The
Peerless Prognosticator is ON THE AIR!!!
The
Washington Capitals return to the ice after a four-day hiatus when they host
the Pittsburgh Penguins before a national television audience on Wednesday
night. The Caps will be returning to the
kindly confines of Verizon Center having yielded the top spot in the
Metropolitan Division during their time off that they captured off their 3-0-0 road trip.
For the
Penguins, the season’s opening weeks have been a challenge. When Pittsburgh sent Kasperi Kapanen, Nick
Spaling, Scott Harrington, and two conditional draft picks to Toronto for Phil
Kessel, Tim Erixon, Tyler Biggs, and a draft pick, many prognosticators felt
that the addition of the high-scoring Kessel to a lineup that included Sidney
Crosby and Evgeni Malkin would give the Penguins a needed goal-scoring
injection on the wing to play alongside the talented centers. People were speculating about penciling in
Kessel for 30 goals… 40 goals... even 50 goals playing alongside Crosby.
Things
have not turned out so well, at least early.
Kessel is tied for the team lead in goals (three, with Malkin), but it
is the team lead on a club on which no other skater than Kessel or Malkin has
more than one goal, and only one of Kessel’s goals to date featured an assist
from Crosby (a secondary assist on a goal in a 3-2 overtime win over the
Florida Panthers on October 20th).
By the time the Penguins visited the Nashville Predators last Saturday,
Crosby and Kessel were split up, Kessel put on a line with Evgeni Malkin and
Sergei Plotnikov, and Crosby centering Pascal Dupuis and Patric Hornqvist. Kessel scored the game-winner in 3-on-3
overtime on a singular effort, with a of subtle trips from Malkin on Filip
Forsberg at the Predator blue line:
While
Kessel is still settling in, Crosby and Malkin have gone in different
directions on the score sheet. Malkin
leads the team in total scoring (3-4-7) in addition to being tied with Kessel
in goals. However, even the seven points
in eight games is below Malkin’s career points-per-game average (1.19). The ray of sunshine there is that all of
Malkin’s seven points to date have come in his last six games. Scoring has not been much of a problem for
Malkin over his career against Washington.
He is 9-33-42, plus-1, in 29 career games.
On the
other hand, Crosby has struggled in the early going. With one goal and three points, Crsoby is off
to the slowest eight-game start of his career.
Only once in his ten previous seasons did he fail to reach double digits
in points over his first eight games, going 4-3-7 in 2009-2010. He never recorded fewer than two goals in his
first eight games of the season until this season. More disturbing, all of Crosby’s scoring to
date came in putting up a goal and two assists in that 3-2 overtime win over
Florida on October 20th. He
does not yet have a point on the road (three games). The ominous part of this for Caps fans is
that Washington is likely to have his full attention on Wednesday. He is 18-33-51, plus-2 in 33 career games
against the Capitals.
Marc-Andre
Fleury is now in his 12th season for the Penguins in goal. The former first overall draft pick (2003) is
the franchise leader in games played (603), wins (326), goals against average (2.58),
save percentage (.912), and shutouts (39) among goalies appearing in at least
100 games for the Penguins. He is
arguably the Penguins’ most valuable player in the early going with a 2.02
goals against average and a .932 save percentage with one shutout in dressing
for all eight games so far. After
dropping his first three decisions, Fleury is 4-1-0, 1.60, .944, with one
shutout. In 30 career games against the
Caps, Fleury is 17-10-2, 2.50, .915, with three shutouts.
Here is
how the teams compare so far (through Monday’s games)…
1. The Penguins have only six players with more
than one point, and that group includes the 38-year old Matt Cullen (two
assists) and defenseman Rob Scuderi (two assists). It does not include Chris Kunitz, Pascal
Dupuis, Patric Hornqvist, Olli Maatta, or Sergei Plotnikov.
2. Pittsburgh and Vancouver are the only two
clubs for whom the backup goaltender (Jeff Zatkoff for the Penguins, Richard
Bachman for the Canucks) has not yet appeared.
3. Pittsburgh has scored first in game four times and won each time. They have trailed
first in four games and lost each time.
Pretty simple math there.
4. The Penguins’ special teams are
struggling. Their special teams index
number, the combined success rate of their power play and penalty kill (91.7)
ranks 23rd after Monday’s games, right between the Detroit Red Wings (93.9) and
the Columbus Blue Jackets (91.2). The
difficulty lies in the power play, which is 2-for-28 (7.1 percent), 29th
in the league, ahead of only the Anaheim Ducks (5.3 percent).
