The Peerless Prognosticator is ON THE AIR!!! -- Game 35: Capitals at Blue Jackets, December 16th

The Peerless Prognosticator is ON THE AIR!!!

The Washington Capitals face the Columbus Blue Jackets for the second time in a week when they visit Ohio on Monday night.  The Caps will be looking to even the score with the Blue Jackets in the season series after dropping a 5-2 decision last Monday in Washington.  That loss is the only blemish on the Caps’ record over their last nine games (8-1-0) and the only regulation loss suffered by the Caps in almost a month, since a 4-1 loss to the Rangers in New York on November 20^th.  On the other side, Columbus’ win over Washington is their only win over their last seven games (1-4-2), and they have lost three of their last four games on home ice.

Then and Now…

This will be the 42^nd regular season meetings of the Caps and Blue Jackets, Washington holding a 245-11-5 (one tie) record against Columbus, 12-7-2 on the road.  Since 2005-2006, the Caps are 20-10-5 against the Blue Jackets overall, 9-6-2 in Columbus.

Active Leaders vs. Opponent…

Noteworthy Opponents…

Columbus is not an especially prolific team when it comes to scoring goals, but someone has to lead the team, and at the moment that someone is Pierre-Luc Dubois, the only player for Columbus having hit double digits in goals scored.  Despite his teammates’ struggles at finding the back of the net, Dubois is on pace to finish the season with 26 goals, which would challenge his career best of 27 set last year, his sophomore season in the league.  Where his teammates’ problems appear in his numbers are in his assists.   Dubois has ten, and at that pace would finish with the fewest of his three-year career (26).

Dubois has taken on a bigger offensive load with the departure of Artemi Panarin for the New York Rangers in one at least one respect.  His shot frequency has increased significantly, jumping from 2.12 shots per game last season to 2.53 shots per game going into this contest.  There do appear to be limits as to the effectiveness of the increased shooting frequency.  Four seems to be the magic number.  Four times this season Dubois recorded more than four shots and has one goal on 21 shots to show for it, the Blue Jackets splitting the games (2-2-0).  On the other end, though, he has not made much of fewer chances.  In the 13 games in which he recorded one or two shots on goal, he has only one goal on 21 shots.  His output has dried up of late, though, going his last ten games without a goal.  Dubois is 1-3-4, plus-2, in nine career games against the Caps.

Among Columbus defensemen, fans probably recognize Seth Jones.  They might also know Zach Werenski or Ryan Murray on the Blue Jacket blue line.  Even Markus Nutivaara might be known to more than a few fans.  Unfortunately for the Blue Jackets, though, Werenski, Murray, and Nutivaara reported as injured.  That places more of a burden on rookie defenseman Vladislav Gavrikov.  Chances are that is a name fans outside of Columbus do not recognize.  He was taken in the sixth round (159^th overall) in the 2015 Entry Draft, the 54^th defenseman of 74 taken in that draft.  He was taken 30 spots ahead of Nutivaara not played a game in the NHL before this season, while Nutivaara dressed for 207 games over three years before this season.  Gavrikov has not made a big dent in the offensive side of the ledger (2-2-4 in 31 games), but he has been getting more ice time as the Columbus defensive ranks thin out.  Over his first 24 games he averaged 15:00 in ice time, but over his last seven he is averaging almost three minutes more a game (17:56).  In his only appearance to date against the Caps, last week, he went without a point and was plus-3 in 14:45 of ice time.

Next in the “Name That Blue Jacket” contest is forward Alexandre Texier.  Another rookie, although he did get into two games for Columbus last season.  The second round pick from the 2017 Entry Draft happens to be tied with Cam Atkiunson for the team lead in points (five) in December, and he is tied with Andrew Peeke (another rookie) for the team lead in plus-minus for the month (plus-5).  Unfortunately for the Blue Jackets, Texier’s contributions just have not been enough.  He has points in four of the six games Columbus has played in December, and the Blue Jackets lost three of them (1-1-2), the lone win coming against the Caps when he recorded an assist.  His recent production is quite a turnaround, though.  He was 3-1-4, minus-4, in his first 22 games this season before going 3-2-5, plus-5, in his last six games.  That game against the Caps last week and the assist he recorded is the only game and only point he has against the Caps in his career to date.

