The Peerless Prognosticator is ON THE AIR!!!
The Washington Capitals return home Thursday night to face
the Columbus Blue Jackets. The Caps are
back at Verizon Center after completing a perfect three-for-three road trip
over three Eastern Conference opponents: the Carolina Hurricanes, New Jersey
Devils, and Tampa Bay Lightning. In the
three wins the Caps outscored their opponents, 11-5, sported a 33.3 percent
power play (although it was two goals on just six opportunities), and a perfect
penalty kill on five shorthanded situations faced. At no point in any of the three games did the
Caps trail, and they “won” five of the nine periods of hockey, playing even in
the other four. It would be hard to draw
up a better road trip than that.
As for the Blue Jackets, all of a sudden they are relevant
once more. A team that started well
(4-2-0), then stumbled badly (2-13-2 in their next 17 games), the Blue Jackets
come to Verizon Center winners in their last four games. They won the state of Florida, beating the
Panthers in a home-and-home before dispatching the Lightning last
Saturday. Then they beat Philadelphia on
Tuesday in overtime for their 10th win of the season.
On an individual level, the standout in this four-game
streak has been Boone Jenner. He had
single goals in each win to give him five on the season. Jenner had not shown any special tendency to
goal scoring, having totaled 17 in 84 games before this breakout. He has not yet scored a goal against the
Caps, but he does have three assists in four career games.
Seven other Blue Jackets have a single goal as part of the
four-game winning streak, but Kerby Rychel leads the team in helpers with three
in those four games. The four games constitute
the entirety of his NHL career to date, having only been called up to the big
club less than two weeks ago. Rychel, a
19th overall draft pick in 2013, will be meeting the Caps for the
first time.
Sergei Bobrovsky had a bumpy start to the season, a 5-8-1, 2.95,
.907 record in his first 14 appearances and a stint on the injured reserve list
with a fractured finger sustained in practice.
He was the goalie of record in each of the four wins in the recent
winning streak and posted excellent numbers in the process, a 1.70 goals
against average and a .948 save percentage.
Here is how the teams compare overall:
1. In their four-game
winning streak Columbus has eight goals scored at 5-on-5. Even with that mini-burst, the Blue Jackets
rank 29th in goals scored at 5-on-5 (37).
2. On the other hand,
through Tuesday’s games, no team scored more 5-on-4 goals than the Blue Jackets
(22, tied with Detroit). Part of that is
a good power play (23.0 percent, fifth in the league), but part of it, too, is
getting chances. Columbus is tied for
sixth in total power play opportunities (100).
3. If the Caps have
had their issues with scoring third period goals (and they have), Columbus has
issues on steroids. The Blue Jackets
have scored only 16 third period goals this season, tied with Winnipeg for last
in the league.
4. That third period
goal scoring makes for a ghastly goal differential (minus-22), because no team
in the league has allowed more third period goals than the Blue Jackets (38,
tied with Dallas).
5. This game could
turn on which team scores first, or more accurately, which one allows the first
goal. Columbus is 29th in the league in
winning percentage when allowing the first goal (.071/1-12-1), while the Caps
are 28th (.077/1-9-3).
1. Coming off that
last Columbus random fact, the Caps have the third best winning percentage
(.857/12-1-1) when scoring first and are tied for the fifth highest number of
wins (12).
2. Washington had a
one-goal win, a two-goal win, and a three-goal win on the road trip. That lifted them to 22nd (.375/6-6-4), a tie
for 11th (.600/3-2), and a tie for 7th (.667/4-2) in winning percentage for
each category of win.
3. Washington is one
of five teams this season to have scored at least one 5-on-3 power play goal
but not to have allowed one. Chicago,
Tampa Bay, Pittsburgh, and Minnesota are the others.
4. The Caps were
outshot in all three of their wins on the just-completed road trip. Might have been a good thing. The Caps are 27th in winning percentage when
outshooting their opponent (.333/5-7-3).
5. The Caps have no
participated in a trick shot competition since Game 5, a 3-2 win over
Florida. At the time, it was their third
freestyle competition in their first five games. By the time the Caps reached Game 28 last
season (the game they play on Thursday) they had eight Gimmick decisions,
posting a 6-2 record in them.
The Peerless’ Players to Ponder
Columbus: Nick Foligno
Ryan Johansen had a lot of drama attached to his contract
situation before the season got underway, and he is generally considered, if
not Columbus’ best player, then in sight of that target. But here is Nick Foligno, 26 games into the
season, leading the Blue Jackets in goals (11) and in the midst of a
productive, if a bit odd season. Foligno
opened the season with points in his first six games (3-6-9), then went three
games without one. Since Game 10,
though, he is 8-7-15 and recording points on generally an every-other-game
basis (literally, over his last ten contests).
What might be a bit odd for a team-leader in goals, Foligno does not yet
have a game-winner this season (let’s hope that continues one more game). He is 2-7-9 in 19 career games against
Washington.
Washington: Nate Schmidt
In a development that Caps fans might not have expected, at
least until it become clear Dmitry Orlov would not be able to answer the bell
for the start of the 2014-2015 season, Nate Schmidt has played in each of the
Caps’ 27 games to date. Marc Staal (33),
Zbynek Michalek (35), Jonathan Ericsson (34), Andrej Sekera (33), Zach Bogosian
(50), Andy Greene (34), and Kris Russell (41) are the only defensemen having
taken more shots than Schmidt (31) without yet finding the back of the net. He has been solid in a somewhat sheltered
role (14 minutes a night and generally paired with Mike Green, when the latter
is healthy). What he has not done is try
to play outside his comfort zone, and that has helped him avoid mistakes
leading to goals, as his plus-4 suggests.
He is 0-1-1 in three career games against Columbus.
In the end…
This will be an interesting test. The Caps have a so-so home record (5-5-3,
fifth-best in the Metropolitan Division) and would like to get off on the right
foot in an abbreviated two-game home stand.
Then there is the fact that like the Tampa Bay Lightning, who the Caps
beat on Tuesday and play again on Saturday, the Caps face the Blue Jackets in
this game, then travel to Columbus next Thursday in a rematch. It is an opportunity to make a statement as
to the pecking order of teams in the Metro, one that involves the Blue Jackets
looking up at the Capitals.
Capitals 4 – Blue Jackets 2
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