Backstrom's ice time, Strome's line, and other Caps numbers

A few interesting tidbits from the early days of the 2023-24 season

The Caps beat the Sharks on Sunday evening to extend their winning streak to three games. They sit 6th in the Metro with a record of 4-3-1. The Caps shot attempt percentage of 45.8 ranks 29th in the league, and their 45.8 xGF% places them 27th.

Here are a few numbers that have caught my eye in the early goings of the season.

Nick Backstrom’s ice time

Nick Backstrom is playing 14:33 per game. This is over two minutes less than Backstrom’s career low in ice time per game of 16:52, set last season. The biggest factor is Backstrom’s significant decrease in PP time since being moved off the first unit. Backstrom is averaging 2:10 of PP time per game (and this number has been decreasing) after never playing less than 3 minutes per game on the PP in his career.

Backstrom is also seeing a dip in ice time at 5v5. The 12:05 per game he’s skating this season would be a career low. He’s also skating the lowest percentage of 5v5 minutes in his career. Backstrom has been on the ice for 24.9 percent of the Caps minutes at 5v5. Here’s how that compares to recent seasons:

Given Backstrom’s age and injury history, this isn’t terribly surprising. But I’m not ready to jump to any big conclusions just yet…

(Note: Since writing this, Backstrom split time with McMichael at 3C in practice, so maybe it is time for big conclusions.)

The Strome line is dominating

The Caps first line of Ovechkin-Strome-Wilson has been arguably the best line in the league this season. There are 57 trios in the NHL that have skated a minimum of 40 minutes together in 2023-24. Here’s where the Caps top trio ranks among those 57 in a few key categories:

So yeah, that line has been okay.

Other tidbits and nonsense

• Martin Fehervary has been on the ice for 26 defensive zone draws at 5v5, 10 more than anyone else on the team.

• Alex Ovechkin leads the team in primary assists with six. He’s the only player on the team with more than two.

• Evgeny Kuznetsov has drawn one penalty and taken 4, giving him a team-worst -3 penalty differential

That’s all for now. Thanks for reading.

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