The Peerless Prognosticator is ON THE AIR!!!
The Washington Capitals wrap up their longest remaining road
trip of the regular season when they head to Buffalo on Monday night to face
the Sabres. The Caps split the first two
games of this road trip, losing in overtime to the New York Rangers and beating
the Pittsburgh Penguins. Washington will
be looking to extend its points-earned streak on the road to four games. On the other side, Buffalo will be trying to
end a six-game losing streak that has seen them sink under .500 in standings points
percentage for the first time this season.
Then and Now…
The Caps and Sabres will meet for the 163rd time
in their all-time regular season series on Monday night. Washington has a 58-84-5 (15 ties) record
against the Sabres overall, 26-46-2 (six ties) in Buffalo. Since 2005-2006, the Caps are 28-18-4 against
the Sabres overall and 11-11-2 in western New York. This game will complete the two-game season
series between the teams, the Caps having won the first meeting, 6-1, in Washington
on November 1st.
Active Leaders vs. Opponent…
Noteworthy Opponents…
When Sam Reinhart takes the ice on Monday night, he will do
so for the 400th time as a Buffalo Sabre, the 44th skater
in team history to dress for 400 games with the franchise. Reinhart was the second player taken in the
2014 Entry Draft, a solid draft by NHL standards, having produced such
noteworthy players as Leon Draisaitl, David Pastrnak, Aaron Ekblad (the top
overall pick), Brayden Point, Kevin Fiala, and the Capitals’ Jakub Vrana.
It can be easy for a player, even a highly drafted one, to
get lost among franchises among the smaller cities in the league, especially
those that have had such limited success as the Sabres have had since he came
into the league in 2014-2015. But in
addition to his about to dress for his 400th game with the Sabres,
Reinhart is slowly climbing the franchise’s all-time statistical lists. His next goal will tie Dale Hawerchuk for 28th
place on the all-time franchise list (110).
He is four short of 150 assists for his career, and his 255 points ranks
35th on the team’s all-time list.
What he has not yet become, contrary to what might be
expected of a second-overall draft pick, is an elite scorer. His career high is 25 goals in 2017-2018,
although with 22 goals in 68 games so far this season he is on a pace (26
goals) to top that mark. He has hit the
50-point mark for the third straight season, but with 50 points he seems
unlikely to match last year’s career-high mark of 65 points. He is a minus-15 this season, and while he
seems in no danger to match his worst year in that category (minus-24 in
2017-2018), he is one of ten players to post a combined minus-60 or worse over
the last four seasons. Reinhart goes into this game on a cold
streak, going without a point in his last seven games and only two points in
his last ten contests. Reinhart is
5-4-9, minus-5, in 13 career games against the Caps.
Sometime later this season, Rasmus Ristolainen will become the 11th defenseman in Sabres’ history to dress for 500 games with the club (he has 492 at the moment). He has not been an elite scorer from the position, but he has been a consistent one. It would take a push on his part, but with 32 points in 68 games he has an outside chance of hitting the 40-point mark for the fifth straight season. If he did so, he would tie Jerry Korab for the second-most 40-point seasons by a defenseman in team history, trailing only Phil Housley, who did it eight times for the Sabres. As it is, Ristolainen ranks eighth among defensemen in team history in points (226), only two behind Jim Schoenfeld for seventh place. His 42 career goals with the club are tied for 11th place among defensemen in Sabres’ history with Bill Hajt and only three from tying Schoenfeld and Tyler Myers for ninth place.
Ristolainen is another of the Sabres who have seen their
offensive output shrink over the second half of the season. He has one goal in 22 games since January 12th,
and he does not have a goal on home ice since December 21st, a
streak of 17 games without one. He goes
into this game with just one point in his last seven games. One odd part of his game this season is the
degree to which his physical engagement, or lack of it, matters. In nine games in which he was not credited
with a hit, the Sabres are 2-6-1; in 19 games in which he did not block a shot,
they are 4-12-3. Ristolainen is 0-7-7,
minus-6, in 15 career games against Washington.
Carter Hutton is learning that tending goal in Buffalo is
not all unicorns and accordions. In his
second season with the Sabres since arriving as an unrestricted free agent from
St. Louis, Hutton is likely to post his second career and second straight
season with a goals against average of 3.00 or higher (currently 3.18; 3.00
last season), and he is on pace to finish this season with a career worst .898
save percentage over a full season. What
it has meant is that he has split time with Linus Ullmark in goal, Hutton
getting 30 starts this season to 33 for Ullmark.
Ullmark is in his fifth NHL season after being drafted by
the Sabres in the sixth round (163rd overall) in the 2012 Entry
Draft. That happened to be a solid draft
for goaltenders, yielding the likes of Andrej Vasilevskiy, Matt Murray,
Frederik Andersen, and Connor Hellebuyck.
This is Ullmark’s second straight season with 30 or more starts, and he
has improved over last year’s numbers, cutting his goals against average from
3.11 last year to 2.72 so far this season, and he has lifted his save
percentage from .905 last year to .914 so far this season. Ullmark has been hobbled lately by a leg
injury suffered when he caught his skate in a rut in a game against the Ottawa
Senators on January 28th. He
has not yet been cleared for game action.
