The Peerless Prognosticator is ON THE AIR!!!
The Washington Capitals take the ice on Saturday for the
second game of a three game home stand, hosting the Philadelphia Flyers at
Verizon Center in a 7:30 start. The Caps
will be looking for their third win in a row and their 15th straight on home
ice (all but one in regulation time, it merits noting, and that one was in
overtime, not the Gimmick). Meanwhile,
the Flyers will be looking to win their third straight decision as well. Unfortunately, for them at least, they are
3-11-2 in their last 16 road games.
The Flyers have suffered two problems in those last 16 road
games. One, they can’t score (they
averaged 1.69 goals per game over that span).
Two, they can’t keep opponents from scoring (3.56 goals per game
allowed).
The offense, such as it is, over those last 16 road games is
led by Braden Schenn, who leads the team in goals (eight) and points (15, the
only Flyer in double digits in those 16 games).
The odd things about the eight goals is that seven of them have come on
power plays, more than half the club’s total in their last 16 road games
(11). Schenn is on a pace overall to
finish with his second season with more than 20 goals (25; he had 26 last
season) and his second season with more than 50 points (55; he had 59 last
season). He brings a six-game points
streak overall into this game (3-4-7, minus-1).
What he also brings is a minus-20 for the season, more than doubling the
“career minus” he had coming into this season (minus-19). Schenn is 4-5-9, minus-3, in 22 career games
against the Caps.
Wayne Simmonds is the only other Flyer with more than three
goals over their last 16 road games. He
has six in that span, half of them on power plays. His power play scoring comes with an odd
passenger of a fact. In 12 games
overall in which he recorded power play goals this season, the Flyers are just
6-6-0. However, in the eight games in
which he has a power play assist, the team is 6-2-0, evidence that it truly is
better to give than to receive. If
giving is a synonym for “dishing,” then Simmonds has been dishing it out in
another respect. He has 29 penalty
minutes in those last 16 road games to lead the club. Simmonds is 5-8-13, minus-3, in 27 career
games against the Capitals.
Jakub Voracek is the third-leading goal scorer (3) and tied
for third in points over the Flyers’ 3-12-1 stretch of road games, but he also
carries a minus-13 over those games, second-worst on the team (Claude Giroux,
with whom Voracek is tied in points in those games, is minus-16). With 17 goals this season, Voracek has
already passed last year’s total (11), and could challenge his career high of
23, set in 2013-2014. His 52 points in
63 games is on pace to surpass last year’s total (55). Still, barring divine intervention, he seems
certain to fall short of the 81 points he recorded in 2014-2015. Voracek is 11-8-19, plus-2, in 28 career
games against Washington.
1. Philadelphia has
just 16 even strength goals in their last 16 road games. While there is a
certain charming symmetry to that fact, it isn’t exactly conducive to winning.
2. Philly’s problem
in this road game stretch is secondary scoring in “primary” amounts. After you
get past Schenn, Simmond, and Voracek, only Nick Cousins has more than one goal
(two), and there are eight players with one.
3. In the 2017
portion of the season, only one team in the Eastern Conference has a worse
record than the Flyers (10-12-3/23 points). The Carolina Hurricanes are 9-12-3
(21 points), but have a game in hand.
4. Philadelphia has
had more power play opportunities since January 1st (82) than any team in the
East and just one fewer than the Nashville Predators (83, but in three more
games).
5. The Flyers are the
fourth-best team in the league since January 1st in shot attempt percentages at
5-on-5 (53.11 percent; numbers from NHL.com).
1. How good is the
Caps’ 14-0-0 record at home in 2017? The team with the second-best record
(Nashville) is 9-2-3, seven fewer points than the Caps (21 to 28) in the same
number of games. It’s like the Predators
hitting the quarter pole as the Caps are crossing the finish line in a
mile-long race.
2. Since January 1st,
the Caps’ “special teams index” of 115.1 at home (31.4 percent power play, 83.7
percent penalty kill) might be described as “insane.” Trouble is, it is only second
best in the league. Minnesota’s is at
117.7 (35.9/81.8).
