The Peerless Prognosticator is ON THE AIR!!!
Someday, the Washington Capitals will win a hockey game once
more. The air will smell fresher, the
beer will taste colder, and happiness will reign. For now, however, we are left to grumble over
stale beer in a room filling with the smoke of a season being burned away. The Caps lost their seventh straight game and
11th in their last 13 contests last night, a 2-1 loss to the New
Jersey Devils in Newark.
Devils games are largely uneventful by design. Patience, counterpunching, taking advantage
of scarce opportunities, strangling the life out of an opponent quietly and
efficiently, it was all on display last night.
The teams combined for only 89 shot attempts in 60 minutes, making the
shot totals – 31 for the Caps, 30 for the Devils – seem misleading in terms of
the level of action.
Cory Schneider stopped 30 of the 31 shots he faced to even
his win-loss record at 9-9-7. He was as sharp
as he needed to be, allowing only a Jason Chimera deflection of a John Erskine
shot midway through the third period after the Devils scored their two goals.
The first of those goals came on a Stephen Gionta shot almost
five minutes into the contest that goalie Michal Neuvirth seemed to have pinned
to his right side, but the puck trickled out and over the goal line just before
Neuvirth was run over in his crease by Ryan Carter. The second goal came at the end of some
pretty passing down low on a power play, Travis Zajac moving the puck from the
top of the left wing circle to Jaromir Jagr skating through the circle toward
the Capitals’ goal line. As the defense converged on Jagr, he slid the puck
across the slot to Adam Henrique standing alone at the far post. Henrique gladly accepted the gift and buried
the puck behind Neuvirth for what would be the game-winning goal.
Other stuff…
-- We mentioned opportunism.
There it was on the first Devils goal.
A pass by Martin Erat to Dmitry Orlov high in the Devils’ zone was a bit
in Orlov’s skates, and the defenseman did not receive the puck cleanly. When Orlov overskated the puck, there was
Gionta to bat the puck forward to Jagr, who returned it to Gionta exiting the
defensive zone. From there it was just a
matter of finishing as Gionta had speed and position to skate in and fire the
shot that eluded Neuvirth.
-- In three of the last four games the Caps failed to score
a power play goal while allowing at least one to the opposition. Last night it was 0-for-3 with the man
advantage, 4-for-5 killing penalties.
They lost by one goal. Do the
math.
-- The oh-fer on the power play makes it 1-for-24 over their
last eight games over which the Caps are 1-5-2.
-- One goal scored makes it 15 times in 51 games in which
the Caps have scored one or fewer goals.
On their seven-game losing streak it has happened six times.
-- The losing streak is hiding something positive. While the Caps have allowed 19 goals in that
span, four times they themselves allowed two or fewer goals, including their
last two games.
-- On the other hand the Caps are 3-for-117 shooting the
puck in their last four games (2.6 percent).
-- For Jagr, the magical winter of his career
continues. The two-point night was his
second in five games, and he has six points in his last five games, the same
number of total goals scored by the Caps.
-- Not that the Caps didn’t have their chances in this one…
two chances from in close in the first shortly after the Gionta goal that
Schneider had to expend great effort to stop, three shots in short succession
on a Caps power play in the second, any of which might have made the game more
interesting had one of them gone in.
In the end…
Pucks going in are rare and special for the Caps at the
moment. In their last 430 minutes of
hockey covering seven games, the Caps have eight goals on 210 shots (3.8
percent shooting). It is wasting some
decent defense and goaltending, only 12 even strength goals allowed in those
seven straight losses. It is something,
perhaps the only thing at the moment, that they can take into their game this
evening against Montreal at Bell Centre…
…where the Canadiens are having problems of their own. Montreal has lost three in a row and looked
grim doing it, getting outscored by a 14-5 margin. It is part of a longer trend in which the
Habs are 4-6-2 over their last dozen games.
It has not yet wreaked serious damage on their place in the
standings – the Canadiens are third in the Atlantic Division with a 27-19-5
record. There are, however, teams on
their tail. Toronto is tied in standings
points (59) in fourth place, while the Detroit Red Wings, getting desperate to
keep their playoff season string going, are just three points behind Montreal
in fifth place. Even Ottawa, which seems
to be finding their stride, is just five points back and is 6-1-3 in their last
ten games.
1. In losing four of
their last five games the Canadiens’ penalty kill has been lacking. They are just 12-for-17 (70.6) and allowed at
least one power play goal in each of the four losses.
2. Offense has been a
problem for Montreal almost as much as it has been for the Caps. Over their last eight games the Canadiens
scored 16 goals, five of those coming in a 5-4 overtime win over Ottawa on
January 16th.
3. Penalty killing is
not the only problem for Montreal. The
Canadiens are that rare team these days that has a worse 5-on-5 goals
scored/goals allowed ratio than the Caps.
Their 0.83 ratio ranks 26th in the league.
4. What the Canadiens
do fairly well to mitigate their 5-on-5 problems is minimize chances, but even
here it is just a matter of degree.
While they rank 26th in 5-on-5 goal ratio, they rank 19th
in even strength shots on goal allowed.
5. If possession
statistics mean anything, and if those numbers in 5-on-5 close score situations
are strong indicators of team success, one wonders how Montreal is doing as
well as they are. The Canadiens rank 26th
in the league in Corsi-for percentage in those situations, 24th in
Fenwick-for percentge.
1. On 32 occasions in
51 games this season the Caps have scored three or fewer goals. Their record is 6-19-6. They have only two wins in regulation when
scoring three or fewer goals.
2. Odd fact… No
Metropolitan Division team has a losing record against the Atlantic
Division. No, not even the Caps, who
are 6-4-4 against the Atlantic.
3. Only three teams –
Ottawa, Philadelphia, and Edmonton – have allowed more shorthanded goals than
the Caps (6).
4. In three
appearances since his epic struggle against Minnesota on January 4th,
Braden Holtby has a goals against average of 2.16 and a save percentage of
.924. Those number come in only 139
minutes, but one has to start somewhere.
5. How bad has the
Caps luck been on this seven-game losing streak? They have been at 50 percent or better in
Corsi-for percentage in 5-on-5 close score situations, just as they have been
in Fenwick-for percentage. Overall their
Corsi-for percentage in those games is 52.2 percent, 51.9 percent
Fenwick-for. They have been outscored in
those situations, though, 8-3.
In the end…
One gets the feeling it is going to be a fluke, something on
the order of that goal Detroit scored a short while back that hit the netting
behind the goal, fell, hit the goalie in the back and caromed into the
net. Maybe it will be a shot that
deflects off an official, hits the goalie in the mask and tumbles into the
net. Maybe it will be an opponent
shooting the puck into his own net while skating on a delayed penalty to the
Caps.
They sure could use the help.
Capitals 3 – Canadiens 2
