The Peerless Prognosticator is ON THE AIR!!!
It is a late start to the work week for the Washington
Capitals as they head to Florida to meet the Panthers on Thursday night. Both teams are coming off long breaks, the
Caps not having played since beating the Calgary Flames at home last Sunday,
and the Panthers have been on a break since shutting out the Detroit Red Wings last
Saturday.
Then and Now…
The Caps and Panthers will meet for the 127th
time on Thursday. Washington has a
64-42-11 (nine ties) record. The
Capitals are 30-25-4 (four ties) in 63 of those games played in Florida. Since 2005-2006, the Caps are 36-24-10
against the Panthers, 17-14-4 in visits to South Florida. Washington has lost in their last four visits
to Florida (0-2-2), three of the decisions by one goal, and have been
outscored, 18-14.
Active Leaders vs. Opponent…
Caps vs. Panthers:
- Goals: Ovechkin (36)
- Assists: Ovechkin (42)
- Points: Ovechkin (78)
- Plus-minus: Ovechkin (plus-13)
- Penalty minutes: Backstrom (42)
- Power play goals: Ovechkin (9)
- Power play points: Ovechkin (28)
- Shorthanded goals: none
- Game-winning goals: Ovechkin (8)
- Overtime goals: Kuznetsov (1)
- Shots on goal: Ovechkin (316)
- Goaltender wins: Holtby (1)
- Goals against average: Holtby (2.78)
- Save percentage: Holtby (.906)
- Shutouts: Holtby (1)
Panthers vs. Caps:
- Goals: Trocheck (7)
- Assists: Huberdeau (11)
- Points: Huberdeau (17)
- Plus-minus: Barkov (plus-5)
- Penalty minutes: Trocheck (12)
- Power play goals: Dadonov, Trocheck, Huberdeau (2)
- Power play points: Huberdeau (7)
- Shorthanded goals: Barkov, Trocheck (1)
- Game-winning goals: Trocheck (2)
- Overtime goals: Hoffman (1)
- Shots on goal: Trocheck, Huberdeau (43)
- Goaltender wins: none
- Goals against average: none
- Save percentage: none
- Shutouts: none
Noteworthy Opponents…
When Jonathan Huberdeau took the ice 1:58 into the contest
with the New York Islanders on Long Island on October 12th, he took
over ninth place in games played for the Florida Panthers, suiting up for the
472nd time and passing Jay Bouwmeester on the franchise list. He will shortly become only the eighth player
in team history to dress for 500 or more games, and only three players in team
history have played more seasons for the Panthers: Paul Laus (nine), Radek
Dvorak (nine), and Stephen Weiss (11).
Not that Huberdeau is a graybeard.
He turned just 26 years old last June.
He was the third overall pick in the 2011 Entry Draft, one of the
deepest drafts in recent memory, one with 14 players having topped 100 career
goals (including Huberdeau, ninth with 134 goals) and 17 players with at least
200 points (humberdeau is sixth with 377). His fellow draft classmates inclue
Nikita Kucherov, Gabriel Landeskog, John Gaudreau, Mark Scheifele, Sean
Couturier, and William Karlsson.
Huberdeau is off to a fine start this season after posting
career highs in goals (30) and points (92) last season. Through 14 games he is 9-9-18 and is shooting
an unusually good 24.3 percent (his career average is 12.0 percent). The odd thing about his team-leading nine
goals is that none of them have come on power plays. Two of his goals are game-winners, though
(one in overtime, the team’s only overtime goal), which is a third of the
game-winning goal output for the club so far. He has been quite consistent in the early
schedule. In 14 games played he was held
without a point only three times, all on the road and none of them
consecutively. In five home games he is
5-5-10, even. Huberdeau is 6-11-17,
even, in 20 career games against the Capitals.
Vincent Trocheck is also a member of that deep 2011 draft
class, a third-round (64th overall) pick for the Panthers. He is in his seventh season with Florida and
is looking to improve upon a 2018-2019 season in which he lost 27 games to an
ankle injury and finished just 10-24-34 in 55 games after posting a career-high
31 goals in 2017-2018. Trocheck has
outperformed his draft position to date, one of only three players taken after
the 60th pick to reach the 100 career goal mark (104th
overall pick John Gaudreau has 136, and 139th overall pick Andrew
Shaw has 113). Trocheck is already one
of ten players in Panther history with at least 100 goals (102) and 250 points
(252).
