The Peerless Prognosticator is ON THE AIR!!!
The Washington Capitals take the ice on Tuesday night at
Verizon Center in a Magnificent Metro Matchup as the Columbus Blue Jackets come
to town to celebrate Veterans Day in the U.S.
It is a little known fact that the “Blue Jackets” almost did not become
the name of the franchise. That’s
right. When Columbus was awarded an NHL
franchise, the name came down to two candidates, “Blue Jackets” and “Justice.” Really?
Could you imagine a Columbus logo that looked like this?*...
Almost looks like that dumpy skating penguin the team just
up the road in Pennsylvania has.
As for the Blue Jackets, meet a dangerous team, a good team
with the desperation that an eight-game losing streak brings to the ice. Columbus has not won a game since beating the
San Jose Sharks, 5-4, on October 23rd. What does such a losing streak look like?
- Since their last win, the Blue Jackets are 0-7-1
- They have been outscored, 35-16
- Six times they have allowed four or more goals; seven times they have scored two goals or fewer
- Four of the losses have come by three or more goals
- In eight games they have held a lead for a total of 62:25
- They have held leads only five times, three of them coming when they scored the game’s first goal
- They have a respectable 9-for-38 power play (23.7 percent), but they have more than given it away with a 25-for-36 penalty kill (69.4 percent)
Columbus has been decimated by injuries, but part of their
recent woes is that their scoring is very unbalanced. Two players – Scott Hartnell and Nick Foligno
– scored nine of the team’s 15 goals over their eight-game skid. Only one other player has more than one goal –
Cam Atkinson.
Hartnell is a player that Caps fans will remember for his
seven years as a Philadelphia Flyer. Seven
was apparently enough for Hartnell, who waived a no-move clause after the first
year of a six-year contract to be moved to Columbus for R.J. Umberger last June.
The move has agreed with him. With 14
points in 14 games (5-9-14), Hartnell is the Blue Jacket’s third leading
scorer, and not to leave his Flyer days behind him entirely, he has 23 penalty
minutes, also third on the team. All five
of his goals have come over Columbus’ eight-game losing streak. In 33 career games against Washington, he is
11-11-22, plus-6, with 42 penalty minutes.
Nick Foligno is the other big scorer, as it were, during
this eight-game slide. Four of his
team-leading seven goals have been scored in the losing streak. No Blue Jacket forward has been on ice for
more goals-for than Foligno thus far (22 of the team’s 36 goals), despite his
having missed one game, that on Hallowe’en against Toronto to an upper-body
injury. Foligno is 2-7-9, plus-4 in 18
career games against Washington.
One thing the Blue Jackets have not had, either in this
losing streak or for the season to date, is scoring from the blue line. Defensemen account for only three of the team’s
36 goals, only two of the 15 in the eight-game losing streak, those coming from
David Savard and Tim Erixon. Savard is
the only Blue Jacket defenseman with as many as two goals (2-3-5), but that
comes with a price. His minus-8 is
second worst among Columbus defenseman, and only Jack Johnson among that group
has been on ice for more goals (26) against than Savard (18). He has yet to record a point in three career
games against the Caps.
Here is how the teams compare, numbers-wise:
1. Columbus ranks
dead last in scoring defense. They do
not come upon it accidentally. Their
team save percentage of .886 is also dead last in the league.
2. Only Edmonton (6) and
Buffalo (7) have more losses by three or more goals than Columbus (5); only
Buffalo and Florida (each with none) have fewer wins by three or more goals
than the Blue Jackets (1).
3. Columbus sure can
draw penalties, though. Only Detroit and
Colorado (each with 59) have had more power play opportunities than the Blue
Jackets (58).
4. When opponents
shoot, those shots get through against the Blue Jackets. Columbus ranks 23rd in shots
against per game (31.9), while they have the fewest blocked shots per game
overall and fifth fewest blocked shots per game. The Blue Jackets have the fourth-largest
ratio of shots on goal to blocked shots.
5. Columbus is being
eaten up in possession during their eight-game losing streak. At 5-on-5 their Corsi-for percentage is 45.40. It is worse in 5-on-5 close
situations (42.12 percent). They have been outshot at 5-on-5 in seven of
eight games (even in an eighth) and are -36 in shots taken/shots allowed.
