The Peerless Prognosticator is ON THE AIR!!!
Veterans Day is on the schedule for the Washington Capitals
as they host the Arizona Coyotes at Capital One Arena. The Caps go into this game riding a six-game
winning streak and have points in 11 consecutive games (10-0-1). On the other side, the Coyotes might qualify
as one of the more surprising teams of the early season, but their 9-4-1 start
has fallen into an 0-2-1 slide as they come to Washington.
Then and Now…
The Caps will meet the Coyotes for the 80th time
on Monday. In the 79 games played to
date between the Caps and Coyotes (including previous incarnations as Phoenix
Coyotes and Winnipeg Jets), the Caps are 35-29-3 (12 ties). The Caps are 24-10-1 (five ties) in 40 games
played on home ice. Since 2005-2006, the
Caps are 9-7-2 overall against Arizona, 6-3-0 on home ice. The teams split last year’s series, each
winning on the other’s rink, Arizona winning last Veterans Day in Washington,
4-1, and the Caps returning the favor in the desert with a 4-2 win last December
6th.
Active Leaders vs. Opponent…
Noteworthy Opponents…
If someone not calling themselves a Coyote fan were asked, “who
leads the team in goals this season,” they might go through a few players before
settling on Conor Garland. But he does
in this, his first full season in the NHL after getting 47 games of experience
last season and recording 13 goals.
Garland was a fifth-round pick of the Coyotes (123rd overall)
in the 2015 Entry Draft. After spending
a final year in Moncton in the QMJHL and two full seasons with the Tuscon
Roadrunners in the AHL, he split time between Tuscon and the Coyotes last
season. The odd part of his development
is that while he was a goal scorer in Canadian junior (104 goals in 206 games
over four seasons with Moncton), his first two years as a pro were unremarkable
(13 goals in 110 games with Tuscon).
Last year he took a leap forward with eight goals in 18 games with the
Roadrunners in the AHL in addition to his 13 goals in 47 games with the
Coyotes. He has slowed down a bit,
though. Garland is without a goal in his
last four games, his longest streak so far this season without one. This will be his first appearance against the
Capitals.
If it seems Alex Goligoski has been in the league forever,
it only seems that way. Yes, he is among
the older defensemen in the league, but at age 34 he is still younger than
Brent Burns, Ryan Suter, and Mark Giordano, among others. Now in his 13th season and third
team (stints with Dallas and Pittsburgh preceding his arrival in Arizona), he
is closing in on 400 career points (he has 385) that, should he get there ahead
of Alexander Edler (379), would make him the 19th active defenseman
with at least 400 career points. This
season, he leads the Coyote defensemen in assists (nine) and points (ten) and
is second only to Oliver Ekman-Larsson among all Arizona skaters in average ice
time per game (22:43). Goligoski has
also been the trigger man on the Coyote power play, his three assists tied for
the team lead with Clayton Keller. All
of Goligoski’s points came in a ten-game stretch after he opened his season
without a point in his first three games.
He goes into this game looking to avoid his second three-game streak
without a point this season. Goligoski
is 1-7-8, plus-6, in 21 career games against Washington.
Goaltender Antti Raanta missed the last 59 games of last
season with a knee injury. He started
this season missing the first three games of the season coming back from that
injury and taking a conditioning assignment in Tuscon in the AHL. He has been eased back into action so far,
appearing in only five games to date, none of them consecutively on the
schedule. The infrequency of his
appearances mirrors the inconsistency in his game to date. He has been very good at times (a 34-save
effort against Ottawa in a 5-2 win on October 19th), not so good in
others (four goals on 36 shots in a 4-1 loss to Montreal on October 20th).
That has left Darcy Kuemper with the bulk of the workload to
date. Kuemper has, from time to time
over his seven years in the NHL before this one, displayed some fine
performances, but he lacked workload.
Until last season he never appeared in more than 31 games in any
season. But last year, he started 55
games in his first season with the Coyotes and posted a fine 27-20-8, 2.33,
.925 record with five shutouts. He has
been better so far this season with a 2.00 goals against average and a .930
save percentage with one shutout, a level of performance that seems to have
been unrewarded in his 7-5-0 record in 12 starts. Kuemper is 1-1-0, 2.03, .939 in two career
appearances against the Caps, while Raanta is 1-1-0 (one no-decision), 2.59,
.906 in three career appearances against Washington.
1. Each of Arizona’s
last three games on the road have gone to extra time, an overtime win against
Edmonton and a Gimmick win against Buffalo with an overtime loss to Calgary. The Coyotes have played five extra time games
in nine road contests, none in eight games at home.
2. Three seems to be
the magic number for Arizona – goals allowed, that it. In seven games in which the Coyotes allowed
three of more goals, they are 1-4-2. In
the ten games in which they allowed two or fewer, they are 8-2-0.
3. Arizona hardly
lacks for shots in road games. They are
averaging 31.6 shots on goal per road game.
That has not translated into success.
The Coyotes are shooting just 8.8 percent on the road for the season.
