The Peerless Prognosticator is ON THE AIR!!!
The Washington Capitals wrap up the road portion of their
2014-2015 season on Sunday afternoon in Detroit against the Red Wings at Joe
Louis Arena. The Caps will be coming
back on less than a full-day’s rest after their 4-3 overtime loss to the Ottawa
Senators on Saturday night. The Red
Wings will be doing the same after they bested the Minnesota Wild, 3-2, in a
Gimmick.
The Red Wings come into this game in the midst of a long
slow bleed of air out of their balloon.
Since March 6th, Detroit is 5-9-2, and frankly, there is not
much secret where the problem lies.
Detroit is surrendering far too many goals, 52 of them over those 16
games. At the wrong time of year,
goaltending has become an issue. In the
5-9-2 run, three Detroit goaltenders – Jimmy Howard, Petr Mrazek, and Jonas
Gustavsson – have combined for a goals against average of 3.07, a save
percentage of .895, and each of them was relieved once from a game.
It has made for an unsettled situation in which is not clear
if Jimmy Howard is going to be “the man” between the pipes heading into the
post season. Howard has had an odd
season when compared to last. He has
appeared in 51 games this season, the same number in which he appeared in
2013-2014. His record looks very similar
to last year’s:
- 2013-2014: 21-19-11, 2.42, .910 (ES save percentage: .920), 2 shutouts
- 2014-2015: 22-13-10, 2.66, .911 (ES save percentage: .919, 2 shutouts
Last season, Howard closed with a rush, winning four of his
last five appearances and stopping 121 of 131 shots. This season he is stumbling to the
finish. He is 3-1-2, 3.37, .876 in seven
career appearances against Washington.
The offense has been a bit off, a shortcoming magnified by
the goals allowed. In the 5-9-2 run
Detroit has 43 goals (2.69/game). What
they are lacking is contributions from those expected to make them. Their leading goal scorer this season – Tomas
Tatar (28) – has four goals in his last 22 games. The leading point-getter – Henrik Zetterberg
(62) – is 1-5-6 over his last ten games.
Then there is Pavel Datsyuk.
His problem is not production as much as it is health. He played in only nine of the 16 games in the
5-9-2 run. We was 3-6-9 in those games,
a point-per-game pace consistent with his production for the season (60 points
in 60 games).
If there has been something close to a constant for the Red
Wings on offense it has been Gustav Nyquist.
After last year’s coming out party for the former fourth-round draft
pick (28 goals in 57 games), Nyquist has 26 goals this season, second on the
club. He has five of those goals in the
recent Red Wing 16-game slide, about his season average per game (0.33), and
has assisted on four others. There has,
however, been an odd change in his goal scoring profile from last year to
this. Last season his 28 goals included
22 at even strength and six on the power play.
This year, Nyquist’s power play production has more than doubled, to 14
goals, but his even strength output has been cut nearly in half, to 12
goals. He is 5-3-8, plus-2, in five
career games against the Capitals.
Here is how the teams compare overall…
1. No team has scored
more power play goals on home ice than the Red Wings (39), in no small part a
product of the fact that only Dallas has more power play opportunities on home
ice (158) than Detroit (148).
2. Special teams get
a workout on the Joe Louis Arena ice sheet.
The Red Wings have the third-highest number of shorthanded situations
faced on home ice (138), trailing only Pittsburgh (139) and Winnipeg (151).
3. Scoring first is
almost always a good thing, but Detroit has an odd record in this regard. The Red Wings rank 24th in winning
percentage when scoring first (.5909/23-8-8), but they rank third in winning
percentage when allowing the first goal (.462/18-16-5).
4. Sixteen different
Red Wings have at least one power play goal this season (by way of comparison,
the Caps have 12 players with at least one power play goal).
5. Even though the
Red Wings have been struggling over the last month in wins and losses, they
remain a possession monster. At 5-on-5
overall, their Corsi-for percentage over their 5-9-2 run is 54.1; their
Fenwick-for percentage is 53.2 percent.
Their corresponding close score percentages are 53.6/53.3 (numbers from war-on-ice.com).
1. Washington’s
overtime loss was their first in the five-minute extra session in more than two
months. The last time they dropped a game
in the overtime was on January 31st, a 1-0 overtime loss to
Montreal.’
2. The two 5-on-3
power play goals allowed by the Caps against Ottawa were twice as many as they
had allowed all season.
3. Perhaps the loss
to Ottawa was preordained. The Caps have
lost five games in the extra period when trailing at the first intermission
five times this season. Only four teams
have more, each with six such losses.
4. The Caps losing in
overtime to Ottawa dropped their record to 4-13-5 when trailing after the first
period, the ninth-worst winning percentage in the league (.182).
5. Washington has
struggled some in possession on the road recently. In their last 13 road games the Caps have
been over 50 percent Corsi-for at 5-on-5, close score situations, only four
times and over 50 percent in Fenwick-for percentage five times. Overall, their numbers in those 13 games are
49.0/48.3, respectively (numbers from war-on-ice.com).
The Peerless’ Players to Ponder
Detroit: Justin Abdelkader
Of the 43 goals scored by the Red Wings in their recent 5-9-2
slide, Justin Abdelkader has nine of them and has assisted on three others,
factoring into almost 28 percent of the goals scored by Detroit in those 16
games. He has two streaks of at least
three games with a goal embedded in that run as well. It is part of a season in which Abdelkader
has shattered his previous career high in goals – he has 23; he had tenin each
of his previous two seasons. He also has
a career high in points (44), far eclipsing the 28 points he recorded last
season. He has a knack for scoring in
close score situations, 18 of his 23 goals coming when the Wings are trailing
by a goal, tied, or leading by a goal.
And, five of those goals are game-winners. Abdelkader is 3-2-5, minus-3, in 11 career
games against Washington.
Washington: Nicklas Backstrom
Quietly – who would have expected otherwise – Nicklas Backstrom
is looking as if he might be at the start of piecing together a nice little
scoring run. Sure, it seems sometimes as
if he might not ever score a goal of his own again – he has not had one in his
last 20 games and missed on a couple of excellent chances against Ottawa on
Saturday – but he has assists in three of his last four games and has regained
the league lead in assists (57) from Philadelphia’s Jakub Voracek (56). Even with the goal drought, Backstrom is
sixth overall in scoring (75 points). If
there is something there that suggests a breakout might be coming it is that he
has been such a consistent point-per-game player over his career. He has 569 points in 574 career games, five
points short of that point-per-game mark.
Perhaps not coincidentally, he has his 75 points this season in 79 games,
four points short of the mark. Backstrom
is 2-8-10, minus-2, in ten career games against Detroit.
In the end…
Washington faces another desperate team on Sunday, this one
trying to hold a three-point lead in the wild card race, not make up the three
point deficit that Ottawa had on Saturday.
It is odd to be using the term “desperate” in reference to the Red
Wings, but they are in jeopardy of missing the post season for the first time
in 24 seasons and the third time since Ronald Reagan’s first term as
President. Nine players having dressed
for the Wings this season were not yet born the last time Detroit missed the
post season.
On the other side, the Caps are on the cusp of returning to
the post season after a one-year absence.
That last few strides to the finish line could prove to be the most
difficult. Washington closes the season
with these Red Wings, then wrap up the regular season at home against Boston (a
team in Detroit’s position trying to hang on to a wild card spot) and the
Rangers, who might want to send a message in the season finale and atone for
the 5-2 pasting the Caps put on them in their last meeting.
Nothing has yet been earned, and for all intents and
purposes the Capitals are already playing teams in playoff mode. They need to match the effort.
Capitals 4 – Red Wings 3
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