The Peerless Prognosticator is ON THE AIR!!!
The Washington Capitals embark on what amounts to “Reunion
Week,” kicking off a two game road trip that will take them to Detroit to face
the Red Wings and former Caps defenseman Mike Green on Tuesday and then to
Philadelphia on Thursday where they could face former Caps netminder Michal
Neuvirth.
First up is Washington’s first visit to Motown of the
season. It will be the 108th
meeting of the clubs, all-time, and the Caps are 44-44-16-3 against the Red
Wings in their first 107 meetings.
Washington is 17-22-11-3 when visiting Detroit, but they have had recent
success at Joe Louis Arena. In their
last four visits to The Joe, Washington is 3-0-1. The Caps have been successful on the road so
far this season overall as well, going to Detroit with a 4-1-0 record away from
Verizon Center.
The Caps started their road season in dominating fashion,
winning their first three games and outscoring their opponents – Calgary,
Edmonton, and Vancouver – by a 16-8 margin in the process. Their last two road contests have not
featured much in the way of fireworks, the Caps scoring two goals in each game
and splitting the decisions, a 2-1 overtime win over the Florida Panthers and a
5-2 loss to the New York Rangers.
The 20 goals scored on the road by the Caps are shared by
nine players. Evgeny Kuznetsov leads the
club with four scores, three of them coming on a hat trick in a 7-4 win over
Edmonton on October 23rd.
Kuznetsov also leads the club in points on the road with ten.
On the other side, the Red Wings are having their struggles
at home. Their 4-1 loss to the Dallas
Stars on Sunday dropped their home record to 3-4-0 this season. They have been outscored on home ice by a
17-15 margin, but this is a bit misleading.
Detroit won their first two home contests by a combined 7-1 margin. They are 1-4-0 since and have been outscored,
16-8.
Overall, Henrik Zetterberg has had a hand in almost half of
the goals scored by the Red Wings at home.
He is 2-5-7 for the Wings on home ice.
He is 4-11-15 overall, and he has not been held without a point in
consecutive games so far this season.
Given that he was held without a point in the Red Wings’ loss to Dallas
on Sunday, the Caps will have an opportunity to end that streak for Zetterberg. In 14 career games against the Caps, he is 5-6-11,
minus-1.
Justin Abdelkader and Gustav Nyquist are the goal scoring
leaders for the Wings on home ice with three apiece. Unfortunately for Detroit fans, that
production came early in the Wings’ home season. Abdelkader recorded all three of his goals in
authoring a hat trick on Opening Night against the Toronto Maple Leafs, going 3-for-3 shooting that night. In six home games since he is 0-for-12
shooting and did not record a shot on goal against Dallas on Sunday. Abdelkader is 3-2-5, minus-3, in 11 career
games against Washington.
Nyquist leads the team in goals overall (6), but his production
at home has fallen off. He had goals in
two of his first three home games, but he has just one in his last one in his
last four. That one was the only goal in
the Wings’ 4-1 loss to Dallas on Sunday.
Unfortunately, that goal was accompanied by a minus-3 (his goal was on a
power play). It was only the second time
in 193 NHL games that he was a minus-3 in a game and the first time at home. In six career games against Washington,
Nyquist is 5-3-8, plus-2.
Goaltending has not been the problem for Detroit, either at
home or in general. Jimmy Howard and
Petr Mrazek have split the minutes rather evenly so far, 432 for Mrazek and 405
for Howard. Combined, they are tending
goal to a 2.22 goals against average and a .930 save percentage. It is even better at home where the goals
against average is 1.89 for the two combined while sustaining a .930 save
percentage. If past is prolougue, Jimmy
Howard could get the nod in this game.
Six of his seven appearances have come at home, where he is 3-3-0, 1.93,
.922, with one shutout. He did leave
Sunday’s game in the third period with a head injury, but he was reported to
have not been subjected to concussion protocol.
Here is how the teams compare overall:
1. Clearly, the Red
Wings miss Pavel Datsyuk. The 13-year
veteran has yet to dress this season after undergoing off-season ankle
surgery. He is said to be “close” to areturn, but it will not likely be for this game.
Datsyuk is the leader among active Red Wings in career games played with the
club (887), assists (571), points (869), plus-minus (plus-242), shooting
percentage (14.4 percent, minimum: 200 games).
He is second only to Henrik Zetterberg in goals (298 to 300).
2. Detroit does not
get eye-popping offense out of their blue line, but it certainly is
balanced. Five defensemen have goals
this season (led by Jakub Kindl with two), and seven have points (led by Niklas
Kronwall with 5). What they do not get
is power play goal scoring from the blue line.
Brendan Smith is the only defenseman with a power play goal for the
Wings this season.
3. One thing to watch
in this games is shots on goal. Caps
fans probably realize that the Caps lead the league in fewest shots on goal
allowed (25.2 per game). On the other
side of the ledger, the Red Wings are last in the league in shots on goal per
game (25.1). Only once in seven home
games have they recorded as many as 30 shots in a game, and four times they
finished with fewer than 25 shots on goal.
4. Scoring in the
first period has been a challenge overall for Detroit. Only four teams have fewer first period goals
than the Red Wings (7). The silver
lining there is that they have only allowed seven first period goals; only three
teams have allowed fewer.
5. Once upon a time,
the Red Wings were possession monsters. From the 2005-2006 season through last
season the Red Wings finished over 50 percent every year in Corsi-for percentage
at 5-on-5. Four times in those ten
seasons they finished above 55 percent.
