The Peerless Prognosticator is ON THE AIR!!!
'Twas the night before Thanksgiving, when all through the
city
Not a creature was stirring, not even the turkey
The stuffing was ready, the bird nice and plump,
With hopes that the gravy had nary a lump.
The children were nestled all snug in their beds,
While visions of mince pie danced in their heads.
And Feerless in his slippers, and I in my cap,
Had just settled our brains for a late autumn nap.
When out on the roof there arose such a clatter,
I sprang from my bed to see what was the matter.
Away to the window I flew like a flash,
Tore open the shutter, and threw up the sash.
The moon shining bright on a blanket of leaves
That I spent all day long trying hard to retrieve.
When, what to my wondering eyes should appear,
But a goofy lookin’ guy who was holding a beer.
With a big ol’ belt buckle, and one missing tooth,
He looked as if he’d been a taker in a highway toll booth.
His gait was unsteady, his eyes a bit glassy
He belched and he scratched, and he seemed a bit gassy.
"Now Fearless! Now Peerless!”
Sounding like a bullfrog.
With his hand on his hips he croaked,
“Hey! Get on with the blog!”
Leave it to Cheerless to get in the Thanksgiving spirit in
his own unique way. And speaking of
Thanksgiving, the Washington Capitals take the ice at Verizon Center to host
the Ottawa Senators in their traditional Turkey Day Eve contest, because
nothing says “Thanksgiving” like men on skates wielding sticks.
Be that as it may, the Senators come into this game in something
of a giving mood, themselves. They
arrive in Washington with a 1-4-0 record in their last five games, following up
their only win in this stretch – a 4-2 win in Detroit – with a thud, a 4-1 loss
to the Carolina Hurricanes.
Sometimes, losing four out of five is pretty simple to
explain. In this case, the Senators
cannot score (11 goals in five games) and cannot keep the other guys from
scoring (19 goals allowed). They cannot
hold a lead – twice in their four losses they scored first and took a lead into
the first intermission. They did passably
well in the first period (5-4 in goals scored/allowed), but they were killed in
the second and third periods, outscored by 8-1 in the second period and by a
7-5 margin in the third period of those five games.
On a team with Bobby Ryan and Jason Spezza, it might seem a
bit odd that over the five games Ottawa’s leading goal scorer would be Clarke
MacArthur, but there it is. MacArthur
has three goals in the five games, Kyle Turris with two, those being the only
goals the Senators scored in their 5-2 loss to Philadelphia on November 19th. Ryan and Spezza each have a goal in this
five-game slump.
The goaltending has been a mixed bag in the 1-4-0 run. On the one hand there is Craig Anderson. Talk about regression. Last season Anderson had a 1.69 goals against
average and a .941 save percentage. He
was the only goalie in the last 30 years to play in at least 24 games and have
a save percentage over .940 and a goals against average under 1.70. Nice while it lasted. This year he has a goals against average
almost double last year’s (3.31) and a save percentage of .900. He appeared twice in the 1-4-0 run, lost both
games, and saved only 39 of 47 shots faced (.830). He could not even point to having to face large
shot volumes.
Robin Lehner has fared better in this recent run. He has the lone win and has a .920 save
percentage in his three appearances in the Senators’ last five games. The trouble here, though, is that he faced
high shot volumes, a total of 113 in all and not less than 36 in any of his
three appearances. For the Senators
lately, it was one goalie who could not deal with the good fortune of low shot
volumes, and another performing well but asked to bear too large a burden in
doing so.
Technical issues keep us from presenting images so let's go to the Take 5 for each club...
Take 5 -- Ottawa
1. The oddest
statistic of all over the 1-4-0 stretch for the Senators might be that they
allowed goals in 13 of 15 periods. They scored at least one goal in eight of
them.
2. The Senators
struggled with possession over their 1-4-0 run.
At 5-on-5 their Corsi-for percentage is 47.7, while their Fenwick-for
percentage is 47.9. But, with small
sample sizes come odd results. Ottawa
was over 60 percent Corsi-for at 5-on-5 and over 56 percent in Fenwick in a 4-3
trick shot loss to Minnesota. In their
lone win, the numbers were 37.3 percent Corsi-for and 39.2 percent Fenwick-for.
3. The Senators find
themselves behind the eight-ball early and often. Only two teams have allowed more first period
goals than the Senators (27). Only three
teams have allowed the first goal of the game more often than Ottawa (16
times), and they are 4-9-3 in those games.
4. Once upon a time,
the Senators were a high-flying, high-octane bunch. Back in 2005-2006 the Senators had Daniel
Alfredsson, Dany Heatley, and Jason Spezza all finish with more than 90
points. The following year only Heatley
had more than 90 points, but Alfredsson and Spezza were close with 87 apiece. That team went to the Stanley Cup finals. This team is different. Ottawa is second in the league in hits. That
might be a subjective statistic, but penalties are not, and the Senators have
been whistled for more minor penalties than any other club, and no team has
found itself shorthanded more often than Ottawa (107).