This season has been another of frustration for Trocheck,
who has not played since October 19th against Nashville. He has missed the last six games with a
lower-body injury, but even before that he had not recorded a goal in seven
games after potting one in the Panthers’ 5-2 loss to Tampa Bay in their season opener. In his absence, Florida has gone 4-1-1 and
scored 25 goals in the process.
Trocheck’s offense has not yet been missed. But he has been effective against the Caps,
going 7-8-15, plus-1, in 13 career meetings.
Aaron Ekblad was the top overall pick. Keith Yandle is the guy you can’t get out of
the lineup. Anton Stralman was the free
agent signed away from the other team in Florida. So who leads the defense in goals and is tied
for the points lead? MacKenzie Weegar
(3-6-9). His is quite a story. Only five players were taken later in the
2013 Entry Draft than 206th overall pick Weegar. But only one player among the 90 players
taken in the fifth round or later have appeared in more than the 141 games
played to date by Weegar (Will Butcher, the 123rd overall pick by
Colorado, has appeared in 169 games for the New Jersey Devils to date).
Weegar performed the expected apprenticeship, moving from
Canadian junior hockey to the ECHL and parts of three seasons in the AHL, the
last of which (2016-2017) included a brief three-game stint with the Panthers. He got a heaver workload in 2017-2018, going
2-6-8, plus-5, in 60 games; and then he was 4-11-15, minus-3 last season. Although it is early in his career, Weegaar’s
improvement has been constant. The goals
(two to four to being on pace for 18), assists (six, 11, on pace for 35), shots
(58, 79, on pace for 170), and ice time (14:34, 16:58, 20:47) paint a picture
of a player carving out more responsibility by virtue of improving
production. He is just doing it in
comparative anonymity, even among his own defensive crew. Weegar is 0-0-0, minus-1, in five career
games against the Capitals.
1. Former Capital
Update… Through 14 games, it appears Brett Connolly’s production with the Caps
over three seasons (52 goals over 217 games) was no fluke. He is 5-5-10 so far. Last season, with the Caps, he did not record
his fifth goal until his 29th game, and it took him 17 games to get
to 10 points. The year before, it took
him 20 games to get to five goals and 26 games to get to ten points. In 2016-2017, his first with Washington, he
took 26 games to get to five goals and 33 games to get to ten points.
2. The Panthers make
goalies work for their supper. They are
second in the league in shots on goal per game (34.8). But they also have been adept at limiting
opponents, both in shots and opportunities.
Their average shots on goal allowed (29.4) is sixth-fewest in the
league, and their 501 shot attempts allowed at 5-on-5 are fifth-fewest (501 in
14 games), and only two of the teams having allowed fewer did it in fewer games
(Tampa Bay: 480 in 13 games; New Jersey: 445 in 13 games).
3. Only the Winnipeg
Jets have been charged with fewer penalties overall (36 in 16 games) than the
Panthers (43 in 14 games).
4. Florida has a very
good power play on home ice (31.3 percent/sixth), but they get few
opportunities. Only three teams have had
fewer man advantages on home ice than the Panthers (16 in five games). On the other side, no team has been shorthanded
fewer times on home ice than the Panthers (11).
5. The Panthers have
more power play goals over their last two home games (four) than they do at
even strength (three) after recording 10 even strength and only one power play
goal over their first three home games of the season.
1. The Caps have
recorded at least one power play goal in seven of nine road games this
season. When one factors in shorthanded
goals scored, the Caps have failed to record a special teams goal in a road game
only once – October 22nd in a 5-3 win in Calgary over the Flames.
2. Washington is the
only team in the league with three defensemen at plus-10 or better: John
Carlson (plus-11), Radko Gudas (plus-10), and Michal Kempny (plus-10).