3. In their 14-game
winning streak at home, the Caps have five players with at least five goals:
T.J. Oshie (8, in just 12 games), Justin Williams (8, in 13 games), Brett
Connolly (5), Alex Ovechkin (5), and Nicklas Backstrom (5). They have seven
players with at least ten points: Backstrom (21), Oshie (16), Evgeny Kuznetsov
(16), Williams (14), Ovechkin (14), Marcus Johansson (12), and John Carlson
(11, in 13 games).
4. Snipe hunt! In the
14 straight wins at home, the Caps have five players with shooting percentages
over 25 percent and at least ten games played: Oshie (36.4), Connolly (33.3),
Tom Wilson (27.3), Backstrom (26.3), and Williams (25.8). The odd thing is that Alex Ovechkin is shooting
just about where you might expect (11.9 percent), but he’s averaging just 3.0
shots per game in that span.
5. Not that this
should surprise anyone, but no goalie in the league has played more minutes
with a lead this season than Braden Holtby. His 1,438 minutes playing with a
lead is more than 100 minutes ahead of Toronto’s Frederik Andersen (which is
something of a surprise) with 1,332 minutes (numbers from Corsica.hockey).
The Peerless’ Players to Ponder
Philadelphia: Brandon Manning
Brandon Manning had to fight to get to the NHL, and he has
had to fight to stay there. Signed by the
Flyers as an undrafted free agent in November 2010, it was quite a climb for
the British Columbia native to get to the bigs.
After spending what would be his fourth season with the Chiliwack Bruins
of the Western Hockey League, he moved up to the Adirondack Phantoms in
2011-2012 where he spent the next three seasons with the occasional call up to
Philadelphia. He moved with the Phantoms
to Lehigh Valley in 2014-2015, but that would be his last year in the
minors. Manning played 56 games with the
parent club last season and has played 53 games so far this season in
Philadelphia.
However, he missed the last two games, courtesy of a
suspension handed down by the league for his hit on Pittsburgh’s Jake Guentzel
on February 25th. It isn’t the first
time he’s mixed it up with a player and been at the center of controversy over
it. Manning is eligible to come off his suspension in this game against
Washington. He will be welcomed by
Flyers Nation. He is second among Flyer
defensemen in penalty minutes (51, to Radko Gudas’ 63) and he is one of seven
Flyer defensemen with point totals in double digits (3-7-10). He also has 11 fights in 130 career NHL
games. It will be wise to pay attention
when he is on the ice. Manning is 0-1-1,
minus-2, in four career games against Washington.
Washington: Brett Connolly
When Andre Burakovsky went out of the lineup with an injury
against the Detroit Red Wings at the 15:34 mark of the first period in their
game on February 9th, is came at a most inopportune time for what
became a formidable third line of Burakovsky, Lars Eller, and Brett
Connolly. Eller does not have a goal
since Burakovsky went out (he does have five assists, including one in that
Detroit game that came after Burakovsky left); Connolly is 2-1-3 since
Burakovsky went out, one of those goals coming in that game against Detroit
(Eller earning his assist). For
Connolly, getting shots has been an iffy thing lately.
In eight games following that win over Detroit, he has 11 shots but has
drawn a blank in three of those contests, even while averaging abour 45 seconds
more per game in those eight contests than he did in his first 41 games of the
season. And making this recent run a bit
stranger is the fact that Connolly scored his two goals since Burakovsky’s exit
on the only shots he recorded in those games.
Connolly is 3-0-3, even, in nine career games against the Flyers.
In the end…
When the sun came up on January 1st, the Flyers were
20-14-4, their 44 points just three behind the Caps at the time. They have sunk through the standings like a
stale cheese-steak since, three points behind the New York Islanders for the
second wild-card spot and with three teams to jump over to secure that
spot. This game will open a four-game
road trip for the club that could very well mean their season. They will be desperate.
Facing a desperate team that also happens to be a bitter
divisional rival presents unique challenges to a team like the Caps, who find
themselves comfortably atop the league standings (five points clear of
Minnesota with one more game played).
The basic challenge here is to avoid getting caught up in the Flyers’
desperation, and its attendant orneriness, and be disciplined within the system
they play. If they do that, the Flyers
will leave Washington and head to Buffalo a more desperate team than the one
that arrived here.
Washington 5 – Flyers 2