This year, they are struggling.
Detroit ranks 29th of 30 teams in Corsi-for at fives
(46.1). Their score adjusted (46.8/29th)
and close score (45.3/26th) are similarly disappointing. They are better at home (50.5 overall/18th),
but they do not remind fans of the editions of Red Wings teams past in this
regard (all numbers from war-on-ice.com).
1. Let’s go with a
Russian theme for the first random fact in hopes of a record-setting
night. So far this season, 30 Russian
born players have dressed for NHL games.
No team has had more goals scored from Russian born players so far than
the Caps. Alex Ovechkin (8) and Evgeny
Kuznetsov (5) have combined for 13 goals.
The Chicago Blackhawks have ten goals from Russian born players – Artem Anisimov
(6) and Artemi Pararin (4). If Ovechkin makes it nine goals, he will stand alone among Russian born players in career NHL goals scored (he and Sergei Fedorov, who will be in the arena for this game, share the top spot with 483 goals).
2. Alex Ovechkin has
seven assist through his first 12 games of the season. On the one hand, that is a pace for 47
assists for the season. He has not had
more than that many since the 2010-2011 season (53). On the other hand, he had seven assists after
12 games last year, too, then finished the year with just 21 assists in his
last 69 games (a 25-assist pace over 82 games).
3. The Caps have a
three-man rotation on faceoffs – Nicklas Backstrom, Jay Beagle, and Evgeny
Kuznetsov. How many of you had Chandler
Stephenson with the fourth-highest number of draws taken (without
looking)? Stephenson has taken 49 draws,
winning 27 for a 55.1 percent winning percentage.
4. John Carlson is
one of 13 defensemen averaging at least 3:30 of ice time per game on the power
play. He and Kris Letang are the only
ones in that group also averaging at least 2:30 of ice time per game killing
penalties.
5. The Caps are
currently plus-6 in goal differential at 5-on-5 through 13 games. That might not sound like a lot, but it is a plus-38
pace per 82 games. If the Caps finish
the season at plus-15 or better it would be their second best goal differential
at 5-on-5 since the 2004-2005 lockout.
Only in their knockout offensive season of 2009-2010 were they better
(plus-72; numbers from war-on-ice.com).
The Peerless’ Players to Ponder
Detroit: Mike Green
Mike Green’s first season with the Detroit Red Wings has
started the way too many of his seasons with the Washington Capitals ended –
nursing an injury. Green started the
season appearing in the Wings’ first seven games, recording a pair of
assists. However, after recording the
second of his assists for the season in the first period of a game in his home
town of Calgary against the Flames, he sustained an upper body injury when he
was hit by the Flames’ Josh Jooris.
Green missed the next six games, returning to the lineup in Detroit’s
4-1 loss to Dallas on Sunday. He
recorded an assist, but was a minus-2.
In his eight games he has been on ice for five of the 11 goals scored
against Detroit at 5-on-5. He is still a
minutes eater, though. In each of his
last four full games, Green has logged at least 22:47 in ice time, and he leads
the team in average ice time at even strength (17:19 per game). This is, of course, his first game against
his old team.
Washington: Dmitry Orlov
Since Dmitry Orlov recorded a pair of goals in a 5-4
overtime loss to the Philadelphia Flyers on March 2, 2014, it will be 618 days,
and counting, without a goal in the NHL when he takes the ice against the Red
Wings on Tuesday. That represents just
31 games of actual NHL activity in all that time, and Orlov does have four
assists in the 13 games he has played to date.
Still, on a team where defensive defensemen Karl Alzner and Brooks Orpik
already have goals, it would be good to get Orlov into crooked numbers. Getting there will require some more
aggressiveness in the offensive end. In
five road games he has only three shots on goal. He has two career appearances against the Red
Wings without a point.
In the end…
The Caps are playing the Detroit Red Wings, but they are not
exactly the “Detroit Red Wings.” This is
not the possession dominating, deeply skilled, supremely confident squad that over
a 22-year period through last season played at a 48-23-6-6 pace per 82 games
(108 points), won 13 division titles, went to six Stanley Cup finals and won
four Cups. It is a team in transition,
having parted ways with recently minted hall of fame defenseman Nicklas
Lidstrom via retirement after the 2011-2012 season, and with the last sturdy links
to their Stanley Cup champions – Henrik Zetterberg, Pavel Datsyuk, Johan
Franzen, and Niklas Kronwall – all north of 34 years of age. This is a team working youth into the
lineup. For example, there is 19-year
old Dylan Larkin – a 15th overall pick in the 2014 entry draft –
with 10 points in 14 games, tied for second on the team. There is less heralded Teemu Pulkkinen (4th
rounder in 2010) with seven points in 14 games.
Then there is the new head coach, Jeff Blashill, taking over
for Mike Babcock. Think about that for a
moment. In the 21 seasons preceding this
one, 19 of them were coached, in whole or in part, by Babcock and hall of famer Scotty
Bowman. There is a lot of history
weighing on this transition period for the Wings. Add to that the fact that the Red Wings are somewhat beat up (Pavel Datsyuk Johan Franzen, Brad Richards, and Kyle Quincey on injured reserve), the Caps having had had
some recent success in this building, and that they are playing solid hockey so
far, the road trip should get off to a good start for the Caps.
Capitals 3 – Red Wings 2
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