Photo by Scott Taetsch/Getty Images
After dispatching the Montreal Canadiens in five games in the first round of the NHL Playoffs, the Capitals will square-up against divisional rival Carolina Hurricanes in the second round of the playoffs. In this post, we’re going to review the performance of each team through the regular season, in head to head match-ups during the regular season, and their performances in these playoffs so far.
The statistics used in this post are courtesy of Natural Stat Trick, Hockey Reference, Evolving Hockey, and HockeyViz. If you’d like to learn more about the terms used in this post, please check out our NHL Analytics Glossary.
2024-25 Season Overall Performance
First up, let’s take a look at each squads’ performance in the regular season. This will help us use the largest sample size of data over the course of the 82-game season, and see how these two teams match up. We’ll start here with the season performance, then move into playoff performance so far this year, and then head to head metrics.
Shot Generation
Here’s how each squad fared in shot generation metrics over the course of the regular season:
In the analytical preview of the Capitals’ first round series against the Montreal Canadiens, we surmised that the Caps typically controlled the pace of play by attempting the majority of Corsi (CF%) and Fenwick (FF%) shot attempts, which generally means a higher rate of puck possession. When comparing that to the Hurricanes, though, Carolina was dominant in terms of puck possession metrics.
The metrics that really catch my eye here, though, are the Goals For percentage (GF%) and Expected Goals For Percentage (xGF%) for each team. The Hurricanes perform very strongly in terms of xGF%, but we can see that their actual GF% trends over 4.5% lower than their xGF%. This typically indicates that a team either has struggles finishing their chances (something Capitals fans have been no strangers to over the past few seasons before the 2024-25 campaign), or goaltending struggles. We’ll get more into that here soon.
For Carolina, it’s much more of the former than the latter. They struggle to convert on their chances, but they are much more of a quantity-over-quality team. If you allow more chances to be generated against you, you’re much more likely to lose.
Similar to the Canadiens, the Hurricanes aren’t powered by true superstar talents. Unlike the Canadiens, though, the Hurricanes are much deeper throughout their lineup and any line or pairing can generate dangerous chances. Interestingly enough, for the Hurricanes, Sebastian Aho (74 points) and Seth Jarvis (67 points) led the way in points for them this season, but in third? Former Hurricane Martin Necas with 55 points.
The Hurricanes goal scoring is spread throughout the lineup with one 30 goal scorer (Jarvis) three 20 goal scorers (Aho, Jack Roslovic, Andrei Svechnikov), and five current double digit scorers (Jackson Blake, Jordan Martinook, Eric Robinson, Jordan Staal, and Jesperi Kotkaniemi).
Regularized Adjusted Plus-Minus
Now that we’ve seen five-on-five performance from the two squads, let’s take a look at each team’s holistic performance across all major situations this season using Evolving Hockey’s team Regularized Adjusted Plus-Minus (RAPM) charts:
We covered this in our first round analytical preview, so here’s what we said there:
For the Caps, we see a team that was rightfully towards the top end of the NHL standings in the regular season. There were no real obvious flaws in this team in terms of metrics outside of a couple of negative metrics in expected goals against per 60 (xGA/60) during even strength and Corsi shot attempts against per 60 (CA/60) during the penalty kill. Higher CA/60 on the penalty kill is not inherently bad unless we see causation: weaker performance in xGA/60 in that game situation. We do not see that causation here, especially since the Caps’ penalty kill was tied for fourth best in the league at 82%.
Few things here — the Hurricanes (as previously mentioned) are elite at generating puck possession events in CF/60 rates for even strength offense. But — we see again that although they generate high rates of xGF, they do not have the finishing capabilities. The Caps on the other hand, have their GF outpace their xGF, indicating high levels of finishing.
Defensively, the Canes are also effective in limiting Corsi shot attempts against, meaning they’re solid defensively and aren’t allowing a lot of shot attempts when the offensive and defensive squads are structurally set when in their defensive zone.
The Canes’ power play was ranked 25th in the NHL during the regular season, and it’s not hard to see why. They don’t generate a ton of xGF and finish even lower than that. But — the Canes are currently operating at 31.6% on the PP in the playoffs. Shorthanded, they are elite, finishing with the top PK unit in the league during the regular season. Additionally, they’re also batting 100% on the PK during the playoffs so far.
Playoff Performance (So Far)
Here’s how each team has performed in the key metrics so far this playoff:
Interestingly enough, we see a similar trend for these two teams in the playoffs: the Capitals’ GF outpaces xGF, and the opposite for the Canes.
The Capitals definitely struggled in the possession metrics department against the Habs, and the Canes rather easily dispatched the banged up New Jersey Devils.
This was the difference for the Capitals in the first round against the Habs: generating the majority of scoring chances and high danger chances, and then converting those chances at a much higher rate than their opponents.
The Hurricanes (as they will) controlled the SCF% and HDCF% generation, but sorely struggled in actually converting those chances. This is the area I expect the Capitals can exploit the Hurricanes.
Head-to-Head Performance
Let’s take a look at the metrics in head to head match-ups between the Canes and the Caps. Spoiler: it’s going to be ugly due to some lopsided performances, particularly towards the end of the regular season when the Caps effectively had a scheduled loss on the tail end of a back-to-back with the Hurricanes when the Caps had nothing left to play for.
As expected, and as we observed from regular season and playoff performance so far, the Canes controlled the vast majority of shot attempts and actual shots during five-on-five play.
Interesting tidbit here: the Canes generated a higher share of typical scoring chances against the Capitals, but the Capitals outpaced them in high danger chance generation share.
With a higher share of SCF, the Canes did have success with converting on SCGF, but the Capitals really took it to the Canes in high danger chances.
But, all that being said, the Canes really controlled the vast majority of the key metrics in the head to head match-ups, resulting in a higher share of goals for during five on five play, as well as outpacing their xGF with actual GF.
The Takeaway
The Hurricanes are a solid team from front to back. They’re well run, well coached, and operate as a unit when deployed on the ice. The Capitals should expect the Hurricanes’ best, and look to counter their “analytical darling” play style with counterattacks on the rush.
The Hurricanes will have the puck for large portions of the game. The Capitals will need to stay structured and survive the onslaught at times. Ultimately, the Caps have a bit more scoring firepower up and down their lineup, so the chances will come. The main differentiator will be converting on chances on the power play and when the counterattack high danger chances take place. I’m expecting this series to go the distance for seven games.
By Justin Trudel
