a good and healthy advy stats discussion and the effort you guys put into it, but Id hope that we dont make heavy conclusions (like, Chara sucks) on the diagrams and declare them as truth. I mean, if your opinion is that Chara sucks and you use advanced stats to showcase your point, thats all fine to me and I get it. Its just that I disagree, I liked Chara and -stats aside- I think he did pretty well for his role and expectations, and had a very positive impact for our team as a whole. I will miss him. Especially since we lost Dillon too.

I know this isn't directed at me, but I want to be clear and say that I didn't think Chara sucked. I thought he was quite adequate in his role as a #5/6D. The problem is that he's probably only going to be worse next year, given aging trends and a longer regular season. He's going to be 45 years old next year and will play an 82 game season, followed by hopefully a long run in the spring.

Chara is not irreplaceable. He's fine, but GMBM seems to think Fehervary will also be fine. The difference is that Fehervary has the potential to be better than just fine, while Chara has a pretty low and pretty firm ceiling at this point. The Capitals need some high-ceiling players, given their recent decline. Treading water has gotten them 3 straight first-round exits.

 

[Peeri]

Looks like i need to go back to uni to study math before coming back to read these HOCKEY forums

 

[Roshi]

Jensen's shorthanded numbers have been good for pretty much his entire career aside from his rookie year, across two different teams. Both the xGAR and simple GA/60 numbers show this:

Season	4v5 TOI	4v5 GA/60	SHD xGAR/60
2016-17	75	7.2 (92nd of 135)	-0.846 (125th of 135)
2017-18	153.65	5.86 (32nd of 119)	0.617 (13th of 119)
2018-19	187.37	5.76 (29th of 112)	1.19 (2nd of 114)
2019-20	157.38	3.05 (1st of 103)	1.276 (1st of 103)
2021	138.98	5.61 (19th of 106)	0.269 (32nd of 106)

[TBODY] [/TBODY]

Especially coming off last year where his numbers were even better than this season's, it seems tough to make the case that Jensen's improved play on the PK was due to Chara.



The problem with saying the Capitals overperform their advanced stats is that it's not true in the postseason. Relying on high on-ice shooting percentages may work in the regular season but it demonstrably has not worked in the postseason. Indeed, since 2014-15 the Capitals have scored 2.69 goals/60 in the regular season while only producing 2.34 xGF/60, for a difference of +0.35. However, in the playoffs, they have only scored 2.07 goals/60 while producing 2.24 xGF/60, for a difference of -0.17.

And over the past 3 seasons the Capitals are the 3rd worst scoring team at 5v5 in the postseason out of 25 teams, despite being the highest scoring team in 5v5 in the regular season over that same span. Whatever they are doing in the regular season is not translating to the postseason.

It's also false to say Montreal had terrible advanced stats over the last couple of years. Over the past 3 years only two teams had a better 5v5 xGF differential: Vegas and Carolina. Montreal's problem over the past few years has been poor special teams and poor goaltending. They finally got a good run of goaltending and shored up the special teams for one run, and unsurprisingly they had some postseason success as a result.



I know this isn't directed at me, but I want to be clear and say that I didn't think Chara sucked. I thought he was quite adequate in his role as a #5/6D. The problem is that he's probably only going to be worse next year, given aging trends and a longer regular season. He's going to be 45 years old next year and will play an 82 game season, followed by hopefully a long run in the spring.

Chara is not irreplaceable. He's fine, but GMBM seems to think Fehervary will also be fine. The difference is that Fehervary has the potential to be better than just fine, while Chara has a pretty low and pretty firm ceiling at this point. The Capitals need some high-ceiling players, given their recent decline. Treading water has gotten them 3 straight first-round exits.

By naturalstatrick Jensen xGA on penalty kill was 19-20 37.26 and 20-21 22.18. xGAR/60 was -4.72 and 1.45. I might be reading this wrong but im looking different graphs than you. You are the ’guy’ with advanced stats, so i do think you have the right ones.

So you take a 5 game sample over 56 games sample, and four game sample over 70 game sample as when it comes to overperforming the team stats.

Habs on various meters was not too good the past regular seasons. It only takes as much statistics as points total to see that.