1.  Columbus struggles to score at home.  They have only 42 goals (third fewest in the league) in 17 games on home ice this season, the 2.47 goals per game second worst in the league, topping only Detroit (2.24).

2.  Only Tampa Bay has allowed more shorthanded goals on home ice (four) than Columbus (three, tied with five other teams).  No team has allowed more shorthanded goals on home ice without scoring one themselves that the Blue Jackets.

3.  Columbus is one of four teams in the league to have taken no major penalties on home ice this season (Buffalo, Toronto, and Dallas are the others).

4.  Only the New York Islanders have more overtime goals scored (four) than Columbus (three, tied with Toronto and Pittsburgh).

5.  Columbus does not have elite goal scoring so far this season, but they are egalitarian about it.  Of the 24 skaters to dress, 19 have at least one goal.

1.  The Caps have had 24 skaters dress this season, too.  Of that group, 17 have goals.  The difference is that while Pierre-Luc Dubois leads the Blue Jackets with ten goals, the Caps have six players with more than that number.

2.  While Columbus has two players with 20 points – Dubois and Gustav Nyquist – the Caps have seven players with more than that number.

3.  No team has more players with 20 or more penalty minutes than the Caps, with seven (tied with San Jose).

4.  The Caps have 11 players with game-winning goals, a total more than the win totals posted by New Jersey or Detroit so far.

5.  Washington has hit the crossbar 10 times in 34 games.  Last season they hit the crossbar 10 times in 82 games.

The Peerless’ Players to Ponder

Columbus: Gustav Nyquist

When it became certain that the Blue Jackets were going to lose Artemi Panarin to free agency, they had to try to replace his goal scoring with something.  The trouble is, replacing the 55 goals Panarin scored in two seasons in Columbus is not an easy task.  Part of the solution was to sign Gustav Nyquist as a free agent to a four-year/$22 million contract, a far cry from the seven-year/$81.5 million deal Panarin signed with the Rangers last July.  Nyquist is not and is not likely to be in Panarin’s class as a goal scorer, but he is a reliable sort who topped 20 goals four times in six seasons before this one.  However, he has only seven in 32 games so far this season, an 18-goal pace (Columbus fans no doubt have noticed that Panarin already has 19 with the Rangers this season).  He has fallen off of late.  Since recording a hat tricj in a 5-2 win over Pittsburgh on November 29^th, he is without a goal in his last seven games.  And it is not a case of shooting in bad luck.  Nyquist has only seven shots on goal in his last six games, three of them in the most recent game, a 4-3 overtime loss to Ottawa.  Even with the hat trick against the Pens, he has a total of five goals over his last 23 games, precisely the 18-goal pace he is on overall.  Nyquist is 6-7-13, plus-2, in 18 career games against the Caps.

Washington: Lars Eller

Before Lars Eller burned his name into the Capitals history book with the game-winning, series-clinching, Cup-winning goal in Las Vegas in the 2018 postseason, Lars Eller scored the goal that made all of that possible, a goal in the second overtime of Game 3 of the first round series against Columbus on the Nationwide Arena ice sheet that kept the Caps from falling into an 0-3 hole and ending their Stanley Cup dreams before they started.  He added an empty net goal to clinch Game 6 for the Caps and send them on to the second round, but here is the odd thing about that.  Eller has more goals scored against Columbus as a Capital in the postseason (two in six games) than he has as a Capital against the Blue Jackets in the regular season (one in 13 games).  And, he does not have a point in his last six games against the Blue Jackets.  Not that he has been shy about sending pucks to the net; he has 18 shots on goal in those six games without finding the back of the net (he had only eight shots on goal in his first seven games as a Cap against Columbus).  If a Capital seems due to score against this team, Eller might be a player to watch.  Eller is 2-3-5, minus-4, in 24 career games overall against Columbus.

