Monday, January 26, 2015

The Case for Phillip Grubauer

Fair warning: I'm going to do a little more editorializing on this post than I maybe have in the past. dealwithit.jpg.

We're back from the All Star break and the Washington Capitals are going to have a pretty tough schedule for the foreseeable future:

  • at CBJ
  • vs PIT
  • at MON
  • vs STL
  • vs LAK
  • at OTT
  • vs ANH
  • vs PHI
  • at SJS
  • at LAK
  • at ANH
  • at PIT
  • vs WPG
  • vs NYI
Of the next 14 opponents, the Capitals will face 11 playoff contenders (and some very strong ones, to boot).  They also play 3 back to backs in that time, which seems to have become a trend for the team (they have played 5 back to backs to date). With such a grueling schedule and 6 games being played as part of a back to back, secondary goal tending is going to be crucial in maintaining momentum as the latter half of the season progresses. As I've written before, Justin Peters is...just not cutting it right now.  It may be time to bring the Caps' AHL affiliate Hershey Bears goal tender Phillip Grubauer up to the bigs.

Phillip Grubauer, image courtesy of Circling the Wagon, 1/2013.
Grubauer has had a pretty strong season in the AHL thus far, though he faced an injury just a few short weeks ago. In his stead, 23 year old Pheonix Copley has played strongly, showing that he is indeed able to handle starts on the AHL level if and when needed. The 23 year old Grubauer has played 27 games and boasts a record of 14-9-4.  His GAA of 2.15 is good for 11th in the AHL. Hershey is also currently in a playoff position as they lead their division, and their season ends on April 18th, 2015.

That being said, it seems high time to bring Phillip Grubauer back to the Capitals as a back up.  His development will certainly not be stunted, as many have argued, for there are plenty of opportunities for Grubauer to get some more action on the NHL level.  Combine the Caps upcoming schedule, his AHL success, and Grubauer's limited but eye-opening success on the NHL level (6-5-5 last season behind a not-so-great Washington Capitals defense, boasting a GAA of 2.38 in 17 games), and I think you have all the reasons you need to bring him up in exchange for an obviously struggling Justin Peters.

Besides, letting Peters play in Hershey has some advantages for him, as well.  He can gain a little more confidence as well as find a bit more comfort while Grubauer handles limited engagements with the Caps (back to backs, etc.).  Near the end of the season, if Peters has accrued a healthy dose of confidence courtesy of some wins and a decent GAA, he would feasibly come back to Washington to serve as back up for Holtby going into the playoffs, assuming the team qualifies.  This could prove advantageous to Grubauer as well, enabling him to gain valuable play time in the AHL playoffs, assuming Hershey qualifies as well.

This is a win-win situation for the Capitals, and one that may prove necessary going forward if the team is to make the Stanley Cup playoffs.  Getting Holtby some rest is critical in designing a deep run, and it's hard to imagine the team doing so if the current trend of consecutive starts continues. Couple that with risk of injury and it seems obvious that Phillip Grubauer's time in Washington is near.

Wednesday, January 21, 2015

Stopping the Bleeding After the All Star Break

The Washington Capitals had been playing so strongly that it's easy for one to have been lulled into a sense of comfort, that the team as constructed didn't need many major changes,  that this team was a veritable threat come playoffs.  Defense had been solid enough to hold one goal leads, offense clicking enough to obtain one goal leads, Alex Ovechkin firing on all cylinders both in 5v5 and on the power play, and Braden Holtby was in full on beast mode, saving the team on more than a few occasions, and posting a save percentage in the last two months that was good enough to bolster him to 7th in the NHL. Yes, the Caps were flying along without a worry in the world.

But underneath the wins, there are some festering issues.  That same defense that was holding one goal leads was losing a bit of depth in the form of an injury coming from a consistently strong performer in Nate Schmidt. While Jack Hillen is certainly proving to be a strong, calming presence on the blue line, he is also seemingly weighing down Mike Green, who has seen a bit of  regression from his time partnered with Schmidt despite being an "assist demon", to use the words of Craig Laughlin. Matt Niskanen looks tired and is making the types of mistakes a tired player makes, including taking a ton of terrible penalties, many leading to opponent's game winning or go-head goals.  His puck control is lacking, his passes are awful, and he is hardly a presence once the puck crosses the blue line and into the Caps' own end.

