The Peerless Prognosticator is ON THE AIR!!!
The Washington Capitals bring the week to an end on Saturday
night when they visit the Lone Star State to face the Dallas Stars in a rematch
of Tuesday’s matchup that the Caps lost in overtime, 4-3. You can take a look at the prognosto for that one for some information to impress your friends and confound your adversaries,
but here are some more tidbits on which you can snack:
1. This will be the
Capitals’ 20th visit to Dallas since the Stars moved there from
Minnesota for the 1993-1994 season.
Washington has a 5-12-2 record in Big D, which might stand for “Big
Disappointment.”
2. All five wins by
the Caps in Dallas were of the one-goal variety, four of them in overtime.
3. The first, last,
and only win in regulation the Caps have had in Dallas came on October 17,
1995. You might remember that as the
date on which a French woman Jeanne Calment reached the confirmed age of 120
years and 238 days, making her the oldest person ever recorded. Then again, you might remember that Mike
Eagles and Mark Tinordi scored goals to wipe out a 2-0 Dallas lead, Stefan
Ustorf scored to give the Caps a lead, and after Dallas tied the game one more
time, Dale Hunter scored the game-winning goal in the third period. Jim Carey (remember him?) was the winning
goaltender.
4. Each of the last
three games played by these teams in Dallas ended in overtime. The Caps won in January 2017 on a Jay Beagle
goal 19 seconds into the extra frame, and then they won in December 2017 on an
Andre Burakovsky goal in overtime. Both
games ended by 4-3 scores. Dallas won
the last meeting, in overtime, last January on a Tyler Seguin goal in extra
time.
5. Tyler Seguin
scored the overtime, game-winning goal in each of the last two games between
these teams. No player has more overtime
game-winners in team history against the Caps than Seguin (two).
6. These teams and
overtime… Each of the last three regular season games and five of the last
seven overall, regardless of venue, were settled in overtime.
7. These teams also
like “4-3” games. Eight of the last 18
games played by these teams finished with that score (five in extra time). The Caps won four, and the Stars won four.
8. Going into this
season, what two Capitals were the all-time leaders in goals and points against
the Stars in Dallas? If one of your answers was “Alex Ovechkin,” well good for
you, even if it was not a very original guess.
The other? Andre
Burakovsky. Both Ovechkin and Burakovsky
were 2-5-7 in Dallas. Burakovsky’s feat
might be more impressive, having done it in only five games (not to mention
having an overtime game-winning goal).
Ovechkin did it over nine games.
9. Five wins in
Dallas, five different goaltenders. Jim
Carey, Craig Billington, Jose Theodore, Braden Holtby, and Philipp
Grubauer. Theodore is the only one to
win in his only appearance for the Caps in Dallas against the Stars. He and Grubauer are the only ones to do it in
their only start (Grubauer had two appearances in Dallas).
10. No goalie was
frustrated more in Dallas than Olaf Kolzig.
In six appearances (five starts), he was 0-5-0, 3.07, .859, but he does
have the only point scored by a goalie in Dallas, an assist on the Caps’ only
goal in a 4-1 loss in January 2006. In
his five starts, the Caps scored only four goals and were shut out twice. Not much to work with there.
The Peerless’ Players to Ponder
Dallas: Tyler Seguin
Tyler Seguin isn’t bad enough scoring the game-winning
overtime goal against the Caps in Washington on Tuesday night. He is the active leader among Stars in
scoring against the Caps in Dallas with five goals and eight points in six
games played in Big D. Three of the
goals are power play strikes, two of the goals are game-winners, one in
overtime. He has been especially painful
to the Caps in another respect. Overall,
he has five game-winning goals in 24 career games against the Caps, the most he
has against any opponent except the Winnipeg Jets (eight in 36 games). He has five career power play goals against
Washington. Only against the Jets does
he have more (13).
Washington: Tom Wilson
Three players in Caps history through last season appeared
in 10 or more games against the Dallas incarnation of the Stars franchise and
not recorded a point. Two – Brendan Witt
and Joe Reekie – are retired defensemen.
The other is Tom Wilson, who had no points in 11 career games against
the Stars at the end of last season. He
broke that drought with his first point of the season (an assist) on Tuesday
night. It is a change from last season
for Wilson who, after opening the season on suspension, had points in nine of
his first ten games (8-6-14), four of them multi-point games, and did not go
consecutive games without a point until December. With the forward lines settling out upon the
return of Evgeny Kuznetsov from his own suspension to open the season, perhaps
Wilson’s production (which improved with a shorthanded goal on Thursday against Nashville) will pick up.
In the end…
This game will end a difficult start to the new season for
the Caps. The five teams against whom
the Caps opened the season were among the best scoring defenses last season:
St. Louis (fifth), the New York Islanders (first), Carolina (eighth), Nashville
(fourth), and Dallas (second). Things
change in a hurry for the Caps, who will face the more offense-inclined
Colorado Avalanche and Toronto Maple Leafs when they leave Dallas. But, first things first. And given the history of these teams, the
score should be apparent. Just with a
different ending than Tuesday night.
Capitals 4 – Stars 3
