The Peerless Prognosticator is ON THE AIR!!!
The Washington Capitals return home on Saturday to host the
Buffalo Sabres and hope to stop skidding through their schedule like a car with
bald tires in an ice storm. The Caps are
4-5-2 in the month of February and just 2-4-2 in their last eight home games as
they prepare for Buffalo.
It has been just five days since the Caps last faced this
team, the last team they defeated. And
it is a team that struggles scoring goals on the road. Despite playing the seventh-highest number of
road games this season (31), the Sabres rank 21st in goals scored
(79/2.55 per game). Evander Kane and
Ryan O’Reilly lead the team in road goals with 10 apiece, a number that has
them tied for 40th in the league in goals scored on the road this
season.
We focused on Kane in the prognosto for the last meeting, but O’Reilly deserves some attention. O’Reilly
has been a reliable scorer over the last six seasons coming into this one. In the five full seasons preceding this one
(not including the abbreviated 2012-2013 season), he topped the 50-point mark
in each one with a high of 64 points with the Colorado Avalanche in
2013-2014. He seems a good bet to do that
again this season, having posted 44 points in 60 games. He also is one of the most “gentlemanly”
players in the league. In 630 NHL games
he has a total of just 84 penalty minutes, only two in 60 games so far this
season. If he finishes with fewer than
ten penalty minutes this season it would make four seasons in the last six in
which he did so. O’Reilly has received
votes for the Lady Byng Trophy (gentlemanly play) in five of the last six
seasons, winning the award in the 2013-2014 season. He combines this with a reputation for
defense, despite an odd progression of numbers.
O’Reilly has been a “minus” player in each of the last seven seasons
coming into this one and seems assured of an eighth (he is currently
minus-12). However, he has received
votes for the Selke Trophy as the league’s top defensive forward in each of
those seven seasons, finishing as high as sixth in 2013-2014. He is 0-5-5, minus-2, in 15 career games
against Washington.
It was Rasmus Ristolainen who got our attention for his
offensive contributions in the prognosto for the most recent game against the
Caps, but among Sabre defensemen Marco Scandella deserves some attention,
too. Scandella is in his first season in
Buffalo after spending seven seasons with the Minnesota Wild. If there is a rough comparison with whom Caps
fans might be familiar, it might be former Caps defensemen Karl Alzner. Take away Scandella’s 11-goal season in
2014-2015, and his seasons look a lot like Alzners – a low single-digit goal
scorer and in the low- to mid-teens in assists.
At the moment he is second among Sabre defensemen in road goal scored
(2), assists (7),and points (9), his plus-4 being best of those defensemen on
the road. And, he has logged 24:05 in 31
road games, second to Ristolainen on the team.
Scandella is without a point in nine career games against the Caps.
Victor Antipin is not your usual rookie. First, he turned 25 years old in December, a
bit on the older side for an NHL rookie.
Second, he came to the NHL after spending six seasons skating for
Metallurg Magnitogorsk in the KHL (he was not drafted by an NHL club when
coming eligible). Two of those clubs won
the Gagarin Cup as KHL champion, so he does come from a winning tradition that
the Sabres haven’t been able to match in quite some time. He left Metallurg for the purpose of moving
to the NHL, signing a one-year contract last May with the Sabres. He has been in and out of the lineup for
health (missed six games in January to illness) and being worked gently into
the roster – he has dressed for 36 games this season. However, he seems to have earned a spot on
the big club, skating in 12 of the team’s last 14 games (one of those missed
was against Washington last Sunday). His
opportunity is a product of injuries suffered by the blue line, but he does
have six assists in those 36 games for which he has dressed. He did skate against the Caps in the November
7th meeting won by the Sabres, 3-1, and did not register a point,
although he was plus-2 for the game.
1. Buffalo’s defense
has been a medical staff’s nightmare.
Only one defenseman has appeared in all 61 games for the Sabres this
season (Marco Scandella), and only two others have appeared in at least 45
games (Jake McCabe, who is currently injured, with 53 games, and Rasmus
Ristolainen with 52 games). The club has
dressed 13 defensemen overall.
2. You would think a
team struggling as are the Sabres would be integrating a lot of rookies, or at
least giving rookies a long look. Not
so. As noted, Victor Antipin has 36
games played, but only three other rookies have dressed – Nicolas Baptiste,
Brendan Guhle, and Kyle Crisciolo – and only for a total of 22 games among
them.