That same offense that was obtaining one goal leads, playing a much stronger two-way game, and finding some chemistry in late December and early January is now starting to expose some glaring weaknesses.  The 2nd line of Marcus Johansson, Evgeny Kuznetsov, and Troy Brouwer isn't working, the first line doesn't have a legitimate wing-mate for Alex Ovechkin, and when you're getting more shots on net from a 4th liner (Jay Beagle) than you are your 2nd liners like the team did in Nashville, you have an obvious problem.

Let's talk about goal tending.  Since, as discussed in a prior post in which my conclusion was arguably (and apparently?) faulty, the Caps have purportedly been riding an unsustainable amount of luck (PDO) and some extremely hot goal tending from Braden Holtby, and it was obvious to many that the team would regress in net and thus pay the consequences.  But how poorly Justin Peters has played thus far was not expected.  As of last night, Peters posts a save percentage of .864, good for 73rd (!!!!) in the league, and a Quality Start % of .143*, good for 68th (!!!) in the league with only two players having played more games than him behind him in that rating.

Yesterday, both Barry Trotz and General Manager Brian MacClellan stressed the need to find a couple of missing pieces.  Many a good article has and will be written addressing what moves can be made, and I plan to address this myself after the break, but here's something I particularly liked from my friends at Stars and Sticks about what may happen with the current crop of young forwards as we approach the trade deadline in early March.

In sum, if the team's mission is to stop the bleeding after the All Star break, there are a few obvious ways they can do so:

  • Get Nate Schmidt and/or Dmitry Orlov healthy enough to get back into the game. Schmidt particularly has been a major asset this season, but Orlov's future is hazy at this point. The Caps need to maintain defensive depth, and I don't like the answers outside of these two (an unproven Connor Carrick, an unproven Patrick Wey, or a 'know what you're getting' Steven Oleksy to name a few).
  • Send Justin Peters to Hershey and replace him with Philip Grubauer.  Grubauer played well in the majors last year and deserves a shot as a back up.  His work load will decrease (which some may argue will affect his development) but giving him some quality starts and Holtby some rest for the remainder of the schedule might be a critical piece in managing a playoff birth, let alone what happens beyond.
  •  Make some acquisitions that will beef up your offense.  Much has been made of finding a second line center, which is an obvious need, but if you have to choose between allowing Kuznetsov to continue developing in that role or picking up a top 6 forward to play along side Ovechkin and Backstrom, what do you choose? Upcoming unrestricted free agent Mike Green would prove a tantalizing trade piece in obtaining either, but a package deal is likely imminent.
  • Much has been made of the "culture change" Barry Trotz has ushered in Washington, but one thing he has not been able to wrap his arms around is protecting a lead and playing a good 60 minute game in order to do so.  Maybe some personnel changes are needed but I think some strategy changes are, as well. Let's hope that's being addressed during the break.

Did I miss anything? What are your thoughts on how the team is playing and what you think they can do to become a veritable threat after the break?  Email me at cpinto001@gmail.com or tell me on Twitter @c_pinto001 and I'll include them in a future post. 

*Quality Starts are a concoction of Rob Vollman. Click to find out more.

Friday, January 16, 2015

The "Big Game"

It's not a secret that tonight will be one of the biggest games of the season for the Washington Capitals as they play host to the piping f'n hot 1st place in the NHL Nashville Predators.  From the Barry Trotz homecoming narrative to the "is this team for real" narrative, this game has a lot riding on it.  Not to be lost in all of that narrative is the fact that with the Rangers losing to Boston last night, as is always the case, two points tonight could prove valuable as we progress through the latter half of the season.  For a preview of tonight's match up, head over to The Peerless Prognosticator.

But that's not what I'd like to address today.  I am a little more interested in how the Capitals have fared in "big games" this season.  It's important to note that "big games" are largely, and admittedly, arbitrary.  For the sake of this post, I am going to define them as the following:
  • All interdivisional match ups in the months of October and November.
  • Interdivisional and intradivisional match ups against teams in playoff spots (to date).
  • Interdivisional match ups against teams in Wild Card spots (to date).
  • Interconference and intraconference match ups against contending teams (to date).
Though it may not be fair to count those match ups early on because the team had a new coach, they were adjusting to a new system, Braden Holtby hadn't found his groove yet, etc., I still think it's important to take a look at them for sake of completeness.  Here are the final results of those games that meet my criteria:

 Losses are highlighted in red (includes SO or OT losses here).
As you can see, their record in "big games" is fairly average, at 7-6-4.  But we haven't looked at the advanced stats for those games, which may tell a different story. Major thanks to my pal Ben Eisenberg from Stars and Sticks for the help here:

See Glossary below for term definitions.













