It Was My Understanding That There Would Be No Math

Ten games into the Caps' season seems like a good point at which to do some evaluatin', or at least some lookin' at numbers. This is a broad look at team stats taken from a small sample, and it's worth noting that much of the below is a comparison of this year's team so far to last year's squad rather than a comparison of this year's team to the rest of the NHL, so take it all with a shaker of salt.

The numbers, then, after ten games:

• The Record: 3-3-4 overall, 2-1-2 within the Division... The 10 points are only good enough for 13th in the Conference right now, but the team is tied for seventh in standings-points-per-game-played, so don't kiss your playoff hopes goodbye quite yet (though 82 points at season's end will almost assuredly not be enough to make the postseason)... Six of the ten games played have been on the road and five of the ten have been against 2005-06 playoff teams (seven of the ten have been against teams that are currently in the top eight in their respective Conferences)... The Caps have gotten at least one point in the standings in seven of the ten games, and as long as the NHL wants to keep handing out loser points, we'll take 'em.
• The Offense: The Caps are 13th in the NHL in goals-per-game, up from 23rd in 2005-06... The team has a positive goals-for-to-goals-against ratio at 5-on-5 (1.24), unlike last year (.92)... Shots per game down to 28.5 per game (24th in the League) from 29.8 (17th) in 2005-06.
• The Defense: The shots allowed per game are an NHL-worst 36.6 (the Caps also had the worst ratio in this category last year)... Despite the nightly barrage, the team is currently 21st in the League in goals-against-per-game (3.30), up from 29th in 2005-06 (3.66), indicating, perhaps, that the shots are not coming as frequently from high-quality scoring areas.
  
• The Special Teams: The power-play is ranked 15th (16.7%), up from 26th in 2005-06 (14.7%)... The penalty kill is ranked 23rd (80.3%), up from 28th in 2005-06 (78.9%)... The Caps are 22nd in the League in power plays per game and 14th in times shorthanded per game.
  
• The Miscellaneous: The team is 17th in the League in faceoff percentage (49.4%), down from 10th (50.4%) in 2005-06... The Caps are 0-2 in shootouts and have yet to score a goal on five shots while stopping only one of four shots against in the shootout... the Caps have not yet one a game in which they allowed the first goal (0-3-2) and have only won three of the five games in which they scored first (though they've gotten a point in every game in which they were first to light the lamp).

So what's the bottom line? Well, the Caps are scoring more, allowing fewer goals against, scoring more regularly on the power play and killing off penalties at a greater rate than last year. To me, those are all positive indicators and if the team can cut down on the penalties and shots on goal against, progress should continue.