In the end…

The Caps have had success against Columbus on their ice sheet in the postseason, going 3-0 in the three playoff games the teams played in Ohio.  The regular season has been a different matter, the Caps going 6-5-2 in their last 13 visits to Columbus.  But these are teams going in different directions at the moment.  Columbus has stumbled at home recently with their 1-3-0 record over their last four games, while the Caps have been the gold standard in road play this season.  Makes it hard to pick against the Caps, regardless of last week’s result.

Capitals 4 – Blue Jackets 2

Washington Capitals: That Was The Week That Was - Week 11

For the Washington Capitals, Week 11 was one of those weeks where it is not how you start, but how you finish.  The Caps started the week and each of the three games on their schedule slowly, but they closed with a rush in the second and third games of the week to maintain their commanding lead in the Metropolitan Division and the best record in the league.

Record: 2-1-0

Another winning week for the Capitals.  That makes nine times in 11 tries that the Caps grabbed more than half of the standings points available, twice earning half.  Yes, it was only the sixth time in 11 weeks that the Caps recorded a loss at all, but that in itself is a rather amazing fact.  The loss to the Columbus Blue Jackets was equal parts surprising and not.  The Caps have generally done well in their first game back from a trip that included a visit to California.  As we noted in the prognosto for this game, “In each of the last five seasons in the Caps’ first home game following a road trip that included the California trip, they won, twice against Winnipeg, once each against Carolina, Minnesota, and the Islanders.”  So, in that respect, the loss was a bit of a surprise.  On the other hand, it was the first home game after a road trip, and these can be a problem, especially against a motivated divisional opponent.  In that respect it was less surprising.

But the Caps recovered smartly, continuing their spooky dominance of the Boston Bruins, beating the B’s for the 16^th time in 17 tries, dating back to October 2014, on Wednesday.  Then, the Caps wrapped up the week with a chance to extend their unusual dominance on the road, and they did just that, beating Tampa Bay for their 15^th win in 18 road games (15-2-1), those 15 road wins being as many or more than ten other teams have in total.

Offense: 3.33/game (season: 3.59/2nd)

Even with the relatively weak effort against Columbus to open the week, it was a good week on offense for the Caps.  With three goals against Boston and five against Tampa Bay, the Caps finished the week having scored three or more goals in eight of their last nine games.  And, while they might have slipped a notch in their scoring average for the season with ten goals in three games in Week 11, they still have the seventh-highest scoring average per game since the dark 2004-2005 season.  The Caps have done it be being unfriendly guests.  The five goals scored in Tampa against the Lightning was the eighth time in 18 road games this season that the Caps scored five or more goals in a game.

Individually, T.J. Oshie led the team with three goals, giving him 14 for the season and pushing him within one of Jakub Vrana for second place on the club.  Nicklas Backstrom was the other Capitals with a multi-goal week, posting a pair, one in the 5-2 loss to Columbus to open the week and the game’s first goal in the Caps’ 5-2 win over Tampa Bay to end the week.  In all, seven Caps shared in the ten goals that were scored over the three games.

Backstrom led the team in points for the week (2-3-5), posting points in all three games to extend his points streak to six games.  At week’s end, Backstrom was 4-10-14 in his last 13 games.  Oshie had four points for the week (1-3-4), and Evgeny Kuznetsov had three (all assists).  In all, 13 of the 18 skaters to dress for the week had at least one point.

Defense: 3.00/game (season: 2.79/11th)

That Columbus posted five goals on the Caps to open the week should not be surprising.  The 38 shots on goal the Blue Jackets had was the third highest shot total allowed on home ice by the Caps this season (they allowed 40 to both Montreal and Florida in November).  To their credit, they returned to more disciplined play in this category as the week wore on, allowing 32 shots on goal to Boston in the middle game of the week and only 28 to Tampa Bay to wrap up the week.  Those 28 shots the Lightning managed was the second-lowest shot total they recorded on home ice so far this season (they had 28 against Anaheim on November 23^rd in a 6-2 win).

