Hivemind
We're Touched
Hagelin - and HDH - are the least of our problems. We have a very strong 4th line (one of the best in the league) and has been our most consistent group all year. I get that people would like to see them play less and see the lines "above" them play more - but whether it's coaching, injuries, chemistry, individual performance, or some combo thereof, the takeaway from this season so far is that we have 6 forwards that provide a reasonably consistent performance from night to night (HDH and Kuzy, Ovie, and Wilson - though 43 has had several off nights), and 9 other forwards for 6 positions whose composition and performance oscillate pretty significantly. How Carl Hagelin ends up as being seen as the problem, when he delivers what he's there for almost every night, is bizarre to me. And whatever the problems with those 9 forwards for 6 positions, it's not HDH's fault that the inconsistent performance of who's ever in the middle 6 results in more HDH ice time. That's a reason to be thankful for them, not pissed off.
I don't think any part of this paragraph is particularly accurate.
HDH has been a solid but unspectacular line this year, not one of the best 4th lines in the league. Hatheway's raw totals are impressive, but that's also in large part because of the tons of minutes (borderline 2nd line minuets) that HDH gets. But most importantly, HDH's performance oscillates just as much as the rest of the line-up, yet their ice time never seems to fall because of it. Among Capitals forwards, only Tom Wilson and Lars Eller take as many or more penalties than each of the HDH trio this season, and many of HDH's have been offensive zone and/or 3rd period back breakers. Yet, HDH is still regularly deployed in the 3rd period and in offensive zone situations. They don't find themselves stapled to the bench for the bulk of close games like other players on the roster (even if those other players have scored goals or made other positive plays in that very game). When HDH slips up, and they do slip up as much as any other line on this team, they are still trotted right back out on the ice their next shift.
Isolating on Hagelin specifically, even if he was the player you claim he is, he would still be a $2.75M PK specialist providing zero offense. That's not a good use of his cap hits or the even strength minutes he receives. But, even more importantly, he's not the consistent player you claim he is. Hagelin's defensive play has been poor this season. Among regular Capitals forwards (16GP or more to include Backstrom), Hagelin ranks 3rd worst in xGA/60, 4th worst in Scoring Chances Against/60, 4th worst in High Danger Chances Against/60, and 3rd worst is xGF%. And he's doing this while simultaneously suppressing the Caps Goals For rate more than any other Capitals forward outside of Brett Leason. Plus there's this fun fact, in the 32 minutes Dowd and Hatheway have played together without Hagelin on their line, they've scored 3 goals for and had 0 scored against them, had an xGF rate of 58.88% and a HDCF% rate of 88.89%. It's a very limited and noisy sample, but it also matches up with past data from prior seasons. Dating back to Dowd and Hatheway's arrival, they have over 400 minutes of 5on5 time without Hagelin. In that time their CF% is ~3% better, FF% is ~3.5% better, SF% is about ~1.6% better, GF% is nearly 4% better, and xGF is almost 6% better without Hagelin than with him. It fully appears that the 4th line chemistry is between Dowd and Hatheway, and Hagelin is just along for the ride (and in some cases is dragging them down).