5. It is not as if there is a disconnection
between Pittsburgh’s possession numbers and their performance numbers. They rank 22nd in Corsi-for
percentage at 5-on-5 (48.4) and rank 23rd in Corsi-for in close
score situations (48.2) after Monday’s games.
Their Fenwick numbers are hardly different – 22nd overall (49.4) and 23rd
in close score situations (48.7; numbers from war-on-ice.com). Their
4-4-0 record and 29th-ranked scoring offense (1.63) are not out of
line.
2. Only Montreal has more players with at least
three goals (6) than do the Caps (5).
Montreal has also played nine games.
3. Intermissions are kind to the Capitals, as
long as they are winning. Four times
they carried a lead into the first intermission, four times they won. Four times they carried a lead into the
second intermission, four times they won. Simple math here, too.
4. One would like to see the Caps improve on
draws when shorthanded. They rank 24th
in the league at 40.4 percent wins.
Compare that to their faceoff winning percentage when on the power play
(52.4 percent/15th).
5. The Caps have the fourth best Corsi-for percentage
at 5-on-5 in the Eastern Conference (52.9; numbers from war-on-ice.com).
Oddly enough, the three teams ahead of them – the Carolina Hurricanes,
Toronto Maple Leafs, and Columbus Blue Jackets – are all under .500 and have a
combined record of 4-19-2. It’s early.
The
Peerless’ Players to Ponder
Pittsburgh:
Sergei Plotnikov
The
Kontinental Hockey League is not generally thought of as a development league
for the NHL, but for Sergei Plotnikov, it provided some valuable experience
before he embarked on an NHL career.
Plotnikov did show up on the North American radar as an amateur – he was
drafted 53rd overall by the Chicoutimi Saguenéens in the 2008 CHL
Import Draft. However, he was not
drafted by any NHL club. It left him to
learn his craft in the KHL, where he played for six seasons. After six seasons and 300 games in the KHL, the
25-year old signed an entry-level free agent contract with Pittsburgh last
summer. The thinking was having
Plotnikov partnered with Evgeni Malkin. That chemistry has yet to find itself, Plotkinov with one point in seven games,
even though by last Saturday he was on a line with Malkin and Phil Kessel. This will be his first game against the
Capitals.
Washington:
Matt Niskanen
In eight
seasons before this one, defenseman Matt Niskanen had one better scoring start
than his 2-3-5 start after seven games with the Caps. That was in 2013-2014, when he got off to a
1-5-6 start after his first seven games with the Pittsburgh Penguins. You might remember that season as the one in
which Niskanen finished 10-36-46, plus-33 in 81 games, his career year in the
NHL and the one that earned him a seven-year/$40.25 million contract with the
Caps in the summer of 2014. The odd
thing about Niskanen’s scoring profile to date is that he has recorded points
in every other game, starting with Opening Night. That pattern would suggest he comes up empty
against his former team on Wednesday. On
top of that, Niskanen has not recorded a single point in eight career games
against the Penguins. It is the only NHL
team against which he has not recorded a career point. The phrase, "he's due," comes to mind.
In the
end…
It has
been an odd start to the 2015-2016 season.
Out west, a team on the short list of potential Stanley Cup finalists –
the Anaheim Ducks – are inspiring more conversation about who their next coach
will be after their 1-5-2 start and their curious inability to score
goals. The Montreal Canadiens are
perfect through nine games despite rather pedestrian possession numbers. The Chicago Blackhawks appear to finally be
suffering that post-championship hangover after three Cups in six seasons, holding
a record of 6-3-0 at the moment but including wins against struggling Florida
and Columbus and escaping with a pair of 1-0 overtime wins at home this
week. And there are the Pittsburgh
Penguins, one party to perhaps the biggest deal of last summer, sitting at .500
and that more a product of superb goaltending than anything they are doing in
the offensive end of the ice.
Meanwhile,
there are the Washington Capitals humming along at 6-1-0. While you can go up and down the television
dial in search of reality shows like “Duck Dynasty (not)” or “The Phil
Whisperer” or "At Home with the Blackhawkians," the Capitals are like that dependable procedural. You know what you are going to get from
episode to episode, from game to game.
The script might be predictable, but it works so far.
Capitals
3 – Penguins 2
