Looking at how Peter Laviolette has deployed the Caps skaters this season
Eight games into the season, we can begin to see how Caps head coach Peter Laviolette prefers to deploy the Caps skaters. It’s still too early to say “this is going to work” or “this is a bad decision” but we can look at what has worked well so far and what type of deployments may need to change if the current trends continue.
When I am talking about deployments in this post, I mean how Laviolette uses the Caps 5-man units; that being, what forward lines he prefers with each defensive pair. We are going to look at five stats to evaluate:
shot attempts (SA%) and expected goals (xG%) to assess how well the unit is controlling play
goals for percentage (GF%) to look at production
on-ice shooting (SH%) and save percentage (SV%) to help determine if the current level of production is sustainable
I’m going to look at how each Caps forward line has done with the defensive pairing they have skated the most minutes with.
The first line
The Caps first line of Ovechkin-Kuznetsov-Wilson has skated the most minutes with the defensive pair of John Carlson and Martin Fehevary. Here’s how the team has done when Kuznetsov has been on the ice with the Carlson pair:
This is is the five-skater unit Laviolette tries to deploy in offensive situations as much as possible. They’ve taken 24 offensive zone draws, 21 in neutral, and just seven in the defensive zone.
While they’ve been very productive, outscoring opponents 3-0, every other stat on this table tells us this isn’t going to continue.
It’s too early to make a sweeping conclusion on this line, as the sample size is small enough that a strong game or two can make the underlying numbers look much better.
I should note that the Caps generally outperform their xG, especially with Kuzy on the ice. And, to be fair to the Kuzy trio, their underlying numbers are much better away from Fehevary-Carlson.
But, it’s worth keeping an eye on that the Caps best offensive line plus their most offensive defender is getting outplayed badly, despite getting cushy zone starts.
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The Hathaway line
Sometimes called the fourth line, this line is not used as a fourth line. This line is Laviolette’s preferred option on defensive zone draws and against the opponent’s top line. And they skate most often with the Caps most trusted defensive pair of Dmitry Orlov and Nick Jensen. Hathaway and Hagelin skate with Nic Dowd when he’s healthy, but have also spent time centered by Lars Eller.
This five-skater unit has been getting the toughest assignments and is still managing to tilt the ice in the Caps favor.
This has been a true shutdown unit so far, managing to make the other team play defense with their top skaters on the ice.
The save percentage obviously can’t last. The shooting percentage should come up some, but it’s always best to temper expectations for sniping abilities from this unit.
I could turn this post into an Orlov (or Orlov-Jensen) appreciation post, but I’ll save that for another day. For now I’ll just say that Orlov is the Caps best defender and he’s deployed as their number one defenseman at five-on-five.
The second-ish line
The second line has been in flux a bit due to injuries. But Anthony Mantha has been consistently on the second line, so we’ll use his ice time as a proxy. Mantha has skated the most minutes with the Caps third pair of van Reimsdyk and Schultz.
Those shooting and save percentages are wild. Early season samples sure are fun!
This trio has started 13 shifts in the defensive zone and eight in the offensive zone. It will be interesting to see if the zone starts shift more offensive now that Mantha is being centered by Connor McMichael (and most recently had Daniel Sprong on his opposite wing).
About 20 of the 32 minutes of this sample has been with Eller centering Mantha, a center Laviolette is more likely to trust with defensive zone draws than McMichael.
The other dudes
The forward who has skated the most minutes away from the trios above is Hendrix Lapierre, so it makes sense to use him as a proxy for the Caps fourth trio. Lapierre has skated the most minutes with TVR and Schultz on the blue line, but the Orlov-Jensen pairing isn’t far behind. I think the forward lines have had to change so much that it’s hard to say anything definitively about how Laviolette prefers to deploy the fourth trio.
I always find it interesting to look at how a coach chooses to deploy five skaters at a time, rather than just how they use forwards and defensemen separately. As I’ve mentioned, it’s still early in the season and a game or two can still shift the numbers pretty dramatically But thus far, my two main takeaways are:
It would be encouraging to see the Kuzy line with the Carlson pair tilt the ice more in the Caps favor, especially given how offensively they are being deployed.
The Hathaway line with the Orlov pairing has been asked to do some heavy lifting and has performed well.
If you have any thoughts on the Caps deployments so far this season, please leave a comment!