4. The Coyotes do not
finish games strong in the offensive end of the ice. Their 11 third-period goals rank 29th
in the league. Only New Jersey (nine)
and Columbus (eight) have fewer.
5. What Arizona has
done well on the road is tilt the ice at 5-on-5. Their 52.88 shot attempts-for percentage at
5-on-5 is third-best in the league in road contests.
1. In the Caps’
10-0-1 run of late they scored 51 goals, eight more than the next leading goal
scoring teams over that span, Vancouver (43 in 13 games) and Calgary (43 in 14
games).
2. Over that same
span of time, the Caps are one of four teams with a goal differential greater
than plaus-10. The Caps are plus-19 in
11 games, Boston is plus-13 in ten games, Nashville is plus-11 in 12 games, and
the New York Islanders are plus-16 in 10 games.
3. The Caps have the
second best power play (27.0 percent) over those 11 games. Only Boston (30.8 percent in ten games) is
better.
4. The Caps’ 39 even
strength goals over those 11 games is more than the total scored by 22 other
teams. Four of the 51 total goals scored
over that span were empty netters, leading the league.
5. Despite all that,
the Caps are minus-19 in shot attempt differential at 5-on-5. Their 48.92 percentage is 22nd in
the league over that span.
The Peerless’ Players to Ponder
Arizona: Phil Kessel
When the Arizona Coyotes traded 25-year old Alex Galchenyuk
and a prospect (Pierre-Olivier Joseph) to Pittsburgh for 31-year old Phil
Kessel and a prospect (Dane Birks) late last June, the Penguins might have been
making a deal to send off a player whose time to go had clearly come, but the
Coyotes were getting a veteran player of uncommon durability (nine straight
seasons playing every game coming into this one) and reliable production
(averaging 29.4 goals per 82 games over his 13 seasons preceding this one). However, the move west after 13 years playing
in the Eastern Conference has not agree with Kessel. He has only three goals in 17 games to date,
none of them scored on the road.
Further, what contributions Kessel has made on the score
sheet seem not to have mattered much. In
eight games in which he recorded at least one point, Arizona is 4-3-1. They are 5-3-1 in the nine games in which he
was blanked on the score sheet. This
from a player who led the league in game-winning goals last season with the
Penguins (ten). Kessel did not get his
first even strength goal of the season until Game 13 against Colorado, and that
remains his only even strength goal so far this season. If more was expected of his contributions
than a 20th-ranked scoring offense, it has not yet
materialized. Kessel is 12-22-34,
minus-8, in 47 career games against the Capitals.
Washington: Garnet Hathaway
Garnet Hathaway has been as advertised for the Washington
Capitals to date. One scouting report
describes his assets as follows: “Owns excellent size (6-2, 208 pounds) and the
prototypical NHL-style game for the highest level, so he is capable of winning
board battles with consistency. Gets under opponents' skin, too.”
He plays the “heavy” style the Caps want to deploy, his 52 credited hits for
the season tied for 12th most among all players through Saturday,
tied for ninth among forwards. With his
13 blocked shots, he is one of two forwards in the league with more than 50
hits and more than ten blocked shots (Tom Wilson is another with 56 hits and 18
blocked shots).
Hathaway clearly pays a price in the physical game, and it has had its benefits. The Caps are 11-1-1 in the 13 games in which he was credited with two or more hits, and they have no lost a game in which he skated more than 13 minutes (6-0-0), evidence that he is reliable in games in which the Caps are trying to hold leads. On top of that, while his offensive numbers are modest (2-4-6 in 18 games), he is on a pace to surpass his career best in points (19 points with Calgary last season). Hathaway is no stranger to the Coyotes. The 14 games he has appeared against them is the most he has against any NHL opponent. He is 0-1-1, even, in those 14 games.
Hathaway clearly pays a price in the physical game, and it has had its benefits. The Caps are 11-1-1 in the 13 games in which he was credited with two or more hits, and they have no lost a game in which he skated more than 13 minutes (6-0-0), evidence that he is reliable in games in which the Caps are trying to hold leads. On top of that, while his offensive numbers are modest (2-4-6 in 18 games), he is on a pace to surpass his career best in points (19 points with Calgary last season). Hathaway is no stranger to the Coyotes. The 14 games he has appeared against them is the most he has against any NHL opponent. He is 0-1-1, even, in those 14 games.
In the end…
There are many stories of teams out to hot starts in the
early season only to fade as the grind of a long season begins to set in. For instance, last season the Minnesota Wild
opened the season 11-4-2 only to fade to a 26-32-7 finish, last in the Central Division. Whether Arizona suffers a similar fate is
only a matter of conjecture at this point.
But what isn’t is that they will be facing one of the hottest teams in
the league looking to win their seventh game in a row and their sixth straight
on home ice after starting the home portion of the schedule 0-1-2. Arizona just has not been scoring enough
goals for the Coyotes to depend on outscoring the Caps in an old fashioned shootout. They do have the second-best scoring defense
in the league, but the term “ambush” by the home team might apply to the
outcome in this contest.
Capitals 5 – Coyotes 2
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