1. The Caps are
eighth in the league and fourth in the Eastern Conference in Corsi-for
percentage at 5-on-5 (52.30 percent). They are even better in close-score situations
(sixth with 53.76 percent).
2. The Caps have the
second best power play in the league. It
is a pity they do not get to play with it more often. Only six teams have fewer power play
opportunities overall than Washington (45).
The odd thing about it is that the Caps have very different profiles,
home and road. While Washington has only
14 power play opportunities in six road games (2.33/game), they have had 31
opportunities in eight games at home (3.88/game).
3. Odd stat… no team
has more extra time losses (three) when outshooting their opponent than the
Caps. Given that the Caps have outshot
their opponents 11 times in 14 games, this is not necessarily surprising.
4. Alex Ovechkin has
seven assists in his last five games. It
is the most he has had over a five-game span since November 24 – December 2,
2010 when he had seven over five games. The
last time he had more over a five game span was from November 3 – 11, 2010
(eight assists).
5. The Caps have
scored more goals over the first and second periods of games (34) than all but
two teams – Pittsburgh (41) and Tampa Bay (37).
That third period, though. Only
Buffalo, Florida, and Winnipeg have fewer than the nine goals scored by the
Caps.
The Peerless’ Players to Ponder
Columbus: Curtis McElhinney
When Columbus goaltender Sergei Bobrovsky went down with a
broken finger in a practice session in late October, the Blue Jackets lost
arguably their most valuable player.
Even though he was not off to the fastest of starts (4-4-0, 2.81, .908),
he was a Vezina Trophy winner (2013) who had a .926 overall save percentage
over the past two seasons. His absence
presented an opportunity for backup Curtis McElhinney. The journeyman (Columbus is his fifth team in
seven NHL seasons) has been struggling with his chance. In five appearances since Bobrovsky went
down, McElhinney has an 0-4-1 win-loss record with a 3.62 goals against average
and a .890 save percentage. What he has
done is improve in his role. In those
five appearances he has allowed progressively fewer goals (5-4-3-3, and then
two in 38 minutes of relief in a 7-4 loss to Tampa last Saturday). His save percentage has been .909 or better
in his last three appearances, .914 overall.
He is 44th among 50 qualifying goaltenders in save percentage
at even strength (.902). He has one
career appearance against the Capitals.
It did not go well.
Washington: Jay Beagle
With Brooks Laich and Tom Wilson nursing injuries, there is
bound to be some shakeup on the forward lines.
What we saw in the 4-3 win over Carolina on Saturday after Wilson went
down was Jay Beagle getting time on the top line with Nicklas Backstrom and
Alex Ovechkin. The lines at practice on Monday suggested this could be a thing against the Blue Jackets on Tuesday
night. Beagle’s pedigree does not suggest “first line forward.” Since coming into
the league in 2008-2009 Beagle is 14-14-28 in 201 career games, and there are
31 defensemen over that span who have as good or better shooting percentages
than Beagle’s 6.3 percent in that many or more games. However, he is an earnest sort who can give
the Caps another credible faceoff option on the top line.
In the end…
You really don’t want to be the team that is the victim of a
team ending a long losing streak, especially at home. There is little that Columbus is doing right
these days from the net out in all directions.
Not that the Caps are hitting on all cylinders, but they do seem to be
coming out of that five-game funk that they were in as October rolled into
November. In an odd way, this will prove
a decent test for Caps goaltending, likely to be the responsibility of Braden
Holtby. The Blue Jackets have one game
in their eight-game losing streak in which they scored more than two goals, and
that was against Evgeny Nabokov, who is Tampa Bay’s backup these days. If the Caps cannot clamp down on an opponent
such as this, then there are still issues.
We think, as you suspect if you read this space, they will put the
clamps on the Blue Jackets.
Capitals 4 – Blue Jackets 1
* William Howard
Taft, Ohio native who became Chief Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court and the
only person in U.S. history to serve as both Chief Justice and President of the
United States.
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