What We Learned: The myth of ‘team player’ Alex Ovechkin

(Hello, this is a feature that will run through the entire season and aims to recap the weekend’s events and boils those events down to one admittedly superficial fact or stupid opinion about each team. Feel free to complain about it.

Alex Ovechkin scored that goal on Saturday — that goal: that powerful, cutting, graceful, terrifying goal — to cut into the Rangers’ lead, and it was astonishing. It was one of those “they’ll show that on the career highlight reel when he retires” goals.

And what was the talking point on television when everyone stopped saying, “Wow,” long enough to catch their breath? That this goal was further evidence Alex Ovechkin had, over the past summer, become a team player who changed his game completely to fit his new coach’s systems. Never mind that this was a goal of which only the world’ elite would be capable, or that it was basically the definition of a goal that came as a direct result of supreme individual effort; the assertion is in itself absurd.

The thing with Ovechkin, or any non-Canadian who posts a big points total but a low plus-minus, is that people will point to the latter as a direct result of lack-of-try, regardless of the former. If there’s no former he might as well be garbage, but this is an issue that has occasionally plagued Ovechkin in particular because the Capitals have in their history exhibited a kind of special propensity for not living up to expectations.

Please recall that when Ovechkin broke 50 goals for the third straight season in Washington, back in 2009-10, and the Caps finished with 121 points to lead the league, they were bounced in the first round by that inexplicably hot Montreal team that ended up losing in the Eastern Conference Finals. This was the breaking point: Ovechkin had to change. So the next year, Bruce Boudreau had him focus on defense, and he scored just 32. The year after 38. And then everyone started in with, “Is this what Ovechkin is now?” because of how badly they wanted it both ways.

This comes with the acknowledgement by his critics that Plus-Minus Is A Bad Stat, but it supported their flimsy argument so Ovechkin going minus-8, playing less than 20 minutes a night, and only finishing with 65 points was bad. But also good(?) because the Caps beat the Bruins in the first round before losing to the Rangers 4-3. Dale Hunter was a genius, etc.

Then Adam Oates figured out that the problem was Ovechkin playing on the left wing, and moved him to the right side. There, he put up 83 goals in 136 games, winning a pair of Rocket Richards even as his team died on the vine because, if we’re giving Oates the credit for saving Ovechkin’s goalscoring, it came at the expense of almost everything else the Caps had ever done well. Ovechkin’s plus-minus dipped to minus-35 and there were torches and pitchforks outside Verizon Center once again.

Enter Barry Trotz. Enter a defense-first philosophy that gave him such widely varying results in Nashville. Enter the narratives of how he might be able to make Ovechkin play “less selfishly.”

To understand why this is, was, and always would be hogwash, you have to understand what the Capitals were doing systemically in all these seasons.

The thing is no one is questioning the offense, even though that’s what seemed to have abandoned Ovechkin when things went really sideways; his goals-for per 60 dropped nearly 36 percent in 2010-11, and then another 11 percent the next year. Interestingly, it fell another 40 percent even when he scored 50 last season.

This year, it’s back up 44 percent and no one seems to have noticed. And that’s a lot better than the team’s overall changes during that same time, because under Trotz the team took only a 9.5 percent step forward overall; and without Ovechkin on the ice actually dropped to just 1.9 goals per 60 at 5-on-5 from the previous year’s 2.59 (about a 27 percent drop). Other numbers like relative corsi, relative shots against, and so on, are all improved. Across the board. For the most part they’re at the levels not seen since the Caps won the Presidents’ Trophy, even as the rest of the team has actually gotten a little worse without him.

But there’s one number that Ovechkin’s defenders have always pointed to when it comes to how selfish he wasn’t being: The save percentage behind him. Because remember, no one was saying Ovechkin needed to change his game in the lockout-shortened 2012-13 season, in which he led the league in scoring and also went plus-2 (which, if you think we’re dealing with a telling stat, still isn’t great). What’s important to note here is that last year, at 5-on-5, the save percentage posted by Washington goaltenders when Ovechkin was on the ice was abysmal. You could have, perhaps, attributed that to the defensive schemes the Oates-coached team deployed overall, but the fact is that the Caps’ on-ice save percentage for the rest of the team was right in line with any of the years on either side.

