The Peerless Prognosticator is ON THE AIR!!!
The Washington Capitals return from their three-game road
swing on Tuesday night to host the Detroit Red Wings in the Caps’ first home
game of December and the last meeting of these two teams for the regular
season.
The Capitals finished their road trip with a successful
2-0-1 record, lifting their Metropolitan Division-best road record to 8-2-1. The Caps are already one of three Metro teams
with ten or more home wins this season, and one of four in the East with a
record of 10-3-1.
Meanwhile, Detroit has yet to lose a game in December
(3-0-0), and the Red Wings have points in their last ten contests (7-0-3). The recent run has lifted the Wings into
second place in the Atlantic Division, behind the Montreal Canadiens, and has
them sitting fifth in the Eastern Conference standings.
The Caps are one of the points victims in the Red Wings’
recent run of success, Washington defeating Detroit in overtime on November
18th by a 2-1 score. The Caps will be
looking to win the season series outright with a win on Tuesday night.
Since these teams last met, Detroit has outscored opponents
by a 28-22 margin, posting a 6-0-2 record along the way. Their special teams have not been
particularly special over that span, the power play going 5-for-27 (18.5
percent) and the penalty killers going 20-for-26 (76.9 percent).
Individually, it has been Tomas Tatar leading the way over
the last eight games with five goals (tied with Dylan Larkin) and nine
points. Tatar, who had a breakthrough
year last season with 29 goals in playing all 82 games, is on a pace to finish
in the same neighborhood this season (30 goal pace). He has been consistent with last year’s
performance in other areas as well. His
six power play points through 27 games (4-2-6) is on a similar pace with that
he set last season – 19 points in 82 games (9-10-19). He has been hot since Hallowe’en. In 17 games since then he is 8-8-16, plus-4,
and is shooting at a better than 17 percent rate (8-for-46). Tatar is 1-3-4, plus-3, in eight career games
against the Capitals.
Dylan Larkin is tied with Tatar for the team lead in goals (five)
in the Wings’ 6-0-2 run since last facing the Caps and is on his way to a big
rookie season. He ranks third among all
rookies in points (21, behind Arizona’s Max Domi and Chicago’s Artemi Panarin),
and he leads all rookies in goals (11).
His plus-minus has almost lapped the rookie field (plus-19, far ahead of
St. Louis’ Colton Parayko at plus-11), and he is tied for the league rookie
lead in game winning goals with three.
Larkin has a goal and is a plus-1 in the two games played against the
Caps this season.
The Red Wings seemed to have settled into a goalie
rotation. Neither Jimmy Howard nore Petr
Mrazek have recorded decisions in more than two consecutive games this season. Mrazek has played more minutes (922 to 709
for Howard), and while Mrazek also has the better save percentage (.924 to
.918), Howard has the better goals against average (2.28 to 2.41). Each has a shutout. Mrazek has both decisions against the Caps
this season (1-0-1, 0.99, .969, 1 shutout) and has far superior career numbers
than Howard against the Caps – GAA (1.54 to 3.37), save percentage (.944 to
.876), and shutouts (one to none).
Here is how the teams compare overall:
1. Detroit is
generally thought of as a “mature” team (ok, “old”), but of the 25 skaters to
dress for the club this season, seven have yet to reach their 25th birthday,
and Tomas Tatar just celebrated his on December 1st. Two of them – Tatar and Dylan Larkin – are tied
for the team lead in points (21). Larkin
leads the team in goals (11), while Tatar is tied for second (10, with Gustav
Nyquist).
2. Despite the fact
that Detroit has five defensemen with five or more points and seven with goals
on their resume this season, they do not have a top-end shooter. Only one defenseman – Mike Green – ranks in
the top 75 defensemen in shots on goal (tied for 75th with 35).
3. Detroit scores
first, often. In 27 games they have recorded
the first goal 19 times, tops in the league.
Their 14 wins when scoring first is tied for the league lead with Montreal
and the New York Rangers.
4. Conversely, and
owning to the infrequency of occurrence, no team has fewer wins when allowing
the first goal than Detroit (once in eight games).
5. The Red Wings are
largely a middle of the road team, or slightly higher, in possession. They rank
12th in Corsi-for percentage at 5-on-5 overall (50.7), 11th in score-adjusted
Corsi-for (51.6), and 11th in close score situations (50.6). It is worth noting, though, that in eight
games since they last faced Washington, their score-adjusted Corsi-for is 56.5
(numbers from war-on-ice.com).
1. The Caps have
spread power play scoring around rather well.
Nine Caps have recorded at least one power play goal through 25 games,
and 12 have points. The shooting is
another matter. While Alex Ovechkin has
been held largely in check in terms of points, his 45 shots on goal with the
man advantage exceeds the total of the next three Caps in line (42 from John
Carlson, T.J. Oshie, and Evgeny Kuznetsov).
2. As a team, the
Caps have a faceoff winning percentage of 50.5, ranked 11th in the league. However, on the power play they have a
faceoff winning percentage of 56.2.
3. Intermissions
continue to be kind to the Caps if they are leading. Washington is 7-0-0 when leading at the first
intermission and 12-0-0 when leading at the second intermission. They are the only team with perfect records
in first and second intermissions combined.
4. If you subscribe
to the notion that “blocked shots” is a negative indicator (one that reflects
the other team having the puck), you would be happy to know that the Caps have
the sixth fewest blocked shots in the league (334).
5. While the Red
Wings have been scaling up their possession numbers since the last played the
Caps, Washington has had issues. Their
score-adjusted Corsi-for percentage at 5-on-5 over their last eight games is
just 50.3, well below their season number of 53.0 (numbers from war-on-ice.com).
The Peerless’ Players to Ponder
Detroit: Mike Green
It has taken Mike Green quite a while to get started with
his new club after spending ten seasons with the Capitals. It was not until his 11th game that he had
more shots on goal than blocked shots (14 to 12) and until his 13th game that
he had more shots on goal (19) than hits (18).
It was not until his 14th game that he recorded his first goal as a Red
Wing, that coming in a 3-2 win over the Los Angeles Kings on November
20th. He has however, been building a
more robust scoring resume for six weeks or so.
In his last 15 games he is 1-9-10 (he tied for the team lead among
defensemen in points with 11), but only two teammates have been on ice for more
goals against overall than Green (21), and he has missed six games to injury. Green did not record a point against his old
team in two games this season.
Washington: Evgeny Kuznetsov
Evgeny Kuznetsov does not have a point in his last three
games. That might sound like a lot, but
over his first 22 games he did not go consecutive games without a point. He was much more into the flow of things in
the Caps’ 2-1 overtime loss to Winnipeg on Saturday afternoon, posting six
shots on goal after posting a total of six in his previous four games
combined. Maybe it was a Canadian
thing. Since he went 3-2-5 in a 7-4 win
over Edmonton last October 23rd, Kuznetsov went without a point in five of
seven games against Canadian teams and was 1-3-4 overall. In his last five games against American teams
he is 2-6-8 with a game-winning goal, that one coming overtime against the Red
Wings on November 18th in a 2-1 win.
Kuznetsov is 3-0-3, plus-1, in five career games against Detroit.
In the end…
It seems odd in Game 26 to say that the season series
between these clubs is coming to an end with this game, but the NHL
schedule-maker acts in mysterious ways.
The Caps have been a good home club since the first of November, going
6-1-1 and winning their last four in a row, three of them by multi-goal
margins.
On the other hand, what jumps off the page on the Detroit
side is the number of extra time games.
Eight of their last ten games have been settled in overtime or the
Gimmick, the Red Wings winning five of them, two of them on the road.
The Caps had their fill of Joe Louis Arena, splitting a pair
of one-goal decisions (one, of course, in extra time). On home ice, the results are going to be a
bit different.
Capitals 4 – Red Wings 2