5. Only one team in
the league has outshot its opponents less frequently than Ottawa. The Senators accomplished that feat only six
times in 24 games with a 2-4-0 record.
Buffalo is 0-3-0 in three instances.
Take 5 -- Washington
1. As any Caps fan
knows by now, if Alex Ovechkin gets seven goals in his next five games, he will
accomplish a unique “50-in-50” – 50 goals in 50 games, “The Ovechkin Run.” Lost in the discussion is that if he does it,
he will have passed Mike Gartner to jump into second place in goals scored in
franchise history. Gartner had 397
career goals with the Caps, Ovechkin has 391.
He certainly could make a dent in that effort against Ottawa; he has 19
goals in 29 career games against the Senators.
2. Odd even-strength
stat… At 5-on-5 overall the Caps have the 14th best save percentage
in the league. Take that down a level,
to 5-on-5 close situations, and the Caps are tied for 23rd in save
percentage.
3. Do power plays
matter? In November, perhaps not so much. The Caps are 4-1-1 when scoring a power play
goal in November, 3-2-1 when they did not.
4. How about killing
penalties. Maybe not here, either. The Caps are 3-1-0 when killing off all of
their shorthanded situations in November, 4-2-2 when they do not.
5. Now, 5-on-5? That matters in November so far. The Caps are 6-0-2 in games in which they
were even or plus at 5-on-5, 1-3-0 in games in which they were on the minus
side of 5-on-5.
The Peerless’ Players to Ponder
Ottawa: Bobby Ryan
When the Ottawa Senators traded Jakob Silfverberg and Stefan
Noesen to Anaheim for Bobby Ryan, the Senators were getting a player with a
30-goal pedigree, having topped that mark in each of his four full seasons in
the NHL. He had a bit of a hiccup last
season with 11 goals in 46 games (a 20-goal pace), but when he started this
season with 10 goals in his first 19 games he was back on pace for another
30-plus goal season (43 goals, actually).
However, in this 1-4-0 run the Senators are on, Ryan has only one goal,
although it was the game-winner in Ottawa’s 4-2 win over Detroit last
week. Part of it is getting shots to the
net. Over his first 19 games Ryan had 54
shots on goal (2.84/game), but in his last five games he has only ten shots on
goal and was held off the shots score sheet for the only time this season
Ottawa’s 4-3 loss to Minnesota a week ago.
He is 3-2-5, minus-4 in five career games against the Caps.
Washington: Brooks Laich
Brooks Laich played in all 82 games of the 2011-2012 season,
just as he did in 2010-2011, 2008-2009, and 2007-2008. He established himself as a reasonably reliable
second-tier scorer whose value to the team was as much his versatility as it
was his scoring. Last year, though, he
was limited to nine games as a result of injury during the lockout. Putting that together with his 24 games
played this season, Laich is 4-5-9, minus-8 in his last 33 games. That is a 10-12-22, minus-20 per-82 game
pace. It is also not what the Caps had
in mind when Laich signed a six-year/27 million contract extension with the
club in June 2011. With Martin Erat’s
future with the club now in question, the spotlight shines a bit more brightly
on Laich as a secondary scorer and reliable defender. He has been neither so far this season, but
if the Caps are going to have meaningful games in April, May, and (one hopes)
June, he will have to become both once again.
He is 5-9-14, plus-1 in 26 games against Ottawa over his career.
Keys:
1. Hit the ice
skating. Too often the Caps start slow
and find themselves having to claw back into games. It makes for long games with a lot of effort
expended making up deficits.
2. Seal off the blue
line. Everyone knows that Erik Karlsson
is a talented offensive defenseman for the Senators. But Ottawa has five defensemen with at least
five points this season (the Cap have three).
Patrick Wiercioch and Chris Phillips do not have any goals, but they
have 15 assists between them. Ottawa has
an active blue line.
3. Make the blue line
play defense. Part of dealing with the
blue line is making them accountable in their own end. The Senators have allowed 35.8 shots per
game. Only Buffalo has allowed more. If
forced to defend, Ottawa struggles.
In the end…
The Caps are looking to avoid their first four-game losing
streak since starting the 2012-2013 season 0-3-1. That should be motivation enough, but making
things more interesting is the fact that four teams are within four points of
the Caps for second place behind Pittsburgh in the Metropolitan Division. After climbing out of the 2-5-0 hole they dug
to open the season to go 10-3-1 in their next 14 games, extending the losing
streak to four games would undo a lot of good work done to get themselves into
second place in the division. Against a
team that has struggled over much of the season and that has issues in its own
end, there is no excuse for the Caps heading into Thanksgiving with a bad taste
in their mouths.
Capitals 5 – Senators 2
Note: We will be away from the blog
until Sunday fulfilling our holiday duties, so have a happy Thanksgiving everybody.