The shot attempts allowed pattern followed their win-loss success pattern as well.  They allowed Columbus 46 shot attempts at 5-on-5, the ninth time in 15 home games to that point in which they allowed at least 45 shot attempts at fives.  They followed that up with holding Boston to 39 shot attempts at 5-on-5, the fifth time in 16 games on home ice that they held an opponent under 40 attempts.  The 41 attempts allowed to the Lightning might not appear particularly impressive, but the Caps never trailed in the game and spent just under 23 minutes of the contest tied with the Lightning.  They spent most of the game with a scoreboard advantage, and the shot attempts appear to reflect this somewhat.  The Caps finished a minus-4 in shot attempt differential in that game, but it was the tenth time in 18 road games that the Caps were even or better in shot attempt differential at fives when leading, suggesting that they could still clamp down on defense when holding a lead.

Goaltending: 2.68 / .918 (season: 2.67 / .913)

The Caps continue to improve in this category, if only marginally in Week 11.  Although the save percentage overall was not quite as good as it has been in weeks leading up to Week 11, it is worth noting that at the end of the week, 18 goalies logging at least 300 minutes Since November 1^st had save percentages of .922 or better, and the Caps had two of them – Braden Holtby (.926) and Ilya Samsonov (.922).

Holtby got the call in the first two games of the week, and it was the last 40 minutes of the game against Columbus that kept him from having a better week.  He had already stopped 19 of 20 first period shots against the Blue Jackets, but he allowed three goals on 17 shots over the last two periods in the loss.  He followed that up with his usual mastery of the Bruins, stopping 30 of 32 shots in the 3-2 win.  It was the 15^th time in 21 appearances that Holtby allowed two or fewer goals to the Bruins, the 13^th time the instance ended in a win.  Overall, Holtby extended his career record against Boston to 18-3-0, 1.82, .944, with four shutouts of the Bruins.

The last game of the week belonged to Samsonov, and he was superb, stopping 26 of 28 shots in the 5-2 win over the Lightning.  Keep in mind, this was a team that, while they have had struggles winning on home ice, they have not had trouble scoring.  Six times in their previous 15 home games, Tampa Bay posted five or more goals, and they had been held to two or fewer only four times.  But here is the kicker.  Samsonov became the first visiting goalie to beat the Lightning at Amalie Arena this season.  OK, it was the first appearance by a rookie goalie against the Lightning against Tampa Bay this season.

Power Play: 1-for-8/12.5 percent (season: 23.5 percent/5th)

It would be hard to find a silver lining in the power play in Week 11.  The Caps did avoid being blanked for the first time this season over a week with the man advantage, but the 12.5 percent conversion rate was their second worst of the year (1-for-9/11.1 percent in Week 7).  Boston was the only team they faced for the week that finished the week in the top half of the penalty kill rankings (tenth).  Tampa Bay and Columbus, against which the Caps went 0-for-5 combined, finished ranked 18^th and 20^th, respectively.  It was worse as the week went on, at least from a shooting standpoint.  After posting seven shots on goal in 4:38 of power play time against Columbus, the Caps managed a single shot against Boston (their only goal for the week) in 4:47 with the man advantage and a single shot in 2:36 in power play time against Tampa Bay.

T.J. Oshie, who had the lone power play goal for the week, led the team with three power play shots on goal.  Alex Ovechkin (2), Evgeny Kuznetsov (2), Jakub Vrana, and John Carlson had the others.

Penalty Killing: 14-for-15/93.3 percent (season: 85.1 percent/5th)

If the power play had an off week, the penalty kill was having nothing of the sort.  Columbus finished the week as a mediocre power play squad (19^th in the league), but Tampa Bay and Boston (second and third at the end of the week) are what pass for elite power play teams in the league this season, and the Caps were 9-for-10 combined against them.

The bad part was having to skate off 15 shorthanded situations, five in each game.  It was the first time this season that the Caps faced five or more shorthanded situations in three consecutive games and the first time they did so since Games 8-10 of the 2017-2018 season when they faced five against Detroit (an overtime win) and six each against Florida and Vancouver (both in regulation losses).  As it was, no team spent more time killing penalties than the Caps in Week 11 (25:56), and it meant that by week’s end, only San Jose had spent more time shorthanded for the season (218:22) than had the Caps (211:22).  The takeaway, though, was that the penalty kill allowed the Caps to be the only team in the league to rank in the top five in both power play and penalty kill.