On the face, these statistics are not very flattering, though if you remove the lows and the highs here, I suspect you'd have a slightly higher average as a whole.  None the less, the team certainly needs to possess the puck better against better teams, though their scoring chances have trended positively.  

Naturally, one could argue the merits of several other games this season being "big games" based on a variety of scenarios, so this is of course to be taken with a grain of salt.  But I'd say that the latter half Washington Capitals have so far fared much better than the former (2-4-3 vs. 5-2-1) in results, but not so much in possession. Regardless, I can't wait to see how tonight's match up plays out.

(So I went this whole time without talking about Filip Forsberg.  You're welcome)

Glossary:
Corsi = Shot Attempts = Shots + Missed Shots + Blocked Shots.
Corsi-Close = Corsi while a game is within 1 goal either way.
SCF% = Scoring Chances For %.
SCF-Close = Scoring Chances For while a game is within 1 goal either way. 


Thursday, January 15, 2015

Capitals 1- Flyers 0; A Game Otherwise Not Won

Last night's victory was a good one for the Capitals, and though the team fell into some of it's bad habits, they managed to out-shoot the Flyers, win the advanced stats battle, and ultimately withstand a late Philadelphia rush and hold on to win the war.  For a quick recap, check out Japer's Rink for a good one.

I'd like to address what was once a rarity, a unicorn so to speak, for this Capitals squad, and that's the one goal win.  Sure, you don't see too many 1-0 wins in the NHL, and though there are one goal wins aplenty, we simply aren't accustomed to seeing the Washington Capitals come out on top of those.  I took a look at last year's results and counted 45 one goal games, of which 28 were decided in over time or a shoot out (something last year's Caps participated in far too often, having been in 21 shoot outs as compared to only 4 shoot outs to date this season). Of those 45 one goal games, the Capitals were only victorious in 20, and of those 20 games, they were only victorious in OT or in the SO for 13 of them.

"Oates face" courtesy of Russian Machine Never Breaks.
That's a lot of extra hockey and a lot of one goal losses.  It's safe to say that last night was a game last year's version of the Capitals likely would not have won.  You can chalk some of that up to coaching, as Adam Oates was clearly a terrible, terrible coach, but at least a fair bit of it can be chalked up to other things; a much stronger defense with the off-season additions of Brooks Orpik and Matt Niskanen, more consistency in line combinations fostering better chemistry amongst them, more consistent and consistently strong goal tending from Braden Holtby (who should start getting talked about as a Vezina candidate in the upcoming month or two), and, yes, perhaps even a much needed culture change in Washington.

I used some form of the word "consistent" a few times there, but that's because it's fitting. To see that consistency, you only need to look at the team's record as of late.  Points in their last 9 games, the only two losses in that span coming in OT to the Flyers and Islanders respectively. The team has only not gotten points in two games from December 2nd to now, which is astonishing to say the least.

How much of that is on PDO (in other words, puck luck and really, really, ridiculously good goal tending) and how much of it is "something else" remains a debate, but none the less, wins at this time of the season are huge and one goal wins are even huger. Friday night's game against Nashville remains a major test for this Capitals team, but regardless of the outcome of that game, things are continuing to roll for Braden Holtby and this defensive-minded, offensively-capable, Washington team.


Wednesday, January 14, 2015

Rivalry Night--Washington Capitals vs. Philadelphia Flyers, AKA Old Charles vs. Young Charles

I have a confession to make.  I don't hate the Philadelphia Flyers.  Wait wait, before you click the "x" on the top of your browser, hear me out.

I was born and grew up a bit in the suburbs outside of Philadelphia, where I lived until we moved to the DC area when I was at the tender young age of 9. Up until that time, I was all about the Philadelphia sports teams; the Eagles, the Phillies, and yes, the Flyers. Especially the Flyers. In fact, my parents had season tickets and one of my fondest memories is having met several players at some promo function in the spring of 1986.

