The Peerless Prognosticator is ON THE AIR!!!
The Washington Capitals wrap up their “four straight games
out of town” tour (they stopped off at home after the win in Calgary last
Saturday) with a visit to Bell Centre to face the Montreal Canadiens. The Caps are looking to build on the success
of the western Canada leg of the journey, having won two of three games. On the other side, Montreal will be hoping to
wash the taste of a 4-1 loss to the Dallas Stars at Bell Centre on Tuesday out of their
mouths.
The Canadiens started the season fast, opening with a 4-1-1
record in their first half-dozen games.
Since then, however, Montreal is 2-2-1 to slip to 6-3-2 overall and into
fourth place in the Atlantic Division.
Montreal has had a consistent offense in the 2-2-1 slide, scoring three
goals in four consecutive games (five in a row, including the win against the
St. Louis Blues before this slide started) before being held to one by
Dallas. The inconsistency has been on
the defensive side of the ledger where the Habs have alternated four goals
allowed in games with better defensive efforts, a 3-2 win over the Calgary
Flames and a 3-0 whitewashing of the Boston Bruins.
The defensive inconsistency lately has not spread to goaltender
Carey Price, at least not in its entirety.
He was the goalie of record in four of the five decisions (2-1-1), but
he posted a goals against average of 2.23 in those games and a save percentage
of .919. Price is coming off a season in
which he appeared in only 49 games, a season interrupted by injury absences due
to a lower body injury and a concussion.
It matters because heavier workload has agreed with him over the years. Six times before this season Price appeared
in more than 60 games, and in four of them he posted save percentages over
.920, and in only one of them did he post a goals against average over 2.50
(2.83 in 52 appearances in 2008-2009).
He has been especially tough to beat at home over his career – 164-92-47,
2.30, .922, with 28 of his 41 career shutouts.
However, he has struggled against the Caps, going 6-13-4, 3.30, .891,
with one shutout in 23 career appearances.
Max Domi leads the Canadiens in points (5-6-11), and he is
one of 20 players in the league to have posted at least ten points and logged
at least ten penalty minutes (he has 10, although six of those came in Tuesday’s
loss to Dallas). Domi is in his first
season with Montreal, having arrived in a trade with Arizona for Alex
Galchenyuk in one of those trades in the category “players who need new scenery.” Domi had a six-game points streak stopped
against Dallas (5-3-8), and he will come into this game having scored only one
of his five goals on home ice this season.
His dispatch to Montreal would seem to be a product of his being unable
to capitalize and improve on a fine rookie season in which he went 18-34-52,
plus-3, with Arizona. He managed only 18
goals and 73 points over the next two seasons combined. His 11 points in 11 games so far would
suggest the change in scenery has been beneficial. Domi is 0-4-4,. Plus-4, in six career games
against Washington.
For the first seven seasons of Jeff Petry’s career, he was a
defenseman of modest offensive production, more of a “glue that binds” sort of
player. He never topped eight goals in
any of those seasons (four-plus seasons with Edmonton and two-plus seasons with
the Canadiens) and never reached the 30-point mark. Last year was a different story. In the first season of his career in which he
appeared in every contest in an 82-game season, he went 12-30-42, the goals,
assists, and points being career bests. He
did it largely by being the go-to force from the blue line on the power
play. Petry’s six power play goals
doubled his career total, and his 17 power play assists were more than he
recorded in his previous five seasons combined (13). He also skated 23:30, also a career high. His goal scoring so far this season is not
matching last year’s pace (one), but he does have nine points in 11 games so
far. Petry is 2-3-5, minus-4, in 13
career games against the Caps.
1. Montreal does a
good job suppressing shots. The 28.4
shots per game allowed is fifth-best in the league.
2. The Canadiens have
been gifted a lot of power play chances on home ice (28/third-most in the league),
but they have done little with those opportunities (17.8 percent/18th).
3. Montreal closes
games poorly. They have only six third
period goals all season, last in the league.
