Tactical Matchup: NYR vs. WSH
The Capitals are confident in their checking line, but will it hold up against the Rangers' top six?
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Not many NHL teams make the playoffs after being out-scored by 37 goals over the course of the regular season, and yet the Washington Capitals have done just that.
The 2023-24 Caps are not an especially good team. Its biggest team-level skill is score sequencing, the ability to lose one game by five goals instead of losing five game by one goal (cough, cough, Pittsburgh Penguins). And yet sequencing is no repeatable skill - it’s essentially random variation when looking across teams and seasons.
WSH is outmatched at every position against the President Trophy-winning New York Rangers. Coach Spencer Carbery will have to find every tactical edge just to make the series competitive.
But at least there’s one thing Carbery won’t have to second-guess: Beck Malenstyn, Nic Dowd and Nick Aube-Kubel will be on the ice for every single defensive-zone faceoff. Unless they just came off the ice. Even then…
Completely burying the checking line allows WSH to lessen the transitional burden on the Dylan Strome and Connor McMichael units. McMichael is a young guy who plays at a high pace, but the rest of the Caps’ scorers much prefer to start in the OZ rather than having to lug the puck 200ft up-ice.
WSH47 Malenstyn, WSH26 Dowd and WSH96 Aube-Kubel do a hard job and they do it well. Notice their high work rate, physicality and ability to take away the middle of the ice in transition.
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However, like the rest of his team, Dowd will be in tough against the top of NYR’s lineup.
Per inStat Hockey, since 2022 the center is a combined 16/50 (32%) on DZ draws against Vincent Trocheck and Mika Zibanejad. Even if Dowd and his linemates are able to force the puck out of the zone, it may only serve to free up Artemi Panarin and Adam Fox to pick WSH apart off the rush.
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The last thing Carbery wants is to rethink the deployment of his checking line, but NYR may be able to force him to do that, too.