Ovechkin's Touches Restoring his Scoring Touch
Posted on February 26, 2013Alex Ovechkin scored three goals in Saturday’s 5-1 win over
the New Jersey Devils, recording his first hat trick in more than two years.
Despite that offensive outburst, Ovechkin might actually have played an even
better game two nights before in a 3-2 loss to New Jersey, a game in which he
failed to record a point.
“He’s been playing really well lately,” says Caps general
manager George McPhee. “I thought Thursday was his best game of the year even
though there was no production. He was a handful out there, had two or three
breakaways, was creating scoring chances and was playing hard.
“Obviously we want him playing like that every night. We’re
getting closer to that. It’s been a good change in a lot of ways.”
The “change” McPhee refers to is the much talked and written
about move of Ovechkin to right wing.
One of the many tall tasks facing Caps coach Adam Oates as
he took over behind the Washington bench at the start of this lockout-shortened
season was that of re-establishing the Caps’ captain to superstar status.
After averaging 54 goals per season through the first five
campaigns of his NHL career, Ovechkin dipped to more ordinary totals of 32
goals in 2010-11 and 38 last season.
“Alex is obviously the marquee guy on this team,” Oates
told me last summer. “But he and I are going to have an understanding that he’s
got to play the game the same way the rest of the team is going to play. In
that respect, nobody is more important than the team. But he will also know
that I have his back. We will come to an understanding and I hope to get the
best out of Alex Ovechkin. He is going to lead us to the promised land.”
That may be a two-way street. Lately, it seems like Oates is
helping to lead Ovechkin to the promised land.
Oates believes firmly that moving Ovechkin – a right-handed
shooting left wing – from his customary spot on the left side to the right wing
will lead to more touches of the puck, better scoring chances and make the
Caps’ bullish winger more difficult to defend and play against.
During his career as an assistant coach in Tampa Bay and New
Jersey, Oates had success with similar switches of the Lightning’s Martin St.
Louis and the Devils’ Ilya Kovalchuk.
After a few speed bumps early in the season, the move of
Ovechkin to the right side is starting to pay some dividends for both the
player and the team.
Ovechkin started the season on the right side for the Caps’
first three games, but struggled and requested to be moved back to his comfort
zone on the left side. Oates acquiesced, but made it clear that the experiment
was not an experiment and it was not over. Washington was 0-3 in those first
three games with Ovechkin on the right side; it went 1-2-1 with him back on the
left.
With the Caps slogging along with a 1-5-1 mark after seven
games, Ovechkin was moved back to the right side. He has remained there since
and the results have been illuminating.
In his first seven games this season, Ovechkin fired a total
of 22 shots on goal. That translates to an average of just 257 shots on net
over the course of a normal 82-game NHL campaign. Prior to this season,
Ovechkin’s single-season career low for shots on goal was the 303 he took last
season.
Ovechkin attempted a total of 45 shots in those first seven
games; 12 were blocked and 11 missed the net. He also recorded two goals and an
assist for three points in those seven games.
In his last 10 games – all of which have been spent playing
on the right side – Ovechkin has totaled 53 shots on goal and 101 shots
attempted; 26 were blocked and 22 missed. That rate would translate to a total
of 435 shots on net over a full 82-game season, a figure that would rank as the
third-highest mark of his NHL career.
Were Ovechkin to accumulate 435 shots on net in a season and
score at his career shooting rate of 11.9%, he would finish an 82-game campaign
with 52 goals, or just below the pace he established in his first five seasons.
Heading into Tuesday night’s NHL action, Ovechkin has 75
shots on goal for the season, one off the league leading pace being set by the
Islanders’ John Tavares and the Maple Leafs’ Phil Kessel. Both have played more
games than Ovechkin.
While Ovechkin had gone more than two years without a hat
trick before Saturday, his drought of not consistently getting shots on net
extended back even further.
Ovechkin has had three or more shots on net in each of his
last 10 games, the first time he has had a streak of that length since Nov.
28-Dec. 18, 2010. The last date of that last 10-game streak coincides with the
eighth straight loss of the Capitals’ under-the-HBO-microscope eight-game
losing streak (0-6-2), a skein that led then-bench boss Bruce Boudreau to
overhaul the way his team played in the middle of that 2010-11 season.
(For much more on what happened to the Capitals at that
juncture, do yourself a favor and read this fine analysis from Jon Press at
Japers’ Rink.)
That last streak of 10 straight games with three or more
shots on net wasn’t even the first of its kind for the Caps’ captain that
season. Ovechkin started the 2010-11 campaign by reeling off 15 straight games
with three or more shots on goal; streaks such as those were general the norm
for Ovechkin for the first five seasons of his NHL career rather than the
rarity they’ve become for the last three.
Ovechkin opened that 2010-11 season in more or less “normal”
fashion, with 10 goals and 32 points in 25 games through the end of November.
Thereafter, he produced 22 goals and 53 points in 54 games the rest of the way.
That midseason change in system allowed the Caps to finish
with 107 points and a fourth straight Southeast Division crown, but it also resulted
in a 32-goal season for Ovechkin in 2010-11, the lowest total of his NHL
career. Since Dec. 2010, the Caps have been a more defensive team, and Ovechkin
simply wasn’t getting as many touches or quality scoring chances from his left
wing spot.
The permanent move to the right side at the beginning of
February has produced a multitude of chances, so much so that the Caps captain
might be near the top of the NHL’s leader board in goals with a bit more luck
and some better finish. Had he not missed a pair of empty-net chances late in
games earlier in the season, he’d be in double-digits now as Oates is quick to
remind.