One of those players was Flyers winger Brian Propp, who had just played in a hard fought victory over, you guessed it, the Washington Capitals, a game in which Propp scored a hat trick.  Propp was awesome, he gave us all autographs and let us check out one of his sticks and some of his other equipment.  I was pretty much completely stoked.  It'd be a lie to say that those memories don't stick with me today, even as I root for the Capitals and hope they win against their Metro division rival.  I can't hate the Flyers, I don't think it's in my DNA to do so.

Brian Propp, picture c/o flyers.nhl.com
That being said, tonight's game is an NBCSN "Rivalry Night" game so that means a couple of things.  Generally speaking, it means it's not usually an actual rivalry, of which tonight is an obvious exception. It also means that you're going to be exhausted at work tomorrow because the NBC games start at 8(ish) and end at like 2am.  So if you're an old timer like me, get your pots of coffee on and enjoy the game.



Here's a quick look at some of the key moments in the history of this rivalry:


For a preview of tonight's match up, check out Mike Vogel's over at Monumental. (I'll try to mix up who I link for previews from time to time). 

And for my Flyers buddies, you all know who you are, there's this:










Tuesday, January 13, 2015

Scoreboard Watch; 1-13-2015

It's the time of the season for something I'd like to do semi-regularly and that's a little scoreboard watching.  Through 42 games, the Washington Capitals boast a 23-11-8 record for a respectable 54 points, good for 3rd in the Metro Division and solidly in a playoff position.  That's the good news.  The bad news is that the Rangers are scorching hot right now (have won 5 in a row, 9-1-0 in last 10) and have a game in hand on the Capitals, and Boston seems to be heating up. Not to mention the pesky Florida Panthers are hanging around.

The lukewarm news is that the Capitals have a series of games against opponents they should beat, with the exception of Friday with Barry Trotz's highly anticipated return to Nashville being the only formidable opponent out of the next five. After that stretch, heading into February, they'll see more challenges in Pittsburgh, who will be looking for revenge, Montreal, St. Louis, and the LA Kings. In that time, they will play two back to backs, this Friday and Saturday against Predators and Stars on the road, respectively, and January 27th and 28th against Columbus on the road and Pittsburgh at home.  Truth is, the Capitals should have a pretty good picture of what their team is worth up to the trade deadline on March 3rd (more on that and what the Caps could be looking to add in a later post). Anyway, here's the Eastern Conference standings as of today (courtesy of NHL.com):














And the schedule through February (courtesy of washingtoncapitals.com):



















And a little something I've been listening to:



Sunday, January 11, 2015

When a Win is Not a Win--"Non-Repeatable Skill"

Last night the Washington Capitals defeated the Detroit Red Wings by a score of 3-1.  By way of a quick recap, you can see my pals at Stars and Sticks for a very good one. 

But what is a win if not a win by way of advanced stats?  Is it still a win? (Spoiler: yes...it is still a win).  The fine fellas at Russian Machine Never Breaks had this one called early.  The line combos hadn't changed from Philadelphia and that was, in their words, "ridiculous".  These are nearly the same lines that merely received a loser point to Philadelphia, after all, on the tail end of a back to back on the road.  But it doesn't matter that they stole a point in that game regardless and that they were tired and noticeably fatigued because Corsi, of course!  Incidentally, the same blog that's been clambering for Andre Burakovsky to get more ice time is now upset that he's on the top line, where he'll inevitably get, you guessed it, MOAR ICE TIME! (Note: The use of the word "MOAR" is an RMNB staple...when in Rome).  I asked them about the "ridiculous" comment on Twitter:



Oh.  Ok. "The hotness is over". Call off the parade, guys.

