The Peerless Prognosticator is ON THE AIR!!
The Washington Capitals, having played six of their last seven contests against Metropolitan Division rivals, take a respite from the divisional wars to undertake a three-city, five-day tour of the Central Division this week. Their trip starts with a visit to Nashville to visit the Predators on Tuesday night. The Predators, so named for their logo – a saber-toothed cat, the remains of one having been discovered in an excavation of a site in 1971 that later became the site of an office tower named for a series of banks…
The Washington Capitals, having played six of their last seven contests against Metropolitan Division rivals, take a respite from the divisional wars to undertake a three-city, five-day tour of the Central Division this week. Their trip starts with a visit to Nashville to visit the Predators on Tuesday night. The Predators, so named for their logo – a saber-toothed cat, the remains of one having been discovered in an excavation of a site in 1971 that later became the site of an office tower named for a series of banks…
“Did you know that the saber-toothed cat is of the extinct
genus, ‘Smilodon,’ cousin?
Why no, Fearless, I didn’t.
“Yeah, and that’s Donald Trump’s nickname, too…’Smilin’ Don’…”
“No, Cheerless, ‘smilodon’…smigh…low…don, not ‘Smilin’ Don’…”
“Whatever…but Don sure smiles a lot…”
Guys, can we? The
Predators come into this contest looking as if they have righted a ship that
was listing in early January.
“Was that ship named the ‘Smilin’ Don?’”
Ugh…no, Cheerless, it was not. Anyway, since the Predators suffered a 2-6-2
slump to close 2015 and open 2016, they are 5-2-0 in their last seven games and
have taken over the first wild card spot in the Western Conference playoff
race. They have done so without
resorting to scratching out close decisions.
In outscoring their opponents by a 21-13 margin, three of the wins were
by margins of three or more goals. Oh
yes, they did have a pair of one-goal decisions in there, too.
In putting together that 5-2-0 record, the Predators have
been able to do something Caps have not over the last couple of weeks – score on
the power play. Not with great
regularity, perhaps, but they are 4-for-24 in those seven games (16.7
percent). Their penalty kill had been
perfect in 16 shorthanded situations over the first five games of this stretch,
but they were 5-for-8 in their last two contest (a loss to the Philadelphia
Flyers and a win over the San Jose Sharks) to go 21-for-24 overall (87.5
percent).
Ryan Johansen has been just about everything the Predators
and their fans might have hoped for when he was acquired from the Columbus Blue
Jackets for defenseman Sean Jones in early January. In 13 games with the Predators, Johansen is
4-10-14, plus-5, that plus-minus already ranking third on the team, and his
three power play goals is tied for third on the club. Over the Preds’ 5-2-0 run of late, Johansen
leads the team in total points (2-5-7).
He is 4-5-9, even, in 12 career games against Washington.
Shea Weber is in his 11th season in the NHL. In his previous ten seasons he received votes
for the Norris Trophy as the league’s best defenseman eight times and was a
finalist in the voting three times.
Alas, he has not yet won the award.
He is a bit of a throwback. In an
age that seems to prefer the offensive talents of an Erik Karlsson (a two-time
winner) or the electricity of a P.K. Subban (the 2013 winner), Weber is that
old-timey two way defenseman who can beat you with a booming shot from the
point in the offensive end or by clearing you out in the corner in the
defensive end. This season, he is fifth
among all NHL defensemen in goals, eighth in points, and 18th in
credited hits. Since he came into the
league in 2005-2006, no defenseman in the league has more goals (160), and he
ranks seventh in credited hits. He is
also 3-3-6 over the Predators’ last seven games to lead the team’s defensemen
in scoring. In ten career games against
the Caps, Weber is 3-6-9, plus-5.
Goaltender Pekka Rinne is another of those
often-close-but-no-cigar trophy candidates.
He was a finalist for the Vezina Trophy as the league’s top goaltender
in three of the last five seasons, one of the seasons in which he was not have
largely been lost to injury. There is a
hint of inconsistency in his game from season to season, though. In his three Vezina finalist seasons he
posted an aggregate save percentage of .925.
In the two in which he did not, his save percentage was .907. So far this season, Rinne’s save percentage
is .904, which would be his career low as the Predators’ full-time number one
netminder. He does, however, come into
this game on something of a roll.
Appearing in six of the Predators’ games over the 5-2-0 run, he is
4-2-0, 2.01, .921, and has allowed a single goal in four of those games. Despite being in his tenth season with the
Predators, Rinne has only two career appearances against the Caps, both of them
wins, with a 2.00 goals against average and a .941 save percentage.
Here is how the teams compare overall:
1. If shot suppression
means something, the Predators are a suppressive lot. They are allowing the fewest shots on goal
per game in the league (26.5). Their
plus-4.1 shot differential per game is second in the league to the Montreal
Canadiens (plus-4.2).