Faceoffs: 88-for-173/50.9 percent (season: 49.6 percent/19th)

It was a pretty good week for the Caps in the faceoff circle.  In addition to winning the week, they were over 50 percent in both the offensive (52.0 percent) and defensive (52.1 percent) zones.  On the other hand, perhaps it should have been a good week here, given the nature of the opposition.  Tampa Bay finished the week as an above-50 percent team (51.2 percent), and the Caps’ 28-for-53 performance against the Lightning could be seen as a bright spot.  However, Columbus finished the week ranked 26^th in the league (48.3 percent), so going 37-for-64 (57.8 percent) was not unexpected.  The odd part of the week was the game against Boston.  A team usually thought of as being very efficient in this part of the game, the Bruins are a below-50 percent team this season.  Still, they owned the Caps, holding the Caps to 23 wins in 56 draws (41.1 percent).

Individually, three of the four Caps taking at least ten faceoffs finished over 50 percent.  However, it was the Capital finishing under 50 percent for the week – Nicklas Backstrom – who was the only one of the four Caps to finish over 50 percent in both the offensive (53.3 percent) and defensive (63.2 percent) zones.

Goals by Period:

In the “it’s how you finish” theme, the goals by period certainly reflect strong finishes, for the most part.  The Caps did allow three goals to Columbus in the third period of their contest, but they scored two themselves.  To that, the Caps added the game-winner in the third period of their 3-2 win over Boston, and they broke open a close game with four third period goals against Tampa Bay in a 5-2 win.  The strong performances in the third periods of games allowed the Caps to move into second place in third period goals scored this season (45), one goal behind Bowton (46).  Their two second period goals gave them 40 on the season, allowing them to join Pittsburgh as the only teams in the league with at least 40 goals scored in both the second and third periods of games through Week 11.

Year-over-Year:

A mere “year-over-year" comparison is becoming insufficient to illustrate how well the Caps have performed.  They continue to outpace almost all former editions of the club in performance.  The 24 wins and 53 points earned through 34 games is the second best start in team history, trailing only the 2015-2016 club that had 26 wins and 54 points at the same point of the schedule.

However, the year-over-year numbers to paint the picture of a solid team in each end of the ice.  The goals scored is identical to last season, so the effort to build a better two-way squad has not diminished production in that end of the ice to this point.  However, a seven-goal improvement on defense is more than a fifth of a goal per game, which goes a long way to explaining an eight-point improvement in the standings.  The improvement is more than explained by the penalty kill, which is more than nine percentage points better this year over last and, more important, 12 goals better.

Not that the Caps have been slouches at even strength, at least in limiting opponents in attempts.  The Caps have shaved more than two shot attempts per game off their attempts allowed at 5-on-5 while increasing attempts on offense slightly.  The net of the two result in almost a three-attempt improvement per game – one per period – at 5-on-5, this year over last.

In the end…

When the worst you can say is that the Caps had a “good” week, not a “great” week, things are going pretty well.  Through 34 games, the Caps are on a pace to match the point total that Tampa Bay finished with last season (128).  That would be a point total exceeded only three times in NHL history, only once since the Montreal dynasty days in the 1970’s when they did it in consecutive years, 132 points in 1976-1977 and 129 points in 1977-1978 (Detroit had 131 points in 1995-1996).  It would be tough to maintain this pace for another 48 games, but it is an impressive feat nonetheless to have reached this point in the season with a record as remarkable as this.

Three Stars:

• First Star: Nicklas Backstrom (2-3-5, plus-2, 58.8 percent faceoff wins in offensive/defensive zones, led forwards in ice time (58:17))
• Second Star: T.J. Oshie (3-1-4, even, one power play goal)
• Third Star: Garnet Hathaway (1-0-1, even, game-winning goal, ten credited hits, five blocked shots (led forwards))

Captain rates the week…

Three puppers