So basically, by their logic the last few games have "hinted that changes are needed".  The Capitals' record over the last few games must've been horrible, right?  Wrong.  Going back to December 27th, the last 7 games, the Capitals are 5-0-2. Their two OT losses were to a strong Islanders team, and of course the aformentioned Philadelphia game, the second of a back to back on the road.  In their recap, Russian Machine (not to continue to pick on these guys, but they were the most vocal opponents of last night's victory, which seems like a really strange thing to say, doesn't it?) was especially apocalyptic about this victory.  They wrote:

How did the Capitals score three goals with so little offense? That’s not a rhetorical question: the answer is luck. Or, if you wanna be a little more exacting, the answer is a non-repeatable skill.
The Caps are gonna have to right the ship when it comes to shot differential. They’ve got a couple lines that are dysfunctional and their best D-pairing no longer tilting the ice as it should. They can’t bank on wins like this one for too much longer.
 "Non-repeatable skill" and "luck" are two ways of saying that their PDO is much too high.  PDO is a statistic that combines save % and shooting % in an effort to measure overall performance of a team and highlight teams with outsized "luck".  Oddly, if we take a look at the Capitals overall PDO this season, they are 6th, only slightly above the Chicago Blackhawks (10th), and under the New York Rangers (1st), Pittsburgh Penguins (4th), and Nashville Predators (5th), all considered superior teams in their respective divisions. 

The idea, as noted in the link above, "is that teams on average should be around the 1.000 level as each shot is either a goal or a save teams that are relatively higher are producing above expectations and should regress back to the 1.000 level and teams that are relatively lower are producing below expectations and should regress up to the 1.000 level." The Capitals are at 1.014.  Not too shabby.

So maybe it's not all luck and maybe the Corsi and Fenwick stats aren't telling the whole story (by now you've surely caught my running theme on this blog).  Last night, I revisited a piece I really enjoyed by Daniel Wagner from The Score. This bit in particular resonated with me:
It’s not enough to simply outshoot your opponent: every NHL team knows this. It’s why you’ll never see players trying to game their Corsi by taking low-quality chances. What matters is goals and you score goals by doing things that hockey traditionalists love — making a good first pass out of the defensive zone, winning puck battles, creating turnovers in the neutral zone, going hard to the net, cycling the puck down low, etc.
Corsi by it's very nature a shot-measurement analysis tool.  The more shots your team takes, and the less the other teams take, the better success you will *likely* have.  But as Wagner notes, sometimes there are other things at play that result in a win (those he listed above).  These are important elements, and they are by and large coachable elements. An advanced statistician sitting in his cubicle up at Kettler Iceplex or at the Verizon Center on game day can't tell a team how to do these things. 

The great Tommy Lasorda said, “No matter how good you are, you're going to lose one-third of your games. No matter how bad you are you're going to win one-third of your games. It's the other third that makes the difference.” This win, and perhaps others like it, are part of the "other third".  And winning them surely does make a difference. 

Friday, January 9, 2015

All Star Uglies

The All Star Game jerseys have been released and everyone hates them.  You be the judge:

New NHL All Star Jerseys


The Advanced Stats Revolution and a New Voice

This is the first time I've attempted to put my thoughts on the Washington Capitals, NHL hockey, and whatever else I'm thinking about at the time on "paper".  I've always been hesitant to start a blog because the contrarian in me thinks it's foolish or silly or, simply put, annoying.  But I feel like a lot of the hockey writing out there is so focused right now, which isn't to say it's poor or that I can do any better, but just that the voices are all starting to blend into one. There are some pretty popular themes in the NHL right now, particularly concerning advanced statistics and the on-going debate as to their role in not only analyzing a hockey club but even in building one. The proof is in the pudding; there have been quite a few hires in the "special consultant" category that lend itself toward an advanced stats trend finding new legs in the NHL.  Perhaps they aren't "new legs" but different legs, as there have surely been folks going at it for quite some time.  This October, right here in Washington, we saw the hiring of famed advanced stats journeyman Tim Barnes, AKA "Vic Ferrari" (what a great name and with an homage to Andy Kaufman, how can you not like this guy, right?).  I'm not going to waste pixels describing Barnes or his work, but he's considered by many to be a visionary in the advanced stats field. It was an encouraging hire, and one that has seen little debate on the blogs and on Twitter. 