I think lot of these stats are more result of team system, profitable/negative usage and just being at the right spot to succeed or not to. More than as an absolute indicator of players capabilities, theres just too much variables. They are better used as an tool to work out how to make your system work even better. It might be you can find a guy who does better within our system than Chara on a single diagram or maybe few, but it might have its net negative effect on another diagram too. Thats why we still have actual coaches doing the decisions, instead of AI robots, we are far from figuring this out quite yet.

 

[txpd]

Chara is not irreplaceable. He's fine, but GMBM seems to think Fehervary will also be fine. The difference is that Fehervary has the potential to be better than just fine, while Chara has a pretty low and pretty firm ceiling at this point. The Capitals need some high-ceiling players, given their recent decline. Treading water has gotten them 3 straight first-round exits.

Ma

MacLellan can both see Fehervary as ready for NHL play and not ready to be the first guy off the bench for a penalty kill. Chara played the first shift in almost every pk he wasnt the guy in the box, played 2 shifts in each successful pk, and was out for start of every 5 on 3 pk. Fehervary is not going to be doing that. If Chara doesnt return, Fehervary won't be doing that. I dont care if its Chara. Dillon was acceptable but made 4 times the salary cap and is gone. If its not Chara and its not Dillon and its not Fehervary, who is it? They will need 2. Kempny and Fehervary would not go well.

 

[Hivemind]

Yeah like i said i can see something there, but im not agreeing the part Chara was some sort of anchor that he is painted to be here with adjusted stats.

The thing is that as much as i had speculative thoughts, its as much speculative to assume that if you reverse the ice times of Chara and Dillon that their GA/60 or any other metric doesnt reverse as well. The advanced stats only equate what actually happened and to assume that differating the variables dont have a huge effect is not safe.

Nobody has argued that if you swapped Dillon and Chara's ice times their GA/60 would stay exactly the same. What we indicated is that Chara didn't go a great job with the ice time he was given on the PK, and we've used the context of other PKers on the team (both on his pairing and otherwise) to demonstrate that. I suspect we would see some adjustment to their GA/60 if we swapped their ice time, but not nearly a full "reverse" of their numbers. Dillon's GA/60 might fall more in line with other good teams' top PK %ers (or perhaps somewhat better given his history of being an high end PKer) in the 4-5 GA/60 range. But I highly doubt it would be all the way north of 7 GA/60 like Chara's. For context, to find other team's with their PKTOI leaders to have similar GA/60, you're looking at teams like Pittsburgh (22nd Net PK%) and Toronto (26 Net PK%). The absolutely worst-of-the-worst on the PK (New Jersey and Philadelphia last year) had their PKTOI leaders up around 11 GA/60.

Further still, some of the other metrics used in this thread put quite a lot of effort into controlling for these variables that give you such pause. If you want to read further about how those variables figure into their numbers, here's the References section at Evolving Hockey.
Evolving-Hockey
Personally, I still like to compare the inferred metrics like xGAR against direct metrics like GA/60 to create a balanced picture of the two methods.

Sure, in fact, Dillon is very good at PK actually. But what i saw watching 60 Caps games last year, my eyes just disagree on the part that Chara wasnt ”a factor”. I liked them both a lot and im concerned they are both out.

Going to disagree here as well. Chara lacked that two-step explosiveness you want from your blueliners on the PK. You want your D to be able to react to any opposing puck movements quickly, and within two strides be on top of a new threat in their portion of the ice. Chara, while still a big body and potential shot blocker, no longer has that two-stride quickness and would require other PKers to cover for him.

Let's look at some examples.