That shows, pretty clearly, that last year was an absurd outlier; in fact, if we’re going by this metric alone to explain why his goals-against rate dropped so much under Trotz, you can make an argument that he still isn’t as committed to defense as he was in Oates’ first year. Indeed, the viewer’s perception the outcomes of processes that lead to goals — corsi events for and against, the percentage of corsi events that actually end up on net, etc. — can be greatly colored by outcomes. The Capitals only shot 6 percent when Ovechkin was on the ice last season, and that number jumped to about 8.6 percent this year. That’s still well below the 10.3 percent in Oates’ first season when Ovechkin scored 32 in 48 games.

Now, what’s interesting here too is that beyond the number of shots that actually went in the net, you might be able to argue Ovechkin’s lackadaisical defense was to blame there because a higher percentage of attempts against the Capitals actually got through to the goalie than at almost any point in his career, and indeed, at a much greater rate than the team’s. And that, actually, was uncommon.

But again, that’s not what the argument against Ovechkin and his defense is. What people have been saying all year is that Ovechkin went from a defensive liability throughout his career to a regular Boy Scout under Trotz, and this really isn’t the case. Most of his numbers, though, are in line with what he and the team were doing at their best in the Boudreau era.

That should show up beyond the numbers, though. On the ice, things should be different. And that’s where War on Ice’s Hextally tool comes in: It shows where every shot attempt against is coming from when Ovechkin is and isn’t on the ice. On these charts, when measuring shots against, you want all the areas around the net to be blue. That indicates good shot suppression relative to league average. Green is more or less neutral, and red is poor suppression.

There are three charts here, and they’re extremely illuminating. See if you can guess which of these is 2009-10 (after which point the team resolved that Ovechkin simply had to play better defense), which is last season (when Ovechkin’s defense was so bad the team missed the playoffs and a Rocket Richard winner got crapped on for a year straight), and which is this past season under defensive wizard Barry Trotz

The correct answers:

Chart A is 2009-10, when Ovechkin’s defense led to a culture change. That’s a lot of green and blue around the net, because Ovechkin didn’t let anyone anywhere near it. His teammates, on the other hand, were a lot more accommodating.

Chart B is this season, when Ovechkin had his game overhauled. But he was only slightly better at suppressing shots close to the net but was more or less in line with the rest of his team elsewhere; the extra few shots around the hashmarks were likely problematic, but when it’s 0.03 more than the rest of his team, that doesn’t strike me as egregious. What’s funny is that they allowed more shots from the point on Ovechkin’s side. If that’s the hole in his defensive game, I wouldn’t be that worried; those are low-percentage shots.

Chart C is last year, and you’ll notice it’s pretty similar to the rest of the team except on the side of the ice where he didn’t play. Ovechkin, you’ll recall, was shifted to the right wing under Oates, meaning that the left side of the goalie is no longer his responsibility. Shot rates there are much higher, and wouldn’t you think that’s on the other wing (who in most cases was Marcus Johansson)?

The Caps as a whole are better at suppressing shots and keeping the puck out of the net, that much is true. But are we really willing to say that it’s because Ovechkin got better, rather than Trotz made the whole team play better? Or that Braden Holtby actually played well this season (as his save percentage jumped to .923 from .915)? If anything, don’t the last two charts above tell us Johansson improved his defensive game?

But I guess not. If you watch the goals Ovechkin has scored in the playoffs — the last two being solely the result of him just absolutely drilling the puck into the net with unstoppable shots — it’s a pretty clear indicator that he’s cleaned up his defensive game. That’s definitely a reasonable conclusion.

What We Learned

Anaheim Ducks: Ryan Getzlaf hasn’t had this much fun since Game 1.

Arizona Coyotes: The Coyotes reached a deal to name their arena’s outdoor terrace after a whiskey. The good news is that if you drink enough of it that you see double, it’ll start to look like there are 10,000 fans in the rink.