Which leaves Jonas Johansson as Buffalo’s backup for the moment. A third round pick of the Sabres in the 2014
Entry Draft, he has gotten a brief look by the club with six appearances over
which he is 1-3-1, 2.94, .894. If it
comes down to Hutton in goal for this game, he is 3-3-2, 3.19, .888 in nine
career appearances against the Capitals.
1. A struggling team
might struggle more as the season wears on.
Since January 1st, Buffalo is 12-14-1, their 25 standings
points earned being tied for third fewest in the league over that span.
2. Since January 1st,
only the Detroit Red Wings have averaged fewer shots on goal per game (25.4)
than the Sabres (27.6).
3. The Sabres have
not dealt with the long change of second periods well, scoring only 19 second
period goals in 27 games since January 1st, tied with the New York
Islanders for third-fewest in the league.
4. Buffalo is one of
two teams to go 3-0 in overtime games since January 1st (Vegas is
the other).
5. Only four times in
27 games since January 1st have the Sabres out-shot an
opponent. They are 3-0-1 in those games.
1. The Caps net power
play (accounting for shorthanded goals allowed) of 11.4 percent is fifth-worst
in the league since January 1st.
2. Since January 1st,
the Caps have the second-worst faceoff winning percentage (46.3 percent) in the
league. The only team that is worse is
the Sabres (46.2 percent).
3. The Caps have
scored 38 third period goals since January 1st, second-most in the
league (New York Rangers: 44).
4. The Caps and the
Penguins lead the league in wins when trailing after two periods since January
1st (four apiece). The Caps’
winning percentage in such games (.308) is best in the league.
5. Washington has
played “heavy” since January 1st, their 26.15 hits per 60 minutes
ranking third in the league in that span.
The Peerless’ Players to Ponder
Buffalo: Rasmus Dahlin
He was the top overall pick of the 2018 Entry Draft, he is
the third leading scorer of his draft class (82 points), and he leads all
defensemen of his draft class in goals (13), assists (69), and points. But playing on a club that would draft such a
player first overall also means he is second-worst in plus-minus in his draft
class (minus-21). Rasmus Dahlin might be
thought of as being pretty much on schedule as a top draft pick. Defensemen are not generally drafted first
overall in the NHL Entry Draft, he being only the third defenseman over a span
of 22 drafts when he was selected (Erik Johnson in 2006 by St. Louis and Aaron
Ekblad in 2014 by Florida being the others).
And even that has been a mixed bag of success, Johnson having played in
more than 750 NHL games over 12 seasons without receiving votes for a major
post-season award, and Ekblad laboring for a club that has made the playoffs
only once in his five seasons in the league before this one and failing to win
a series in that postseason.
In his second season with the Sabres, Dahlin has had an
uneven sophomore season. After dressing
for all 82 games last year and finishing as a Calder Trophy finalist for the
top rookie award (he finished third) on a 9-35-44 season in scoring from the
blue line, he has dressed for only 58 games so far this season, missing ten
games to a concussion and an upper body injury.
When he has been in the lineup, his per-game production is out-pacing
last years in assists (fro 0.43 per game to 0.59 this season) and in points
(from 0.54 to 0.66 points per game). His
shooting is down, from 2.16 shots per game to 1.53 shots per game, which likely
accounts for a drop in goal scoring (from 0.11 goals per game last year to 0.07
goals per game so far this season). He
has run hot and cold lately as well.
After putting up a six-game points streak in February (1-6-7), he has
just one point (an assist) in his last seven contests. Dahlin is 2-3-5, minus-3, in four career games
against the Capitals.
Washington: Nicklas Backstom
It has been a bit of an odd season for Nicklas Backstrom. On the one hand, he has averaged 0.90 points
per game for the eighth time in nine seasons (0.90 points per game in 60
games). On the other, he has a minus-1
rating that, if sustained through the end of the season, would be his first “minus”
season since 2013-2014, when he was a career wort minus-20 in 82 games. His shooting percentage has been off, his 9.1
percent conversion rate being his lowest since he finished at 8.9 percent in
2010-2011. He has yet to record a
game-winning goal, something he has never done over a full season in his 12
seasons preceding this one. There even
seems to be the quiet ferocity in his game missing over past seasons, his 14
penalty minutes in 60 games being his lowest penalty minutes per game (0.23) of
his career to date.
One cannot help but wonder if Backstrom is playing through
an injury. Since he went 2-2-4 in a 6-3
win over the New Jersey Devils on December 20th, he has just four
goals on 68 shots in 32 games (5.9 percent shooting), putting him on a pace to
finish with fewer goals per game over a full season (0.20) since his rookie
season in 2007-2008 (0.17). And, his
faceoff winning percentage is just 48.6 percent, an odd turn from a player who
is a career 50-percent plus faceoff winner.
He has shown signs of coming out of that slump recently, going 1-8-9
over his last nine games and posting his first goal in 11 games when he netted
one against the Pittsburgh Penguins on Saturday. Backstrom is 8-21-29, plus-2, in 41 career
games against Buffalo.
In the end…
Good teams take advantage of teams that are young and/or are
struggling. On that basis, the Caps
should win this game and should do so with reasonable comfort. But the Caps and Sabres have alternated wins
over their last six meetings in Buffalo.
The losing team in each of the six games has struggled to score, at no
time scoring more than two goals. In
that respect, watch to see if the Caps get out to a lead on the Sabres as they
did against the Penguins on Saturday. If
they do not, it could be a long and disappointing evening.
Capitals 5 – Sabres 2
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