Here Hagelin and Dowd aren't able to deny the zone entry near the right faceoff dot, and after the B's gain the zone they move the puck to the weakside half of the ice (where Chara's supposed to be in coverage). As the weakside D on that rush, Chara does have a lot of ice to cover for himself, but that's how a PK works. Chara is neither able to aggressively cut off the point man with possession of the puck (although he attempts to despite Pasta now being beneath him in the zone), nor get back into coverage down low quickly enough once the puck is moved beneath the goal line. Jensen actually has to scramble all the way from the other side of the ice to cover for Chara and isolate Pastrnak when he gets the puck beneath the goal line. In the process Krejci gets the B's first chance of the rush, firing from just outside the crease on the left side (you know, where you'd ideally want Chara to be covering, but Chara is still caught up reacting to the last 2 puck movements before he can get back there). Krejci doesn't get all of the shot, and ultimately the puck comes back out to the point and the Caps get into a diamond formation. The Bruins point-man moves the puck out to Pastrnak at the faceoff circle, and Chara really demonstrates his lack of that 2-step burst as he's late to pivot from Krejci to Pastrnak, and Pastrnak gets an open look at th enet from a high danger area and scores. Basically this whole PK is Chara being late to cover his man, while the rest of the Caps PK scrambles to cover for him up until Pastrnak scores. It's not a coincidence that all of the Bruins puck movement happens on Chara's side of the ice once they gain the zone.

Here's another example (again from the playoffs)

Here the Bruins feed Marchand (who's camped near Chara's post) with a nice seam pass. The seam pass itself isn't ideal, but it's more of a nice feed from the Bruins than anything terrible from the Caps PK. Not going to hang Chara to dry for that aspect. Marchand doesn't convert initially, but is able to keep the puck moving before Chara is able to reach him. The Bruins feed the puck around the perimeter until it reaches the left side. As the Bruins have the puck in the weakside circle, Backstrom doesn't isolate the pass to the middle of the ice well enough, but Chara also steps up on the play. As a result of Chara stepping up, Marchand is left alone near the left post (again), and Chara no longer has the angle to stop the feed to him now that the puck is in the slot. Marchand converts on the feed to him this time. Basically, Chara loses Marchand twice on this powerplay, and the B's score.

 

[Eirikrautha]

Looks like i need to go back to uni to study math before coming back to read these HOCKEY forums

Nah. You just need to treat all the statistics here like you would treat the "statistics" your investment manager gives you to encourage you to buy into the new and great fund he wants you to shift your money into...

 

[Raikkonen]

Jeeez, I thought it was obvious old Chara is not the player we would like to have. Did we need so much text about it?

 

[tenken00]

Jeeez, I thought it was obvious old Chara is not the player we would like to have. Do we needed so much text about it?

Chara is going to be here until the end of Ovechkin's contract.

 

[Raikkonen]

Since I turned 30 Ive started to collect ankle injuries. Lost time to that, lost what I had in terms of quickness and stamina due to not playing (wasnt that explosive to begin with). In defensive situations I was still good enough, reading plays left and right but every young fast f***er going wide became a danger of a scoring chance much more than I have used to.

There is no coming back from this (btw, Im concerned Kempny wont be the same ever for similar reasons).

So you read the play and decide to wait a bit more not denying offender space like you should (with more speed/agility). And you become that old guy, the shell of your former self. Like Chara we have seen lately. Still some use, but Caps need another player there.

For strictly PK purposes maybe Irwin can do the job, btw. Idk.

But they better play AA for the long term progress even if they can trade someone (Schultz/Kempny) for 3LD with PK skills. That gets Caps nowhere imo.

PS: my experience comes from football obviously, but Im sure its very similar.

 

[txpd]

Jeeez, I thought it was obvious old Chara is not the player we would like to have. Did we need so much text about it?

He's not? The Caps need a cheap veteran for the 3rd pair that is comfortable playing up the lineup and who can lead a penalty kill. It doesnt have to Chara but the Caps cant afford some other guy in that spot making Jensen money. They cant go into the season with Fehervary on the 2nd pair and Alexeyev on the 3rd pair and both of them on the penalty kill.

 

[Hivemind]

They cant go into the season with Fehervary on the 2nd pair and Alexeyev on the 3rd pair and both of them on the penalty kill.

Sure they can. They could also up Orlov's PK minutes to help fill the void.

 

[Raikkonen]

Yep, exactly. Thats gonna be Orlov and Fever PKing, not Fever and AA. And I have already said that a page or two ago, Tex.

Suspect PK but long term profit path.

 

[CapitalsCupReality]

They could start out young for the season, but they may have to pull a mid-season trade if anyone struggles mightily. It’s a significant gamble and may cost them more assets in the long run if the young guys can’t deliver.