Two of Ovechkin’s three goals on Saturday came at even
strength, both of them on the rush.
“He got one on the power play,” says Oates, “one coming out
of the zone where he stayed on the right side and one where he came late. The real
reason we switched him was I wanted him to get more touches.”
Oates and video coach Brett Leonhardt chart those touches on
a game-by-game basis for later review with Ovechkin.
“We mark them, and we mark them mostly for me and him to
talk about things privately,” says Oates of tracking the touches. “Because I
really felt ahead of time that that’s what would happen, that he would get the
puck more. I just keep track of it to show him when he wants, to see where he’s
getting it, how often he’s getting it, and if there are opportunities for more
touches.”
Oates said from the start that he wanted to be a
communicator as a coach, and his handling of Ovechkin is a first-rate example
of that philosophy.
“I think Adam has been outstanding in the way they have
communicated and in the way they are getting along,” says McPhee of the Caps’
coach/captain relationship. “It looks like a great relationship. In any
successful organization, your top players have to be on board.”
As mentioned at the top, Ovechkin had a plethora of touches
in his Thursday night game against the Devils, and he has generally had the
puck on his stick a lot more since moving permanently to the right side.
“The Thursday night game was incredible,” says Oates. “He
had the puck more in two periods than he has had in any game this year. And
we’re talking about having the puck with a little bit of time – not a lot of
time, but a little. Maybe the second goal [on Saturday] is a result of that,
where he gets it, it’s a standard play, but it’s one of the best snipers in the
world getting the puck one more time [in a situation] that he didn’t last year,
and he releases a shot and scores. That’s what it’s about.”
Although his three breakaway chances in Thursday’s game did
not produce any lamp-lighters, Ovechkin scored early in the second period of
Saturday’s game off the rush, taking a feed from Mike Ribeiro who got the puck
from Jason Chimera.
“I thought the first goal the other night was great,” says
Oates. “Chimmer started in the d-zone, he got it, a couple of passes, Chimmer
drove wide, used his speed, which let Alex come late. Chimmer found Mike and
Mike found Alex. It was the whole evolution of a play and that’s the way it’s
supposed to be at times.”
The second goal came early in the third, and it gave the
Caps a lead they would not relinquish. It turned out to be the 57th
game-winning goal of Ovechkin’s career. On that one, Ovechkin backed New Jersey
defenseman Anton Volchenkov into the attack zone, then used him as a screen,
threading his shot through the defenseman’s legs. It’s the type of goal
Ovechkin once scored frequently from the left side, before the league seemed to
catch on to the trick.
“The second goal which was a huge goal,” says Oates. “It was
probably his least dangerous shot out of the last couple of games with all the
breakaways he has had, etcetera. So it was great for him that it went in.”
When Caps center Nicklas Backstrom was told that Ovechkin’s
hat trick was his first in more than two years, he had a quick retort.
“Now you guys can ask and wonder if he’s back,” said
Backstrom. “But he’s always been here.”
Backstrom may be right. It’s possible that the Caps
themselves – or at least the way the Caps chose to play these last two-plus
years – were all that was holding Ovechkin back. The last 10 games of what is
only going to be a 48-game season is a small sample size. Although those
numbers suggest that Ovechkin is producing both shots and goals at a rate
consistent with what he did for his first five seasons in the league, we’ll
reserve judgment for now.
One thing does seem certain. When it’s played correctly,
Oates’ system is the most conducive to scoring of the last three systems the
Caps have had in recent seasons. The Capitals scored 2.67 goals per game in
2010-11 and 2.66 goals per game last season. Despite scoring three or fewer
goals in each of their first 11 games of 2012-13, the Caps now have tallied
four or more goals in four of their last six games.
On the season, Washington is 12th in the league
with an average of 2.82 goals per game.
“Guys still need to do what guys need to do to win,” says
Caps right wing Troy Brouwer, “and that consists of blocking shots, chipping
pucks out, chipping pucks in. But you don’t want to take their creative ability
out of their game.
“We tried to win games 1-0, 2-1, tight defensive games,
which is fine because it worked for us last year for quite a while. But you’ve
got to keep those star players happy. You have to keep those goal-scorers happy
by giving them offensive opportunities.
“When [Ovechkin]’s going, we’re a lot better team. We need
him to have more games like the last two that he has played. Just because he
had a hat trick doesn’t mean that he had an amazing game. He did, but he also
had a really good game the [game] before and he didn’t score any goals.”
Ovechkin may have been reluctant at first to make the move
to the right side, but he seems to be embracing the move now that it’s giving
him more time with the puck and more and better scoring chances.
“He does and I hope so,” says Oates, when asked if Ovechkin
seems to be settling in comfortably on the right side. “If you watch it, the
Rangers game [on Feb. 17] he gets 14 [attempted] shots. Thursday night he gets
three breakaways, and all of a sudden [Saturday] he gets three goals and he’s
getting all these touches.
“One thing about having the puck more, it engages him in the
game more. Watching him in the past, I felt the only thing that got him into
the game was one-timers on the power play. If he gets a few one-timers, all of
a sudden he feels good about himself because that’s his go-to shot, and next
thing you know he is flying. Well what if you don’t get those one-timers?
You’ve still got to figure out a way to get yourself into the game and I think
that’s with touches. A guy who is used to scoring wants the puck. He wants it
to touch his stick.”
He wants it on his stick, and it’s been there.
“Yeah, I think the chances are there,” said Ovechkin after
Saturday’s game. “Just sometimes I feel the puck just doesn’t want to go in.
Today it was that kind of game where every shot goes through. It’s kind of
nice.”