3. Going into
Wednesday night’s schedule, the Caps faced 37 shorthanded situations on the
road this season, tied for second (Calgary: 42) and most in the Eastern
Conference. All 39 of the penalties they
have taken on the road have been minor penalties.
4. Only the New York
Islanders have more blocked shots this season (259) than the Caps (252).
5. When the Caps held
Toronto to 31 shot attempts at 5-on-5 in their last road game, a 4-3 overtime
win on October 29th, it was the fewest they allowed in a game since
they allowed the Islanders 31 attempts on October 4th, and their
plus-3 shot attempt differential against the Maple Leafs broke a six-game
streak on the road of minus differentials.
The Peerless’ Players to Ponder
Florida: Sergei Bobrovsky
You will notice above that there are no active Florida
goaltenders having posted any wins, recorded any goals against average, logged
a save percentage, or pitched a shutout.
That is because Sam Montembeault has only 15 games played in the league,
none against the Caps, and the Panthers’ new number one goalie is Sergei
Bobrovsky, signed to a seven-year/$70 million contract last July after spending
his last seven years with the Columbus Blue Jackets. Bobrovsky holds the top ranking in every
meaningful statistical category in Blue Jackets history – games (374), wins
(213, the only one of 24 goalies to record more than 100 wins), goals against
average (2.41; minimum: 10 games), save percentage (.921), and shutouts (33).
Bobrovsky got off to a rocky start with his new team, going
3-2-3, 3.87, .869 in eight games. Over
his last four appearances, though, he is 3-0-0 (one no-decision), 2.17, .917,
with one shutout, that coming in his last appearance (through Tuesday), a
22-save effort in a 4-0 win over the Detroit Red Wings. Where he has struggled is at even
strength. Of 54 goalies to have appeared
in five or more games through Tuesday, Bobrovsky ranked 50th in save
percentage at evens (.875), and no goalie had allowed more goals at even
strength (32 in 12 games). Bobrovsky is
no stranger to the Caps. Although this
will be his first meeting against Washington as a Panther, assuming he gets the
starting nod, he is 9-11-4, 2.89, .904, with one shutout in 25 career games
against the Capitals.
Washington: Michal Kempny
Some players make teams successful by sheer force of their
superior numbers. Others do it in more mysterious
ways. Consider Michal Kempny. Since arriving in Washington in February
2018, the Caps have a regular season record of 64-29-8 in games in which he played. The Caps are 7-0-1 in eight games since
Kempny’s return from surgery to repair an injured hamstring late last season
after starting the year 4-2-2. And, of
course, the Caps went 16-8 with Kempny in the lineup in the Stanley Cup run of
2019 while missing the first round exit from the playoffs last spring. His presence, while unimpressive on a top-end
numbers basis since his arrival, seems to have the persistent effect of calming
and improving the reliability of defensive pairs.
However, those offensive numbers have been rather impressive
in his delayed start this season.
Despite that late start, he is second among Caps defensemn in goals
(three), assists (six), points (nine), and is tied for second in plus-minus
(plus-10, with Radko Gudas). Given the
point in the season at which we find ourselves and the nature of shooting by
defensemen, a feature of Kempny’s performance to date will not last, but it is
interesting nevertheless. He has three
goals on ten shots to date, the only defenseman in Caps history to hold a
shooting percentage of 30 or more percent and only the third with a season
shooting percentage over 20 percent (Lee Norwood was 7-for-33/21.2 percent in 1981-1982,
and Jean Lemieux was 4-for-19/21.1 percent in 1976-1977). Kempny is 0-1-1, minus-2, in three career
games against Florida.
In the end…
The Panthers are one of those irritating teams that seem to
give the Caps problems. Four straight
losses in Florida and six losses in seven games on Panther ice (1-4-2) will do that. The Panthers have been nothing if not
consistent so far on home ice, scoring four goals in four of their five games to
date and one with three goals. On the
other hand, the Caps have been almost as consistent on the road and more
prolific to boot, recording four or more goals in six of their last seven road
contests and five or more four times. Account for the recent good play by Braden
Holtby and Sergei Bobrovsky in goal, and perhaps nine total goals aren’t in the
cards, but seven is in play.
Capitals 4 – Panthers 3