3. The Sabres are the
only team in the NHL not to participate in the Gimmick on the road this
season.
4. One thing the
Sabres are adept at – shorthanded goal scoring on the road. They have five, tied for second-most in the
league (Colorado: 7).
5. If the Caps are
going to get well, shots-wise, it is going to be against this team. Buffalo is minus-218 in the shot attempt differential
at 5-on-5 on the road. That is the
third-worst differential in the league (Ottawa: minus-224; Minnesota:
minus-247).
1. The Caps had
better watch out for Buffalo’s shorthanded goal scoring ability on the
road. Only three teams have allowed more
shorthanded goals on home ice than Washington (4). On the other side of the ledger, only three
teams have scored fewer shorthanded goals on home ice than the Caps (1).
2. Alex Ovechkin might lead the league in goals overall (36),
but he is just tied for sixth in goal scoring at home (17) and tied for 18th
in even strength goals on home ice (10).
3. Ovechkin leading
the club in home goals is not a surprise, but Lars Eller second with ten? That qualifies.
4. Only the New York
Rangers (minus-87) have a worse shot attempt differential at 5-on-5 than the
Caps (minus-81) when the game is tied.
5. Six different
Capitals have empty-net goals on home ice, none of them with more than one: Jay
Beagle, Tom Wilson, Alex Chiasson, Jakub Vrana, Devante Smith-Pelly, and
Nicklas Backstrom.
The Peerless’ Players to Ponder
Buffalo: Kyle Okposo
When the Buffalo Sabres signed forward Kyle Okposo away from
the New York Islanders to a seven-year/$42 million contract in July 2016, they
were probably expecting a player who could score 29 goals a season, not 29
goals in 124 games over two seasons with the club. And this season has the makings of a less
productive one than last year, when Okposo recorded 19 goals in 65 games. So far this season he has 10 goals in 59
games, putting him on a pace to finish this season with 14 goals. He has just one goal in his last dozen games,
although he does have six assists in that span.
One other problem has crept into his game, that being even strength
performance. He is minus-8 in his last
seven games and has not been a plus player for 13 straight contests, not since
he had a pair of assists and was plus-1 in a 5-0 win over the Edmonton Oilers
on January 23rd. The
production has resulted in his ice time being pared back. He has not skated as much as 20 minutes in
his last nine games, and he hit the 15-minute mark only once in his last four
contests. Okposo is 11-11-22, plus-4,in
30 career games against the Caps. The
goals scored against Washington is the second most he has in his career against
a single club (he has 14 in 43 games against Pittsburgh).
Washington: Christian Djoos/Madison Bowey
When the Washington Capitals acquired Michal Kempny and
Jakub Jerabek in separate deals with Chicago and Montreal, respectively,
perhaps Caps fans could be forgiven for thinking the rookie experiment on the
blue line was coming to an end. Never
mind that both are among the top scorers among rookie defensemen in the league,
Djoos ranked eighth (3-11-14) and Bowey ranked ninth (0-12-12). It left the Caps with the only team in the
league with two rookies among the top-ten scorers among rookie defensemen. Both, however, have seen scoring dry up a bit
of late. Djoos has only one assist in
his last eight games after posting a four-game points streak. Bowey is without a point in his last nine
games after consecutive games with points.
While both have had low minute burdens, one has done reasonably well in
possession numbers, given the team context, while the other has struggled. In February, Djoos is second on the club in shot
attempts-for percentage at 5-on-5 (47.83 percent), while Bowey is last in that
category for the month (38.46 percent).
But here’s the thing. Djoos and
Bowey have combined for 103 games played in these, their respective rookie
seasons. Kempny and Jerabek have
combined to appear in 107 games in their respective NHL careers to date.
In the end…
Caps fans are watching the team’s seeding, if not their
playoff hopes, slip away in slow motion.
The Caps have not been awful of late, but they are just a single point ahead of the Pittsburgh Penguins and Philadelphia
Flyers at the top of the Metropolitan Division, and they are only ten points
ahead of the ninth-place New York Islanders.
A losing streak of any length would drop the club off the division pace
and place their playoff position in jeopardy.
When one considers that the Caps still have their three-game California
trip ahead of them and 11 of their last 20 games on the road, the schedule does
become challenging down the stretch.
They simple have to win games they should win. They did not do it against Florida on
Thursday – their second late-game collapse in barely a week – but they need to
do it against the Sabres.
Capitals 4 – Sabres 2
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