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When the Washington Capitals and general manager Brian McClellan brought in Connor Cherry in unrestricted free agency in December 2020, it was clear that the Capitals were looking for a bit of a reclamation project. After Sheary’s first three seasons with the Pittsburgh Penguins from the 2015-16 season through the 2017-18 season, Sheary has compiled 48 goals and 45 assists for 93 points in 184 games.
After his third season with the Penguins, he had fallen out of favor in the Penguins’ front office and coaching staff, and was traded to the Buffalo Sabers, along with fullback Matt Hunwick, in exchange for a 2019 fourth-round pick. Sheary never found his Buffalo signing, He went from about 0.5 points per game in Pittsburgh to 0.39 points per game in Buffalo. Buffalo then turned around and traded Cherry back to Pittsburgh along with forward Ivan Rodriguez in February 2020 for forward Dominic Cahoon. After the trade returned to Pittsburgh, Cherry played in eight games, scoring a goal and three assists.
It was clear that Cherry needed to find a new home after stints in Pittsburgh and Buffalo. The Capitals carried a flyer, and got a lot of value out of that signing over the course of two decades: a one-year deal that carried a $735,000 cap, then a two-year deal (that just expired) that carried a $1.5 million cap. Cherry totaled 48 goals and 54 assists for 102 points in 206 games with the Caps.
In this post, we’ll take stock of Sheary’s performance last season, with the lens of whether or not the Caps should try to bring Sheary back into the fold. Statistics used in this post are courtesy Hockey evolutionAnd The natural stats trickAnd Hockey PhysAnd hockey referenceAnd cap friendly. If you would like to learn more about the statistical terminology used in this post, please check out the NHL Analytics Glossary.
Five-on-five performance
First, let’s take a look at Sheary’s performance percentage over the 2022-23 season:
We’ll touch on the drivers of Chery’s somewhat mediocre performance in the possession metrics here in a moment, but the one major area where Chery excelled was in its Goals Percentage (GF%). With Sheary’s expected goals percentage (xGF%) falling just below the 50% goal line, we can see that Sheary was one of the few Capitals players to display finishing abilities when on the ice during a five-on-five game.
On the other hand, we have other data showing that finishing was not necessarily the driver of the net ratio difference between GF% and xGF%:
Above is the ranking for every key stat of the 15 Capitals forwards who have skated more than 200 minutes. What we can see here is an effective Sheary player who can lead a generation from Corsi to shot attempts every sixty minutes (CF/60), Fenwick to shot attempts every sixty minutes (FF/60), and total shots on goal every sixty (SF/60). On the other hand, Cherry struggled to suppress shot attempts against him, which led to some complications, defensively.
The reason I ended the explanation of the first graphic above with a data point showing that the finish wasn’t necessarily the reason Sheary had the net positive difference between GF% and xGF% was the percentage of saves on the ice when running on the ice while playing five-on-five. He was on the ice for having the best save percentage (among forwards) by goalies, even as he was second in terms of shot attempts and shots on goal.
In short, there is a fairly good chance that Cherry’s goals against all sixty (GA/60) were slightly exaggerated due to the high performance of the goalkeepers when Cherry was on the ice. On the other hand, Sheary has been extremely effective offensively this season for a team whose finish rate was drier than the Sahara.
Now, let’s take a look at Sheary’s chance generation ratios, though we might have a good idea of what they’ll look like by looking at the ratings you shared above:
In terms of total scoring chances (SCF%), it was not a problem of generating scoring opportunities, but rather a problem of defensive suppression of scoring opportunities against them. This is what pushes the SCF% below the 50% target line.
Sheary has been slightly more effective in terms of generating and suppressing high-risk opportunities for (HDCF%), which brings his HDCF% slightly above the 50% target line.
Interestingly, his High Risk Targets Percentage (HDGF%) is rather strong here, but that’s definitely driven by Caps’ on-ice save percentage when Sheary was on the ice.
Let’s take a look at HockeyViz’s isolated Sheary Impact Chart. This shows Sheary’s effect on xGF and xGA during pair power versus how caps perform with him off the ice:
Caps are slightly better offensively in terms of generating xGF/60 when Sheary is on ice versus off, but we’re talking about 0.05 xGF/60, which doesn’t move the needle a ton. It is greatly compensated by its defensive effect, increasing xGA / 60 by 5%.
This isn’t necessarily surprising, given everything we’ve written before, but there were definitely some defensive struggles when Sheary was on the ice. Part of that is getting the majority of his ice time on a line with Alex Ovechkin, who certainly does him no favors on the defensive end of the ice.
Now that we’ve mentioned the guys, let’s take a look at how Sheary performed with Ovechkin and Dylan Strome, with Strome but without Ovechkin, and Sheary without Ovechkin or Strome on a line:
Sheary placed his best work in terms of these major metric proportions with Ovechkin and Strome. This isn’t too surprising considering that line was the best offensive line the Caps had all season.
My biggest concern is Chery’s output without Strom or Ovechkin on his line. We see below-average results in all major categories, which makes you wonder if Sheary just got the better of playing Strome and Ovechkin.
Plus minus the average rate
Let’s take a look at Sheary’s Modified Plus-Minus Rate (RAPM) for this past season:
For me, this really resonates with the data we’ve presented throughout this post. Sheary is still effective offensively, which you can see with her above-substitution-level performance on the GF/60, xGF/60 and CF/60, but you can see a huge drop in her CA/60 and sub-substitution-level performance at xGA/60.
The worrying thing is how poor his defensive performance is, and his penchant for generating scoring chances offensively can offset that. The key to success in the NHL today is balance: you can’t completely ignore the defensive side of the game and go 100% to offense and vice versa.
Goals above substitution
Let’s take a look at Cherry’s Goals Above Replacement (GAR) and Expected Goals Above Replacement (xGAR) over the course of Cherry’s career:
Sheary has always been a valuable tackler over the course of his career, coming above replacement level every season since making his NHL debut in the 2015-16 season. Interestingly, Sheary’s worst xGAR performance came last season, creaking just above replacement value in that regard. What’s driving his value higher this season is his 4.8 Offensive GAR performance, but his -2.2 Defensive value pushes his overall value a little lower to the 3.5 we see in the chart above.
I don’t think we’ll magically see Sheary start posting positive values defensively unless the Caps can find two linemates for him who aren’t named Ovechkin or Strome.
Should the caps re-sign Sherry
In the off-season where we can see a huge change among the Capitals’ top six forwards, I’m not sure where Sheary would fit. With Wilson entering the 2023-24 season healthy, you have to expect Wilson to slot in the top row with Strome and Ovechkin. If McClellan hits his off-season goal of getting two of the top six forwards, this group is effectively full.
Sheary would be ideal for a third-line role, but the bottom six caps are full of potential players. You have to think the fourth line to start next season is etched in stone, with the lockout line being run by Alyaksi Protas, Nick Dodd and Nicholas Opp-Koppel. The third line will likely consist of TJ Oshie, Nicklas Backstrom, Sonny Milano or Connor McMichael.
Line combinations are obviously hard to predict ahead of a busy summer for MacLellan. With Sheary expected to have an Evolution Hockey contract (if he stays in Washington) on a 3-year deal with a cap up to $3.346 million, is Sheary a commodity you can afford to have two of the six best forwards in the fray? I’m not entirely sure there.
Now, if the Capitals can deliver one of the top six forward positions by way of a trade, I certainly wouldn’t mind bringing Sheary back. But, it’s possible Sheary will land a new contract in unrestricted free agency that the Caps don’t want to match.
By Justin Trudell