2. Nashville does not
do a very good job of coming back late in games. Their .100 winning percentage when trailing
after two periods (2-15-3) is tied for the sixth-worst record in that statistic
in the league.
3. The Predators are
the only team in the league having two defenseman with ten or more goals – Shea
Weber (14) and Roman Josi (10). They
also happen to be the only team in the league having two defensemen with at
least five power play goals – Weber (10) and Josi (6).
4. Keeping things
close suits the Predators, their recent record notwithstanding. In multi-goal decisions, the Predators are
13-13. In one-goal decisions they are
12-7-8.
5. The shot
suppression turns into rather impressive possession numbers at home for the
Predators. Their overall Corsi-for at
5-on-5 (55.0) ranks third in the league.
They finished above 60 percent 12 times in 26 home games this season (numbers from war-on-ice.com).
1. Washington is one
of five teams with six players topping the 30-point mark (Evgeny Kuznetsov,
Nicklas Backstrom, Alex Ovechkin, T.J. Oshie, Marcus Johansson, and Justin
Williams). Carolina, Chicago, Florida,
and Ottawa are the others.
2. The Capitals have
gone five games without a power play goal, the first time they went that long
without one since Games 44-48 in mid-January of the 2013-2014 season.
3. Washington and
Dallas are the only teams in the league with two players averaging at least a
point a game (minimum: 20 games played).
Evgeny Kuznetsov (1.04) and Nicklas Backstrom (1.00) for the Caps, Jamie
Benn (1.11) and Tyler Seguin (1.06) for the Stars.
4. If the Caps can
shake their power play blues and finish the season in first place in power play
efficiency (they currently hold that position), it would make three seasons in
four that the Caps led the league in power play efficiency. The dominance of the Caps’ power play over
the last three-plus seasons is stunning.
Their aggregate efficiency is 24.7 percent, far ahead of the
second-place club (Pittsburgh: 21.6 percent).
They have 210 power play goals scored in that span to 189 for the
Penguins.
5. After a stretch of
nine road games in which the Caps were under 50 percent Corsi-for at 5-on-5
(43.1 percent overall), they are 51.0 percent to the good over their last nine
road contests (numbers from war-on-ice.com).
The Peerless’ Players to Ponder
Nashville: Mike Ribeiro
Mike Ribeiro played in his 1,000th NHL game last
Saturday when the Predators defeated the San Jose Sharks, 6-2. It was a highlight in a season that does not
rank among his best. With six goals in
53 games he is on a pace to finish with fewer than ten goals over a season for
the first time since 2002-2003, when he had five goals in 52 games for the
Montreal Canadiens. He is averaging less
than a shot on goal per game for the first time since he had no shots in two
games with the Canadiens in 2000-2001.
Never very good at taking faceoffs (only once in 15 seasons did he
finish over 50 percent), he has been awful in that area this season, winning
38.7 percent of the 499 draws he has taken.
Among 135 players taking at least 250 draws, only Vancouver’s Jared
McCann (34.5 percent) and the New York Rangers’ Kevin Hayes (33.2 percent) have
been worse. Ribeiro is 2-9-11, plus-3,
in 22 career games against the Caps.
Washington: Mike Richards
Mike Richards has been a Washington Capital for eight
games. In that span of competition he
has yet to register a point. But when a
player has as much experience as Richards, he can contribute in other
ways. For instance, he is 50.8 percent
Corsi-for at 5-on-5 over those eight games.
He has won 54.5 percent of the faceoffs he has taken, a plus in the
absence of Jay Beagle in that regard. He
has only been on ice for four goals against over those eight games. He averaged 1:55 in shorthanded ice time per
game, fourth among forwards. Goals and
points are important, but so is the detail work that serves as the mortar for
the bricks in a successful season.
Richards is 6-4-10, minus-3, in 17 career games against Nashville.
In the end…
In a way, this week is a measuring stick for the Caps. Three capable Western Conference opponents,
two of whom they have yet to face this season, including the Predators (the
Minnesota Wild are the other). The Caps
have a sparse history of games in Nashville, and what they have is not
awe-inspiring (4-5-1-1. They have not
won in Nashville since October 2010, a 3-2 overtime win that featured goals
from Alexander Semin and Tomas Fleischmann, plus an overtime winner by Brooks
Laich. The Caps have not won a game in
regulation in Nashville since March 2008, a game in which Jason Arnott and
Martin Erat played…for the Preds, before they became Capitals.
It’s been a while. But, as we all
know by this time, these are not those Capitals, and that will make for a happier
ending than the team usually has in Tennessee.
Capitals 3 – Predators 2