Boston Bruins: The Patriots drafted a guy who referred to Zdeno Chara as “a beast.” Maybe Geneo Grissom wants to be the next GM.

Buffalo Sabres: The Sabres canned their AHL coach over the weekend. And here I thought Ted Nolan got fired like a month ago. That’s a joke about how he is not a good coach.

Calgary Flames: This is what happens when your coach starts Karri Ramo.

Carolina Hurricanes: When there’s a clear top-4 in the draft, and you’re picking No. 5, you better hope a team in front of you screws up.

Chicago: Turns out when you don’t have a few bums at the bottom of your roster, you can actually roll four lines all postseason. Funny how that works.

Colorado Avalanche: Well heck if you win at Worlds, you always do well in the next NHL season. Always. No question.

Columbus Blue Jackets: A better solution to this problem would be to get rid of blackouts altogether because blackouts are stupid.

Dallas Stars: If your biggest beef is that a guy who didn’t play a game this season should have been nominated for the Masterton, you might want to take it a little bit easy. It’s the summer, bud. Read a book.

Detroit Red Wings: Stephen Weiss has been awful for Detroit. Who would have guessed? Only three seasons left on the deal, though!

Edmonton Oilers: Taylor Hall had a hat trick for Canada in a 10-0 win against Germany. Now he knows what it’s like to play the Oilers.

Florida Panthers: We’re talking about the same Brad Boyes here, right? Like, the hockey player one?

Los Angeles Kings: We’re still propping up the Kings as evidence that you need “toughness” to win a Cup, and not “good players.” Huh.

Minnesota Wild players react as they make their way off the ice after a 4-1 loss to the Chicago Blackhawks inGame 2 in the second round of the NHL Stanley Cup hockey playoffs in Chicago, Sunday, May 3, 2015. (AP Photo/Nam Y. Huh)

Minnesota Wild: “Not freaking out” after one playoff loss seems like a good idea. What about two?

Montreal Canadiens: They didn’t feel like they got enough bounces during the regular season, huh?

Nashville Predators, America’s Favorite Hockey Team: I think we all need to have a look at that Stevie Moses goal from the first game at Worlds again.

New Jersey Devils: Apparently the only thing anyone’s talking about vis a vis the Devs this offseason is trading the No. 6 pick. They should probably not do that.

New York Islanders: What do the Islanders need to upgrade this summer? Let’s start with defense and figure it out from there.

New York Rangers: Henrik Lundqvist only made about a dozen game-saving stops in that Game 2 win. That’s all. This is what happens when a world-class goaltender goes up against even pretty good ones: You win a lot of one-goal games.

Ottawa Senators: The Senators might want to invest in a goalie this summer. Like, a real one who can stay healthy. Because Andrew Hammond isn’t the answer, bubba.

Philadelphia Flyers: Should Philly kick the tires on Mike Green this summer? Sure, but not too hard or he’ll be on the IR all year.

Pittsburgh Penguins: Guess Craig Adams will have to go back to……. whatever college he went to.

San Jose Sharks: Aww, just like dad!

St. Louis Blues: The question mark on this headline is something else.

Tampa Bay Lightning: Turns out Jonathan Drouin will play in this series, but probably in Tampa where he can be hidden from tough competition.

Toronto Maple Leafs: Mike Babcock to the Leafs? Now why hasn’t anyone thought of that before?

Vancouver Canucks: The Canucks are bad now, so should management really be chasing a playoff appearance just for the sake of making it? No. The answer is no. Nope. They shouldn’t. Because they’ll just lose in the first round again and everyone will be grumpy. So no. They shouldn’t.

Washington Capitals: Philipp Grubauer is just the fifth goalie in nearly 80 years to win games in both the AHL and NHL playoffs in the same year. Which would be cool if wins were a statistic anyone should care about. But it’s not so oh well.

Winnipeg Jets: Two-thirds of Jets fans want Ondrej Pavelec back for next season, but only half want him to start. Why do 17 percent of Jets fans want a $3.9 million backup?

Play of the Weekend

I could watch this goal forever.

Gold Star Award