When a team is getting ready for the playoffs you would like them to be firing on all cylinders. That's the ideal situation anyways. There are plenty of instances of a team coasting into the playoffs only to be beaten by the team that needed to scratch and claw just to get in.
Questions among goaltending and more entering playoffs
We'll see how the Capitals do this season. They have been a first place team basically all season long. They have been in the playoffs for a while now. We'll see if they can "flip a switch" when the biggest games start in a short while.
A couple of guys that will need to flip that switch are guys who share one position, the goaltenders. Logan Thompson and Charlie Lindgren.
Goaltending was not an issue for most of this season. Thompson specially was brilliant to start the season. There were a lot of people, myself included, confused why he did not make team Canada for the 4 Nations tournament. That's how good he was in the first half of the season. Lindgren, while he was not as good as he was last season, was showing he was a good backup.
However, both have been putting up numbers recently that are not good. That is begging the questions, are they both in a slump, is the team struggling around them a little more, and how much of a problem do we have here?
Are they both in a slump? I tend to say no. Slumps don't last very long. In my opinion anyways. Slumps last a couple of weeks. Not a couple of months. Slumps are a handful of games. Not half of a season. That's where we are with the Caps goaltending.
We'll start with the good here and show you how the two Capitals goalies played for the first half of the season.
From the start of the season to the very end of January Logan Thompson was very impressive. He played in 28 games, he had a goals against average of 2.05 and a save percentage of .927%. Very, very good. Lindgren was pretty good himself. He played in 24 games, he had a 2.61 GAA and a .907% save percentage.
But Thompson was the guy. He came in and stole the starting job from Lindgren.
Among goalies to play 1,000+ minutes from the seasons start to January 31st, which was 49 goalies, Thompson was tied with Connor Hellebuyck for the best save percentage in the league. He was second to only Hellebuyck in high danger save percentage at .852%. Hellebuyck was at .863%.
Just to compare Lindgren's high danger save percentage was just .770% which was all the way down at 47th out of 49 guys.
But since the start of February, neither Thompson nor Lindgren have good numbers. We're talking two and half months here of not good, or just flat out bad numbers.
Thompson has been injured for a while now. His last game was April 2nd at Carolina, where he played only twenty minutes. We'll see if he is ready to go at some point in the playoffs. It doesn't sound like anyone is incredibly confident he will be ready, but maybe we could see him at some point.
When he does come back he will need to play better. From the 1st of February until today he has played in 15 games. In those games he has a 3.33 GAA and a .877% save percentage. Lindgren has not stepped up for him either. He has played in 14 games, his GAA is 3.03 and he's sporting a save percentage of .874%.
Both of these guys numbers are towards the bottom of the league in that time. Among goalies to play in 800+ minutes since February 1st (which is 32 goalies) Thompson and Lindgren rank 27th and 28th respectively in save percentage. To make things a little better and a little worse, Thompson ranks 24th in high danger save percentage at .776%, but Lindgren ranks dead last at .674%.
So both guys numbers are struggling. Is this a goalie problem, or has the team started struggling a little bit? The save percentages have taken a tumble, The high danger save percentage have taken a pretty mighty fall. It has to be the team allowing more...right?
Not really. In some cases, the team is allowing less.
When Thompson was playing really well he was seeing about 7.5 high danger shots against a game. He saw 210 high danger shots in 28 games according to Natural Stat Trick. Since his numbers have taken a dive he sees about 6.5 high danger shots against a game. Or 98 in 15 games played.
Lindgren has also seen less high dangers shots, just not as drastic. When Lindgren had OK numbers he was seeing 6.3 high danger shots a game. Since his numbers have fallen he is seeing 6.1 high danger shots per game.
In other numbers the Capitals are a little better or almost right where they have been all year.
When the Capitals and their goalies were playing very well, their shot attempts percentage was only 49.76%. Since the 1st of February it's at 52.31%. A pretty significant jump up.
The scoring chance percentage has dropped a little bit, but it's nothing dramatic. It was at 52.32%, it's now at 51.37%.
When the goalies were playing well the team was averaging around 20.7 scoring chances against. Since then they are averaging about 21.1 chances against. Not a dramatic increase at all.
So the team isn't allowing a ton more high danger shots against. The chances against aren't really up much. The shot attempts are actually better. This goaltending "slump" if you want to call it that doesn't seem team related.
The worrying part is this is happening at the worst time of the season. The Caps goaltending was great to start and finishing pretty poorly. You want that to be the other way around. Goaltending has decided playoff series. Both great and poor goaltending has cemented teams fates. Lindgren and Thompson, if he is able to come back, they do not have a lot of time to figure this out. and get back on track.
I'll end this on a positive note. I'm guessing Caps fans remember 2018. Something pretty special happened that year if I remember correctly. Maybe I'm wrong, feel free to correct me. The goaltender that year was Braden Holtby. He had a pretty bad year that season.
Holtby played 54 games that season. He had a not very good GAA of 2.99 and a save percentage of .907%. Back then anything under 91% in save percentage was starting to get very average. At best that was Holtby that year. Very average. He lost his starting job going into the playoffs that year thanks to his play. Philipp Grubauer took the job.
I don't think I have to say too much more on what happened going forward. Holtby got the net back in the playoffs, the rest is history. He was terrific, the Capitals win the Stanley Cup.
Maybe that happens again this season for Washington. The goaltending has been less than impressive for a good long while here. Maybe they figure it out at the best possible time. That is more than possible.
But right now, you have to be at least slightly concerned about the position at the most important time of the season. To me, this isn't a slump. It's too long to be considered a slump. And now one of your guys has health questions. Not only one of your guys, but THEE guy. Thompson has been better all year. He even has better numbers in struggling.
Lindgren has struggled at the same time. And last season he was not very impressive in the playoffs either. To be fair, that was a different situation. The Capitals overall were not that great and they played a very good Rangers team. But if we are being serious with ourselves Lindgren did not play that well last spring, whether the team was outmatched or not.
We'll see what happens when the biggest games start in just a few days now. But in a season that has been nearly flawless, for many reasons, it seems a flaw has started to show itself. And it has shown itself at almost the worst possible time.
