The Peerless Prognosticator is ON THE AIR!!!
Well, here we are, the last home stand of the regular
season. Eighty games in, and the
Washington Capitals are secure in the knowledge that the will host a first
round playoff matchup against the Philadelphia Flyers. Or the Columbus Blue Jackets. Or the New Jersey Devils. Or the California Seals. Or the Cleveland Barons.
OK, so neither of those last two teams, and before they can
entertain any of the others for the first two games of Round 1 of the
postseason, there is the matter of this home stand that starts on Thursday
night against the Nashville Predators.
The Preds appear to be the hockey intelligentsia’s pick as the most
likely team to come out of the Western Conference for their second straight
Stanley Cup final, so think of this matchup as a Stanley Cup preview.
And why not think of the Preds as the cream of the crop in the
West? This is the best team, wins and
points wise, in franchise history – 51 wins and 113 points going into their last
two games of the season. They have come
back to earth a bit over the last couple of weeks, though. After peeling off a 15-game points streak
(14-0-1) over a one-month period from mid-February to mid-March, the Preds are
3-4-1 in their last eight games. That
slump has been characterized by an unusual leakiness on defense and in goal. They have been out-shot, 269-249 over that
span and have allowed 27 goals in those eight games (3.38 per game). Three times in those eight games Nashville
allowed five or more goals.
It has put pressure on the offense to produce, and for Caps
fans the player who instantly comes to mind is former Capitals first-round
draft pick Filip Forsberg. Despite
missing 12 games this season for a variety of reasons (including a three-game suspension for committing interference on the New York Rangers’ Jimmy Vesey in
February), he leads the team in points (61), power play goals (11), and overtime goals
(2). Forsberg is on the cusp of
assembling his best year in this, his sixth NHL season. He already has a career high 38 assists, he
is within three points of his career best (64 in 2015-2016), the 11 power play
goals are a career high. And he drives
success with his production. Forsberg
has points in 41 of the 65 games he has played this season, and the Preds are
30-7-4 in those games. And although he
is in just his sixth season with Nashville and fourth as a full time player, he
is climbing the franchise history rankings.
He enters this contest fifth in team history in goals scored (114), 14th
in assists (138), ninth in points (252), 10th in power play goals
(29), tied for fourth in game-winning goals (23), second in goals per game
(0.35; minimum: 100 games played), 12th in assists per game (0.42), and
fourth in points per game (0.77). He had
consecutive three-point games before being blanked in the 2-1 loss to Florida
on Tuesday night. Forsberg is 6-4-10,
plus-4, in seven career games against Washington.
What Forsberg is not is the team leader in goals this
season. That lead belongs to Viktor
Arvidsson, who has 29 goals so far and appears about to secure his second
consecutive 30-goal season (hopefully not in this game; he had 31 last year). His 29-31-60, plus-19 scoring line in 76
games this season looks a lot like his 31-30-61, plus-16 scoring line from last
season. And if he does get that 30th
goal this season, he would join Forsberg as the only players in Nashville
history to have two 30-goal seasons (five other players have one, in addition
to Arvidsson). He has not been lighting
the lamp with quite as much frequency lately, though. Since he recorded a two-goal game in a 4-2
win at Edmonton on March 1st, he has five goals in 16 games. Not a big drop-off (a 26-goal pace over a
full season), but some. Arvidsson is
2-1-3, minus-1, in six career games against the Caps.
If one was thinking about Vezina Trophy finalists in
mid-March, chances are that Pekka Rinne would have been among them. Of 41 goaltenders who logged at least 1,500
minutes through March 19th, Rinne was tied for first among them in
wins (40, with Tampa Bay’s Andrei Vasilevskiy), third in goals against average
(2.21), second in save percentage (.931), and first in shutouts (8). He allowed as many as five goals in a game
just three times. However, in five games
since then, he is 1-4-0, 3.62, .880, and he has allowed five or more goals
twice. Having it happen against the
Toronto Maple Leafs, with their high-powered offense, might be categorized as “one
of those things.” Allowing six on home
ice to the Buffalo Sabres in 40 minutes of work is a head scratcher. It does not seem as if it is a case of too
large a minutes burden being the case for his slump of late. His 3,435 minutes ranks eighth in the league,
and it is the sixth-highest total in his 12-year career (he played 4,169
minutes in 2011-2012). Then again, since
the dark 2004-2005 season, only five goalies age 35 or older have recorded
3,500 minute seasons (three did it twice).
Rinne turned 35 last November. So, does head coach Peter Laviolette rest him
for the final two games of the regular season to prepare for the
postseason? Rinne is 4-1-0, 2.40, .915,
in five career appearances against Washington.
1. For a team as successful
as the Predators are, they spend a lot of time in the penalty box. A lot.
