The Peerless Prognosticator is ON THE AIR!!!
The Washington Capitals wrap up their three-game home stand
on Friday night when they host the Florida Panthers. The Caps are 3-1-0 on home ice so far and
have outscored opponents by an 18-9 margin in the four games. It will be the Caps' last home contest before
they embark on a four-game road trip that will take them through western Canada
and to Montreal before returning for a November 3rd game against the
Dallas Stars at Capital One Arena.
The Panthers will be taking the ice for only the fifth time
so far this season, and they will be looking for their first win. Regulation losses to the Columbus Blue
Jackets and the Vancouver Canucks in south Florida were sandwiched between
Gimmick losses to the Tampa Bay Lightning in the season opener and to the
Philadelphia Flyers last Tuesday, both of those extra time losses coming on the
road.
It is not as if the Panthers have been blown out of
games. In addition to the two trick shot
losses, the two regulation losses were also by a single goal in each. It’s a matter of just lacking enough scoring
(the Panthers rank tied for 17th in scoring offense at 3.00 goals
per game) and lacking just enough defense and goaltending to keep opponents
from scoring (they rank tied for 22nd in scoring defense with 3.50
goals allowed per game).
The offense, such as it is, has balance – nine players have
goals so far – but no one has put a lot of crooked numbers on the score
sheet. Three players lead the club with
two goals apiece. Two of them would be
expected among the team’s leaders.
Aleksander Barkov (2-1-3 so far) is gaining wide acceptance as one of
the best two-way forwards in the league.
Last season he set career highs in assists (51) and points (78), and he
led the league in shorthanded goals (five).
It was also the first of his five seasons in the league in which he
averaged more than 20 minutes of ice time, his 22:04 only one second less than
Anze Kopitar’s 22:05 in average ice time among the league’s forwards. He also finished fourth in voting for the
Selke Trophy as the league’s top defensive forward and finished third for the
Lady Byng Trophy for gentlemanly play.
Since 2005-2006 Barkov is the only player in the league to appear in at
least 50 games, average at least 22 minutes per game, record at least 75
points, and be charged with fewer than 15 minutes in penalties in a single season. He was 27-51-78, plus-9, in 79 games with
only 14 penalty minutes last year. He is 3-5-8,
plus-3, in 12 career games against Washington.
Evgenii Dadonov spent his first three seasons in Florida
playing only intermittently, going 10-10-20, minus-5, in 55 games played over
those three seasons. Last year was an
awakening. He exploded for 28 goals and
65 points in 74 games. Of his total, 21
goals were scored in his last 40 games.
However, while scoring came easier to him last season, getting loads of
ice time did not. In 22 games in which
he skated more than 20 minutes, Florida was just 7-12-3. The thing to look for in Dadonov this season
is whether that 28-goal season was an outlier. This is a player who, in 155 games in the
AHL, recorded only 33 goals, about a 17-goal pace over 82 games, and he had 17
of those 33 goals in his first pro season, with the Rochester Americans in
2009-2010. Dadonov is 2-2-4, minus-4, in
nine career games against the Capitals.
The third Panther with two goals so far qualifies as an
unexpected entry. Frank Vatrano was an
undrafted free agent signed out of the University of Massachusetts by the
Boston Bruins in March 2015. He made his
way into the Bruin lineup for 108 games over the next three seasons (20-11-31,
minus-9) before he was traded to Florida for a 2018 third round draft pick last
February. He has found Florida a bit
more to his liking in brief exposure so far.
In 19 games, covering the end of last season and the beginning of this
season, Vatrano has seven goals on only 37 shots (18.9 percent shooting) in 19
games, a 30-goal pace over 82 games. But
as we said…”brief exposure.” Both of his
goals this season came in the Panthers’ 6-5 Gimmick loss to the Philadelphia
Flyers last Tuesday. He has yet to
record a point against the Caps in three career games against them.
1. This is Florida’s
25th NHL season and only the second in which they averaged three or more goals
per game (3.00 per game through four games).
The only full season in their history in which they averaged more than
three goals per game was in 1995-1996, when they averaged 3.10 goals per game
and went to the Stanley Cup final.
2. How close does
Florida play to the margin? They have
dressed eight defensemen so far this season, and only one – Mark Pysyk – is a “minus”
player (minus-3). Not what one might
expect of a team with no wins in four games.
3. Speaking of
defense, it is a bit of an offense-challenged group so far. Jacob MacDonald has the only goal among the
eight defensemen to play so far, and Keith Yandle is the only defenseman with a
power play point (one assist).
4. “Grittership”
really isn’t the Panthers’ thing. They
rank 27th in credited hits (87), 30th in blocked shots
(30), and their takeaway-to-giveaway ratio of 0.72 is rather weak.
5. Florida is “playing”
better than it is “performing,” at least in terms of shot attempts. Their shot attempts-for percentage at 5-on-5
(53.61) is ninth-best in the league.
1. What a difference
a year makes…
Last year… 3-2-1 through six games
This year… 3-2-1 through six games
Last year… SO win over OTT, 3-goal win over NJD, blowout win
over MTL
This year… OT win over NYR, 3-goal win over VGK, blowout win
over BOS
Last year… OT loss to TBL, 1-goal loss to PIT, blowout loss
to PHI
This year… OT loss to PIT, 2-goal loss to TOR, blowout loss
to NJD
Last year… 22 GF/22 GA
This year… 24 GF/22 GA
Last year… 30.0% PP/76.9% PK (STI: 106.9)
This year… 39.1% PP/72.7% PK (STI: 111.8)
Last year… SAT%/5-on-5: 46.20
This year… SAT%/5-on-5: 45.68
…or not.
2. Caps home power
play: 9-for-17/52.9 percent/rank: 2nd. Caps road power play: 0-for-6/0.0
percent/rank: T-25th (last).
3. Washington’s
plus-3 first period goal differential is tied for best in the East (with Tampa
Bay and New Jersey through Wednesday’s games).
4. The Caps’ third
line of Andre Burakovsky, Lars Eller, and Brett Connolly is a combined 1-for-31
shooting so far this season (Eller has the only goal), a 3.2 shooting
percentage. Hopefully, “playing” better
in terms of possession and the eyeball test, as they did against the Rangers on
Wednesday, will translate into results.
5. Washington is 25th
in shot attempts-for percentage at 5-on-5 (45.68), but they have a 5-on-5 PDO
of 995, which ranks 19th. That’s a little illustration of what might be
a “skills premium” (Anaheim is a big one…dead last in SAT% (40.21) but second
in PDO (1058)...or maybe that’s just weird blind luck). Things like this don’t always
travel in sync.
The Peerless’ Players to Ponder
Florida: James Reimer
Roberto Luongo suffered a knee injury mid-way through the
Panthers’ 2-1 Gimmick loss to the Tampa Bay Lightning on Opening Night, an
injury that resulted in his being placed on injured reserve and whose status is uncertain for the next week or two. That leaves the number one goaltending chores to James Reimer, now in his ninth
season after having been drafted in the fourth round of the 2006 entry draft by
the Toronto Maple Leafs for whom he played 207 games over his first six seasons. Reimer came to Florida from the San Jose
Sharks (who obtained him from Toronto in a February 2016 trade) in July 2016 as
a free agent. His role in that span has
been nominally Luongo’s backup, but he appeared in 43 games in his first season
in Florida in 2016-2017 and in 44 games last season, quite a bit of work for a “backup.” His numbers have been doing a slow leak over
the last few seasons. Since 2015-2016,
when he went 17-14-7, 2.31, .922 in 40 games split between Toronto and San
Jose, his goals against average rose to 2.53 and then to 2.99 last season,
while his save percentage dropped, first to .920 and then to .913 last
season. It is early, but in three
appearances so far those numbers have inched downward again (3.62/.885). He has never been much of an October player,
though, posting a 2.93 GAA and a .909 save percentage in October games over his
career. Reimer is 4-4-2, 2.16, .937 and
one shutout in ten career appearances against Washington. Those goals against and save percentage
numbers against the Caps are the best he has against any Eastern Conference
team he faced over his career.
Washington: Jakub Vrana
Who is the only
Capitals forward with a personal SAT over 50 percent at 5-on-5? Bet you didn’t have “Jakub Vrana” (51.38
percent) as the answer (well, maybe you did, since he’s the “player to ponder”
here). The number in this measure that
jumps out is his shot attempts at 5-on-5 for which he has been on ice. He has been on ice for more 5-on-5 shot
attempts (93) than any other Capital through six games. However, the aggregate is made up of
individual games, and his number is weighted quite a bit by the game against
Toronto in which he was on ice for 21 5-on-5 shot attempts and only 7 shot
attempts against. Oddly enough, perhaps,
the two games in which he was over 50 percent (against Pittsburgh being the
other), the Caps lost. His worst game
(39.39 percent) was in the 5-2 win over the Vegas Golden Knights. Fancy stats can be wacky stats
sometimes. Vrana has yet to record a
point against the Panthers in three career games.
In the end…
You do not want to be the club against which your opponent
gets their first win of the season. If
Detroit beats Tampa Bay on Thursday night (the Red Wings, the only other
winless team, are 0-4-2), the Caps will be in that situation on Friday. Washington played well in spots against the
New York Rangers on Wednesday, but it has been since the win over Vegas that
the Caps put together a solid 60-minute effort.
Perhaps it is a variation of the hangover effect, not being able to
muster a full measure of focus and attention for what might be viewed as “lesser”
opponents. That can be a dangerous
attitude against a team that hasn’t been out of any game so far and that has
played the Caps tough in recent meetings.
What makes this a bigger game for the Caps is that this is the getaway
game before the western Canada tour, and it sure would be better to start that
trip with a 4-2-1 record than a 3-3-1 record.
Capitals 4 – Panthers 2
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