Last Five in Fenwick: Games 12-16

My numbers don't include the Buffalo game on November 13.

Last Five in Fenwick: Games 1-5, Games 6-11

Game 20165 Maple Leafs 4 @ Capitals 5 (SO)
Game 20180 Bruins 3 @ Capitals 5
Game 20199 Flyers 2 @ Capitals 3 (OT)
Game 20204 Capitals 5 @ Rangers 3
Game 20219 Lightning 3 @ Capitals 6

You can access my spreadsheet here. As always, credit to Timeonice for single-game zone start, Corsi, and time on ice numbers, and stick tap to Behind the Net for the Corsi Rel, QoC, QoT, Zonestart, and PDO numbers in the season-to-date chart.



Some observations:

• With a +12 in zone starts, you'd like that Corsi% to be much higher. Granted, New York blocking 17 shots to the Caps 7 in the win over the Rangers skews the numbers somewhat (without that game the Caps are 51.3%).
• Washington may have won the game with Tampa Bay, but if Dan Ellis decided to play like his averages say he can Tampa Bay would have won that game. They deserved to win, probably.
• I'm going to do bad things if Matt Bradley is let go from the Caps in the near future. He's a helluva fourth liner.
• John Carlson and Karl Alzer continue to be solid. I still would rather see Carlson-Poti, though, since they're Green-Schultz-esque at 5-on-5.
• Eric Fehr was a bit better over the past five games, but I think he's still not playing like he can. Maybe he's hurt.
• I'd be mad if Boyd Gordon were let go, too. Great five games from Gordo, returning from injury.
• Keep raising your trade value, Tomas.
• Tougher fivers for Ovechkin-Backstrom-Semin. Ovechkin was in negative Corsi/Fenwick territory--I wouldn't be surprised if the last time that happened were as far back as 2007.
• Brooks Laich continues to play strong hockey. Even when his PDO comes back down, strong Corsi hockey means he'll put up plenty of points and earn himself a good payday at the end of this season. I'd be willing to pay him with Fenwick numbers like this.

And the season-to-date numbers:



Things to note:

• The Corsi Rel, Corsi Rel QoC, Corsi Rel QoT, and PDO numbers are getting better, but are still funky in some cases. 
• The Capitals are averaging one positive Corsi event per minute of 5-on-5. That's exceptional.
• You know what else is exceptional? Only having a 52.4% Corsi to show for it. It's exceptionally bad for a team with this potential. (okay, that was harsh)
• Jeff Schultz continues to get better and better. So does Mike Green, who is close to last season's Corsi and Fenwick despite playing tougher competition this season.
• That 101.9% PDO for the team? Would have tied for 2nd in the NHL last season, plus 4th in 2008-2009 and 2nd in 2007-2008 (stick tap to SkinnyFish of Pension Plan Puppets). Results are still being heavily luck-driven. The Caps were middling in 08-09 and 24th in 07-08.

Grades:

Special teams: B. The PK unit was giving up a goal every game pretty much, but the power play was also scoring at a similar rate. Whatever, I'll take it.

Goaltending: C+. Michal Neuvirth seemed to be tiring and that's partly why the Caps gave up 3 goals 4 times and 4 goals in the 5 games I'm looking at here. No huge stinkers, fortunately--just not what we've been accustomed to seeing over the past month and a half (that is, "quality start" after quality start).

Even-strength play: C+. That Fenwick is just a few shots from being 50%, which deserves a C. That being said, Corsi is more tightly correlated to winning than Fenwick, and the Caps have a similar Corsi% as in Games 6-11. The 53% is solid, but unspectacular. Once Alex Ovechkin wakes up, this team will be scary good.

Overall: B-. Results were 5 wins, underlying numbers suggest the Caps probably deserved the Boston game, the Philadelphia game, and the New York Rangers game (New York blocked lots of shots, so much that the Caps' Fenwick% was about 10% lower than their Corsi%). The Toronto game has even Fenwick and Corsi and the Tampa game was horrible for one period and more even the other two. Could be worse, could also be better.