*DISCLAIMER*Before I go onto the next paragraph, I want to be very clear that I am not an anti-advanced stats heathen in any way.  I think that Corsi, Fenwick, etc. all have a wonderful place in the analysis of the game, and yes perhaps even in talent management.  But I also think that the professionals are professionals for a reason.  When a coach like Washington Capitals Defensive coach Todd Rierden, who by the way has played hockey on just about every level and coached the sport since 2007, says "You know, there are a lot of great things a guy like Brooks Orpik brings to the table that may not be reflected in his advanced stats" (paraphrasing), I tend to listen to him.  *END DISCLAIMER*

I think that sometimes as fans and writers and followers of the sport, we are too quick to chastise "the eye test" as it exists in our minds.  We externalize it as some sort of jargon about grit and intangibles, many of us going so far as to disregard it altogether. But we aren't inside the mind of a long-term professional hockey scout or talent assessment professional, and we aren't capable of defining what the "eye test" really is by their terms.  Perhaps the things they're seeing in the eye test lead to many of the very same conclusions our advanced stats tell us. Perhaps those things are even more legitimate in terms of knowing what to expect from a player, since as Barnes himself theorizes, hockey players are constantly changing (see: Marcus Johansson).  We sit in our computer chairs postulating and prognosticating about a team's success based on all of these variables, so much so that maybe we strip a little bit of the sport's humanity in doing so.  We miss that though they are elite, these players are humans, with a psychology to them not much unlike our own, so much so that they will react to things similarly to the way we do in our professional and personal lives when they're on the ice. That's measurable, too.

Here are some of the "intangibles" most advanced stats writers and proponents dismiss:  leadership, positive influence, leading by example, toughness or grit, and commanding presence. I would contend that all of them have some real psychological and physiological values attributed to them and that those values can sometimes outweigh the tangible ones, depending of course on the organization's needs. Leadership seems to have an especially important role on a team..  Going back to Orpik, Rierden said he "has a presence about him that you can't describe" and that "when the guys he’s sitting next to on the bench and they don’t have a good shift, they feel like they’re letting him down".  This is interesting to me because I've had that feeling on teams I've been on, not just with coaches, but also with older players, and it's always motivated me. Many of the advanced stats folks immediately found fault in this, but to what ends? Additionally, what if his presence and leadership and other intangibles are leading other players to higher advanced stat success?  In this example, take a look at the evolution of John Carlson.  Here are his stats from 2009-2010, without Brooks Orpik, to 2014-2015, with him (courtesy of War-On-Ice click for larger image):










For the first time since the 2009-2010 and 2010-2011 seasons, debated as two of the finest Caps seasons in franchise history, his Corsi For % (CF%) is >50%.  Carlson's Time On Ice (TOI) per game is at its highest average and his Points per 60 (P60) is also a career high, not to mention his scoring stats (goals, assists, points) are all reaching career highs as well.  You can take a look at Brooks Orpik's numbers and naturally draw the conclusion that they're not so good (though they are improved from his past numbers, buried in a deep Pittsburgh defensive team playing with one of the best two-way forwards to ever play the game). But can you not feasibly argue that his intangible presence and leadership is proving useful to his linemate's production this season?  I don't see why not. 

But I digress.  As we go forward into the brave new world of advanced stats in the NHL, I see nothing but the potential for adequate and accurate talent analysis.  I reiterate that I'm not a stats Luddite, fearful of these new-fangled statistics nor do I believe that it is impossible to utilize advanced statistics in hockey, because that's not true, and I'm extremely optimistic about what some of the hard work of these folks will yield.  But I'm worried that the movement is becoming not much unlike other movements; bullishly committed to the science of things, the rational point of view: cliqueish, confrontational, unwilling to bend, and often rude to newcomers and those trying their hand in using stats for articles or blog pieces or simply out of intellectual curiosity.  It'd be nice to hear a new voice, one that doesn't discount the hard work of scouts and coaches and other professional talent management assessment methods simply because they rely on historical and experience-based knowledge over conventional statistics.  In short, just as I think that factoring together "Corsi" and "presence" can go a long way in building a championship team, I also think that when we're writing about hockey and our favorite teams, peppering in some traditional wisdom with your stats can help you tell a more complete story, and possbily attract more viewers and fans to the sport we love, to boot. 

With that, I conclude my first post.  I'm not going to write as often as I'd like, probably, but here it is for the 2-4 people that will probably read this (hi Sara!).  Let me know your thoughts, critiques, ideas, I'm happy to hear them, by email cpinto001@gmail.com, and give me a follow on Twitter if you're so inclined.  I will customarily end these posts with a song, video, or link to something that I really enjoy or am thinking about.  For today, here is this: