The Peerless Prognosifator…uh, Progtakinator…Progfusticator…
...aw
heck…he ain’t here, anyway.
Hi…my name is Cheerless, and I ‘spect you folks have seen me
in these parts from time to time. Yer
usually readin’ Peerless and his prognostifications, but he was up late last
night celebratin’ the win over the Penguins, so y’all get me this morning.
Now, I ain’t got all Peerless’ learnin’ (even if he got most
of it at “Moo U”), so this ain’t gonna be as long as his meanderin’s. The Caps are playing the Toronto Blue Jays,
or Rap Tors, or Maple Leafs, or whatever two-name mascot they have for their
hockey team. Must be a Canada thing or
somethin’.
There’s probably just one thing you have to know about the
Maple Leafs. They’re bad. It weren’t always like that this season. They were 16-15-7 just last January 6th after
they shut out the Anaheim Ducks, 4-0.
But since then? They’ve stunk
like an outhouse in July. Just 5-15-3
since then, and they are just 2-8-1 in their last 11 games.
The have two problems.
They can’t score, and they can’t keep the other team from scoring. Other than that, things are pretty good. Here is one of the truly weird facts about
this team…
In their last 23 games, they scored more than two goals…six
times. They scored just one goal or got shutout 10 times. Just 43 goals in those 23 games. I’m guessin’ the goal judge doesn’t remember
where the switch is to turn on the lamp when they score a goal.
Now, as for the scorin’ against…78 goals allowed in their
last 23 games. That’s 3.39 goals against
per game. Now, that was pretty good for
the 1980’s, but these days it makes swiss cheese look like a brick of velveeta.
As you probably figgered out by now, their power play wouldn’t
keep the refrigerator bulb lit for two seconds.
Those same 23 games? They’re
5-for-75. That’s 6.66 percent, which
seems right fittin’.
Too bad, too, because the penalty killers aren’t that bad –
67 for 82 (81.7 percent). Trouble is,
they just have to do it a tad too much – 3.6 shorthanded situations a game.
Now, you probably think all those Toronto fellas have names
like Brendan or Clarke or some such thing, but they actually have a guy named “Nazem
Kadri.” Pretty good player, from what I
hear. Second on the team in scorin’ overall
(12-22-34), and he’s got points in four of his last five games (1-5-6). What he don’t have is a goal against the
Caps, ever. In 13 games he’s got five
points, all of them assists.
Then there is this kid named “Nylander.” Guess all you Caps fans know his dad,
Michael, played for the Caps – twice in fact – but they say this kid William’s gonna be
better. Eighth overall draft pick in
2014, Maple Leaf fans have been waitin’ on seein’ this kid play the way Caps
fans were waitin’ on that Kuznetsov kid, just not as long. He played his first game on Monday against
Tampa Bay. Didn’t seem fazed by it, but
hey, he’s represented Sweden in six international tournaments. He’s been on the big stage. Didn’t get a point against the Lightning, but
he skated almost 19 minutes. Guess the
team will give him a long look-see now.
Of course, Caps fans will be seeing blue when they see
Brooks Laich take the ice (see what I did there?...and Peerless thinks he’s the
clever one). He played his first game
with the Leafs on Monday, and he got 12 minutes of ice time. No points, but they’ve been hard comin’ to
him this season (1-6-7 in 61 games with the Caps and the Leafs). This’ll be the first time he ever faced the
Caps, ‘cept in practice…aw heck, I can’t go on…
As for the goalies, James Reimer is gone to San Jose (he
might still be celebratin’), and Garrett Sparks played on Monday, so it might
be Jonathan Bernier. If it is, it might
not end well for the Leafs. There are 47
goalies in the league that have at least 1,000 minutes of ice time. In save percentage, Bernier ranks 46th (.898). He’s 45th in goals against average (3.12). He’s allowed three or more goals in seven of
his last nine appearances, including one in which he allowed three goals in
20:57 (against the Flyers, 22nd in scoring offense in the league…not the 1985
Edmonton Oilers, although the 2016 Oilers lit him up for four goals the last
time he saw them).
Anyway, the only way the Caps lose this game is if they
admire all the press clippings (do they do clippings anymore?) from last night’s
game against Pittsburgh, or they can’t get the tears out of their eyes from the
tribute they’ll play for Brooks Laich in the arena. They could win this game by a touchdown. Well, maybe not with the extra point.
Capitals 6 – Maple Leafs 1
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