Caps clinch the Presidents’ Trophy and beat the Rangers: numbers for the morning after

Wednesday night, the Caps beat the Rangers 2-0 in their 12th shutout of the year, and Braden Holtby’s ninth. More importantly, it’s time for the playoffs. By gaining at least one point last night, the Caps clinched the Presidents’ Trophy and the Metro Division title for the second year in a row. They have only to wait and see who their opponent will be. Tonight there will be many relevant games to that end, and thankfully none of them will involve Pittsburgh.

Last night’s game was fairly evenly played, with the Caps getting outshot at five-on-five 18 attempts to 15 in the first period but then outshooting the Rangers 30 to 20 over the final two frames. Scoring chances were also even at 21 to 20.

Key Stats

• The Caps will end their competitive season as one of the best possession teams in the league. The Caps have a score adjusted possession of 53.3 percent, third best in the league. They are behind only Boston (whom they may face in the first round) and Los Angeles, who missed the playoffs. Possession dominance is a reasonably reliable indicator of postseason success. Last year, despite their standings dominance, the Caps were lackluster down the stretch and finished 10th in score adjusted possession. Just another piece of evidence for why this year’s Caps team is better than last year’s.
• The pairing of Kevin Shattenkirk and Brooks Orpik had an excellent night. They skated more than 16 minutes together at five-on-five and were a plus-seven in shot attempt differential. With Rick Nash, Mats Zuccarello, and Ryan McDonough resting, the Rangers didn’t really have an obvious top-line, but Shattenkirk and Orpik matched up primarily against the Chris Kreider and Derek Stepan line. Overall, Shattenkirk has quietly racked up assists (and finally a goal) and he is a major weapon heading into the playoffs.
• The Evgeny Kuznetsov line ended up being the Caps’ most dominant possession trio. A bit surprisingly, given the early dominance of the Lars Eller line, the second line of Kuznetsov, Justin Williams, and Marcus Johansson ended up with a 55.5 percent possession marker on the season (at five-on-five). That is sixth best in the league of any line playing at least 400 minutes. They had another nifty night last night, producing a stellar Kuznetsov goal off of a pretty Johansson feed.

Unsung Hero of the Game

Braden Holtby made some subtly nice saves, but given that he got the shutout he wouldn’t be very unsung. Marcus Johansson was on the board with a glorious assist, but he’s still going to get this award for last night. Mojo has been humming right along, and last night he saw 14 shot attempts for to just eight against while starting in the defensive zone for five of eight zone starts. We’ve made a lot of the first and third lines this year, but the second line will be hyper-important come playoffs and it is absolutely crucial that they keep connecting for kind of goals that they scored last night.

Trend to Watch

The perfect blend. This year’s Caps team has the second best score-adjusted goals-for percentage of any team since 2007-2008. They sit at 61.4 percent, next to the 2013-2014 Boston Bruins’ 61.6 percent and just ahead of the 2009-2010 Caps’ 61.1 percent. This is the culmination of a lot of factors coming together and is the mark of a team that truly has no obvious weakness.

In the end, this Caps team had the ninth best shooting percentage during that 10-year era, the eighth-best save percentage, the 10th-best rate of goal scoring, and the seventh-best rate of goals-against (all at five-on-five, and out of 300 team seasons). They sit at 47th in possession among that group, or the 84th percentile. Below is a table showing some key stats for the top-five goals-for percent teams of the last decade.

There is a strong case to be made that this is the best Caps roster ever assembled.

Full Coverage of Caps vs Rangers

Stats courtesy of Corsica.Hockey and NaturalStatTrick.

Photo by Patrick McDermott/NHLI.