The 11:18 in penalty minutes per game is tops in the league, as is the
number of penalties overall (364), minor penalties (313), and misconducts (9).
2. As one might
expect with that penalty profile, the Predators have spent the most time in the
league this season killing penalties (475:46).
However, they have also spent 428:58 on power plays (sixth in the
league). Still, their special teams time
differential (minus-46:48) is sixth-worst in the league.
3. Only Tampa Bay (6)
has had more overtime power plays that the Predators (5).
4. Nashville cleans
up in the middle period. Only Tampa Bay
has more second period goals scored (109) than the Preds (97), and Nashville’s
plus-24 goal differential in the second periods of games is topped only by the
Lightning (plus-37).
5. If Nashville
scores first, that’s a problem. The
Predators lead the league in wins when scoring first in games (39).
1. The Caps actually
have a worse special teams time differential than Nashville: minus-57:22
(fourth-worst in the league).
2. If the margin is
two, that’ll do… Washington leads the league in wins by a two-goal margin (14).
3. Winning games when
trailing at the second intermission is a rare occurrence in the NHL, but even
by that standard the Caps are sub-par.
They have three wins this season when trailing after two periods. Only five teams have fewer. On the flip side, though, only two teams have
fewer losses when trailing after two periods than the Caps (18 in regulation,
two in extra time).
4. Games played by
the Caps feature the fewest shots per game by both teams in the league this
season (61.0), mostly a product of the Caps being last in the league in shots
on goal per game (29.0).
5. Possession has
been an issue with the Caps all season, but most of the problem is the
disparity in home and road 5-on-5 shot attempt numbers. The Caps are 16th in the league overall
in home shot attempts-for at 5-on-5 (50.56), 23rd on the road
(46.10).
The Peerless’ Players to Ponder
Nashville: Roman Josi
If Nicklas Backstrom is Capitals Nation’s pick as most
underrated player in the league, the Nashville fans’ entry might be defenseman
Roman Josi. It seems he’s played his
entire career in the shadow of one teammate or another. Whether it was his first five seasons being a
teammate of Shea Weber or the last two with P.K. Subban, there has been another
Predator defenseman on whom a brighter light shined. However, since he became a full-time player
in the abbreviated 2012-2013 season, Josi ranks highly in his own right among
NHL defensemen: games played (427/T-19th), goals (72/7th),
assists (202/10th), points (274/7th), power play goals
(26/8th), game-winning goals (14/T-6th), total minutes
played (10,836/6th), time on ice per game (25:22/7th), and
shots on goal (1,130/5th).
But there is a curious thing about his ice time. More of it is not necessarily a good
thing. In 31 games this season, Josi
skated more than 25 minutes, and the Predators have a record in those games of
just 14-10-7 (1-4-2 in the last seven instances). Josi is 4-4-8, even, in ten career games
against the Caps.
Washington: Jakub
Vrana
It has been a strange and, at times, difficult season for
Jakub Vrana, especially the 2018 portion of it.
Since January 31st, when he was out of the lineup in a 5-3
win over the Philadelphia Flyers, he has missed seven of the Caps’ 31 games and
skated fewer than 12 minutes in 14 of the other 24 contests. He has top-six skills, which does not
necessarily make him a top-six player, and he certainly is not getting top-six
minutes. And it is hard to know what to
make of the absences. The Caps were
3-3-1 in those seven games he missed, but they were 10-3-1 in those 14 games in
which he skated less than 12 minutes.
Whatever his ice time, the Caps could use his production in terms of
second-level support and engagement on offense.
Washington is 18-5-2 in the 23 games in which Vrana recorded a point so
far this season, 14-5-2 in games in which he recorded at least three shots on
goal. He, like a lot of young scorers,
can be streaky, evidenced by his following up a five game stretch over which he
had points in four and went 1-4-5, plus-4, with a five-game streak without a
point and minus-3, a streak he could be looking to break in this contest. In two career games against Nashville, Vrana
has an assist and is even in plus-minus.
In the end…
This game is a “measuring stick” mostly in the minds of
fans. These are two teams looking to
hone things in advance of their respective postseasons. They are like the veteran pitcher who gets
shelled in spring training, causing fans to think “he’s lost it,” when what he
has been doing is working on a new pitch or a new wrinkle in his delivery, preparing for when the games matter more. Both teams will be looking to play the “right
way” to establish good habits before the first round of the playoffs start next
week. But what does stick out is a bit
of uncertainty in their respective nets.
Is Pekka Rinne overworked for the Predators, and will one Caps goalie
grab the job by the throat to get the nod in the first round that starts next
week? Plots and subplots are what crowd
our thoughts.
Capitals 4 – Predators 3
