The Peerless Prognosticator is ON THE AIR!!!
The Washington Capitals wind up their four-game road trip on
Saturday night when they visit San Jose to meet the Sharks. This game will complete the season series
between the two clubs, who have not met since San Jose pummeled the Caps, 5-0
in Game 2 of the season back on October 13th. Since then, the clubs have taken very
different routes to this meeting.
Washington shook off the loss to San Jose, won five games in
a row, and never looked back. The Sharks
on the other hand, stumbled around for a while before finding their
footing. A recently as January 7th
they were a .500 team, dropping to 18-18-2 after a 2-1 loss at home to the
Detroit Red Wings. Since then, however,
the Sharks are 19-6-4.
They come into this game on a solid 5-2-0 run in their last
seven games, holding opponents to a total of just 13 goals while scoring 20 of
their own. Joe Pavelski has a quarter of
the goals scored over that period (five).
It should hardly be surprising.
He might be the most prolific goal scorer no one thinks of as a prolific
goal scorer. Since he recorded his first
30-goal season in 2011-2012 (31), he has as many or more goals (156, tied with
Corey Perry) than any NHL player except Alex Ovechkin (215) and Steven Stamkos
(186). He has four 30-goal seasons in
his last five, only the abbreviated 2012-2013 season (16 goals in 48 games) not
making the cut. Pavelski is 6-6-12,
plus-2, in 12 career games against the Capitals.
Brent Burns leads the Sharks in points over the club’s last
seven games (4-5-9), a run that has lifted him into second place in total
scoring among defensemen and first in goals (24-36-60). He is another one of those defensemen who
consume huge chunks of minutes (26:11 per game, seventh among defensemen) and
who does it in long shifts (56 seconds per shift, second highest in the league
among blueliners). Burns is something
of a hybrid as a defenseman in the same fashion as Winnipeg’s Dustin Byfuglien,
player who can play (and has played) forward. He has already posted career highs in goals
and points this season, and he has been hard on the Caps, going 4-5-9, even, in
11 career games against Washington.
Goaltender Martin Jones is in his first season with the
Sharks after spending two years with the Los Angeles Kings in limited
duty. His 33 wins already ranks him
seventh in wins in club history (27 goalies having played for the Sharks), and
he has the best save percentage (.918) of any of the 12 San Jose goaltenders to
appear in at least 50 games with the club.
In his last 13 appearances, Jones is 9-3-1, 1.83, .935, with one
shutout. He pitched a 31-save shutout in
the 5-0 win in Washington on October 13th, his only career
appearance against the Caps.
Here is how the teams compare overall:
1. San Jose has not
built their recent success on special teams.
In posting that 5-2-0 record over their last seven games, their power
play is 3-for-19 (15.8 percent), while the penalty kill is just 18-for-22 (81.8
percent).
2. The Sharks are one
of two teams in the league with three players with 60 or more points
(Washington is the other). Joe Thornton
(64 points), Joe Pavelski (64), and Brent Burns (60) are the trio.
3. Only one team in
the NHL has more players with 15 or more goals than the six who reached that
mark with San Jose. Those six are:
Pavelski (31), Burns (24), Patrick Marleau (19), Joel Ward (17), Tomas Hertl
(16), and Thornton (15). The team with
more players with 15 or more goals is Washington (seven).
4. Scoring first
might be the best indicator of who will win this game than any other
statistic. While the Caps lead the
league in winning percentage when scoring first (.935/29-2-0), San Jose is
third (.824/28-4-2).
5. San Jose is sixth
in the league in Corsi-for at 5-on-5 overall at home (54.2 percent) and seventh
in score-adjusted Corsi-for (52.8 percent).
But their 5-n-5 goal differential is a less impressive plus-8, tied for 12th
in the league (numbers from war-on-ice.com).
1. The streak has
reached 12…one-goal games, that is. The
Caps are 8-3-1 in those games, their overtime loss to Los Angeles in their last
game extended what was already an all-time record in consecutive one-goal
decisions. It is perhaps coincidence,
but only one team in the post-2004-2005 lockout era has more total
one-goal decisions than the Caps. Minnesota has 428 such decisions
(216-117-95), while the Caps have 423 (210-106-107).
2. The Caps are tied
for having the tenth-highest number of first period goals allowed this season
(53, with Columbus and Pittsburgh).
3. Alex Ovechkin has
129 power play shots on goal this season.
That is more than the combined totals of T.J. Oshie (35), Evgeny
Kuznetsov (33), John Carlson (30), and Marcus Johansson (27).
4. The Caps are 17-1-1
when allowing two or fewer goals in road games so far this season. Thirteen of those games were one-goal
decisions (11-1-1).
5. The Caps rank 14th
in Corsi-for at 5-on-5 overall in road games this season (49.2 percent). They are better in score-adjusted Corsi-for,
though, ranking eighth (51.8 percent; numbers from war-on-ice.com).
The Peerless’ Players to Ponder
San Jose: Joel Ward
“The Big Cheese” is having a fine first season with the San Jose Sharks after spending four
seasons in Washington. With 17 goals and
36 points in 65 games (0.26 goals/game, 0.55 points per game) he has improved
on the per-game averages he posted in four years with the Caps
(0.21/0.44). But he is in something of a
slump at the moment, going without a point in his last eight contests. However, he does not appear to be a
difference maker as a point-producer.
San Jose is just 14-10-4 in games in which he recorded a point this
season. He does not have a point in five
career games against the Caps.
Washington: Jason Chimera
When Jason Chimera scored an empty-net goal on February 16th
in a 3-1 win over the Los Angeles Kings, it was Chimera’s third goal in four
games, and with 16 goals in 55 games he was on a pace to record a career-best
level in goals scored. Since then,
Chimera has one goal in his last dozen games, and he comes into this game
without a goal in his last eight games.
It ties his longest streak of the season without a goal, two streaks of
which he endured in the 2015 portion of the season. In this streak, his shooting has dried
up. Chimera has just six shots on goal
in this eight-game streak, half of them coming against Pittsburgh on March 1st. He does not have a shot on goal in any of his
last three games. Chimera is 6-4-10,
minus-6, in 33 career games against the Sharks.
In the end…
Over the course of their history, Horace Greeley’s advice to
“go west, young man,” was more a case of “go west, and lose” when it came to
trips to California for the Caps. That was
not the case in the two seasons preceding this one, the Caps going 2-0-1 in
2013-2014 and then going 2-1-0 last season on their California trip. To make it three straight years in winning
two out of three, the Caps will have to win in a city that has been especially
unkind to them. While they have won both
of their most recent games in San Jose – 3-2 in a shootout two years ago and
5-4 in overtime last season – the Caps have not won a game in regulation time
in San Jose since October 1993. This has
been a season in which old records fall, and in this it should be no exception.
Capitals 3 – Sharks 2
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