Could the Red Wings Have Met a Different Playoff Fate than the Swept Washington Capitals?

30/04/2024

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Last night, the New York Rangers ended the Washington Capitals’ season. The President’s Trophy winners left no doubts about who the better team was all series, only letting the Capitals lead for 3:21 of its 240 minutes, or 1.4% of the time. Scores might have been close, but this series was a blowout.

Washington, of course, earned its right to be there. Even if it had the same number of points as the Red Wings, it had more regulation and overtime wins. It beat Detroit head to head in the final weeks of the season. It did what it needed to earn the right to lose to the Rangers. But, for the sake of debate, it’s worth asking if the Red Wings might have met a better fate against New York.

I’m not saying the Red Wings should have made the playoffs over the Capitals. This isn’t about playoff changes. But Detroit was, at least statistically, a more well-rounded team than Washington. The Red Wings had better offensive depth, with 12 30-point scorers versus the Capitals’ six. Detroit’s scoring ranked ninth in the NHL, yet it was the only top-10 offense to miss the playoffs. However, Washington did a better job of playing defense down the stretch, or at least stopping pucks by way of goaltender Charlie Lindgren’s heroics. He finished with a 2.67 goals against average and a .911 save percentage on a team with a 46.67 Corsi percentage (seventh-worst in the league per Moneypuck). The Red Wings tried to outscore defensive problems, while Washington tried to outdefend scoring woes. Neither team was really all that good, especially in direct comparison with the league-leading New York.

So how do all these comparisons translate to the series against the Rangers? The Capitals’ biggest struggle in the series was scoring against New York. They finished with a playoff-worst 1.75 goals per game (the same as the Toronto Maple Leafs through four games, I will add), and the most they mustered in a game was three goals. Goaltender Igor Shesterkin wasn’t tested very often by Washington, finishing the sweep with the second-best goals against average (1.75) and third-best save percentage (.930) in the playoffs. Put it this way: the Rangers didn’t need to put up gaudy goal totals to earn a sweep — the Capitals couldn’t score enough to have a chance.

Analytically, perhaps Washington was due a little more on offense. It had a 54.79% control of 5-on-5 expected goals as tracked by Moneypuck, which ranked fourth among all playoff teams. The Capitals also had a 52.03% control of Corsi percentage in the series. Not only were they taking good chances, but they were taking more of them to boot. But what the Rangers did very well was make their chances count.

This capitalization (no pun intended) was especially prominent on special teams. With two shorthanded goals and six power play goals, New York led 8-2 in special teams goals during the playoffs. Considering 51 minutes of this series was played 5-on-4 (the most of any series), special teams play factored heavily into this series’ outcome in a way that doesn’t always show in the playoffs.

Would Detroit have made a difference here? The Red Wings’ power play (23.1%, ninth) and penalty kill (79.6%, 14th) were both better than the Capitals’ units (a 20.6%, 18th-ranked power play and a 79.0%, 19th-ranked penalty kill). If Detroit and New York found themselves in the penalty box as much as the Rangers did with Washington, this difference could have contributed to some different outcomes if the Red Wings’ units kept their regular season success.

Given the difference in the Red Wings’ and Capitals’ offensive success and special teams during the regular season, I don’t think it’s an unfair hypothetical to assume Detroit would score more than Washington had it made the playoffs instead. With so much offensive depth that bodes well for playoff success, it feels easy to assume that such depth would translate into someone scoring for the Red Wings. If goal scoring was a detriment for the Capitals, I don’t think it would have been to the same degree for Detroit.

But how much of a difference this scoring could have made in the series is a big unknown. The Red Wings lost all three of their regular season games against the Rangers with a 12-8 goal differential, where as the Capitals split four games against them with an even 9-9 score. Maybe this shows that more scoring — at even strength, power play or penalty kill — isn’t the way to beat New York, although Washington’s four-game exit in the playoffs showed that its defense wasn’t up to par either. The Rangers’ offense can score different ways, with a creative and loose top six matched by a cyclical and grinding bottom six. Any goaltender — even red-hot Lindgren — finds a difficult matchup with New York. If the Rangers were able to turn Lindgren into the fourth-worst goaltender in the playoffs based on goals against and save percentage, it’s safe to guess that the Red Wings’ goalies would’ve found themselves in a similar blender.

Based on how the Capitals-Rangers series went, I think the Red Wings might have been able to score their way to squeeze out a game against New York. With more goal support, I think Detroit might have found a win in there somewhere if Alex Lyon and James Reimer had a good game like they did at some key points in the playoff hunt. However, I don’t think Detroit would have flipped the series around.

The second wild card this year was more so the right to lose a first round series to the Rangers, but there will always be the hypothetical of whether the Red Wings could’ve sparked some magic and played New York just right to pull an upset. The chances, we can all see, would’ve been improbable and slim, but they’re still a chance, and that’s what teams fight for in making the postseason.

Detroit would have also gained some benefit from this appearance, seeing what level of play it would take to have a shot against the Rangers, a level the Red Wings could emulate next season as they build their own contending squad. In this case, even a sweep isn’t entirely fruitless, even if it might feel that way upon elimination.

But Detroit didn’t earn the right to play that playoff series against New York, and regardless of matchup nuances, the Rangers beat better, playoff-earning Washington. Regardless of hypotheticals, they’re food for thoughts of what could’ve been, not what should have been.

Even if the Capitals got swept, they earned the right to be swept through their regular season play. Detroit didn’t earn such an honor, even if it might have earned a win in there somewhere.