4. The second period
is known as the “long change” period for team, their bench being across the red
line from the goal they must defend. For
the Canadiens, it is the “power play period.”
No team has spent more time on the man advantage in the middle period
than Montreal so far (35:11), almost 12 more minutes than they have spent
shorthanded (11:47).
5. The Canadiens are
capable of playing from behind with a certain urgency in one respect. Their shot attempts-for percentage at 5-on-5
(61.50) is fourth-best in the league.
1. Alex Ovechkin
scored eight goals in October. It will surprise precisely no one
that since he came into the league in the 2005-2006 season, Ovechkin has scored
goals in more games in the month of October than any other player, 64 games in
all (72 goals). It would surprise only a
few that Ovechkin happens to have more goal-games in every month of the NHL
regular season calendar (October through April) since he came into the league.
2. John Carlson
finished October with five goals in ten games. He did not record a goal in
October either last season or the preceding season. Last season he went 14 games without a goal
before potting one, and in the preceding season he started the season with a
25-game goalless streak.
3. It would be good
if the Caps led after two periods. In each of their five wins to date, the Caps
led after 40 minutes. They have yet to
win a game when trailing or tied at the second intermission.
4. OK, so which forward
you got with the most shorthanded time on ice per game… Lars Eller? Chandler
Stephenson? Nicklas Backstrom? No, no, and no. It’s Devante Smith-Pelly with 2:11 per game.
5. The key to
stopping the Caps’ power play might be to keep them from getting any shots to
the net. Sounds almost cliché, but the Caps have 13 goals on 44 shots, a 29.5
percent shooting percentage. Evgeny
Kuznetsov has five power play goals on only 11 shots 45.4 percent).
The Peerless’ Players to Ponder
Montreal: Brendan Gallagher
Did you ever have something in your shoe that doesn’t quite
hurt, but annoys the heck out of you?
You take off your shoe, shake it vigorously, put it back on, only to
find your annoyance is still there?
Well, that’s Brendan Gallagher.
He’s not so much a “little ball of hate” in the mold of Pat Verbeek from
years gone by or Brad Marchand of more recent vintage. He’s more like, “what’s that damned buzz in
my ear that won’t go away?” But while he
might annoy, poke, prod, get under the skin of opponents, he has developed
into a talented offensive player. Last
season he posted a career high of 31 goals, more than he had in 117 games over
the previous two seasons combined (29). He came out of the box hot this season,
posting seven goals in 11 games played to date, three of them
game-winners. Only once in six games on
home ice so far has he failed to record a goal (October 11th in a
3-0 loss to Los Angeles). Gallagher is
3-1-4, minus-7, in 14 career games against the Caps.
Washington: Michal Kempny
After being concussed in a pre-season game in St. Louis on
September 25th, Michael Kempny was absent from the lineup until taking the ice
for the third regular season game for the Caps.
His ice time has not be rationed in any extraordinary way since his
return, ranging from 16:06 against Edmonton last Thursday to 20:38 against
Calgary last Saturday, averaging 17:44, about a minute more than he averaged
with the Caps in 22 games to close the regular season last spring. What he does not have in those minutes is
point. Kempny has one assist, that
coming in a 6-5 Gimmick loss to Florida on October 19th. Not that he was a big point producer last
spring, posting two goals and an assist in those 22 games with Washington. However, with Dmitry Orlov (0-1-1) and
Christian Djoos (0-2-2) with sluggish offensive starts from the blue line, any
contribution Kempny makes would certainly be welcome. He does not have a point in four career games
against Montreal.
In the end…
Washington has had an unworldly level of success at Bell
Centre. The Caps have not lost a game in
regulation in Montreal since January 10, 2009 (a 5-4 loss on a Sergei Kostitsyn
goal with less than 30 seconds left).
Since then, the Caps are 13-0-2, only three times in that span did
the Caps allow more than two goals, and only four times did they allow more
than 30 shots on goal. They have
outscored Montreal by a 53-28 margin in that span. The
default position might be “Montreal is due.”
We don’t do default.
Washington 4 – Montreal 2
