The Peerless Prognosticator is ON THE AIR!!!
The Washington Capitals open a four-game road trip when they visit Bridgestone Arena in Nashville to face the Predators on Tuesday night. The Caps might be thankful for the travel, given their five straight losses on home ice. On the other hand, they are 4-1-0 in their last five road games.
The Predators head into this contest having lost three of their last four games overall (1-2-1) but winners of three of their last four home games. The Preds are a team that, while not having an especially dominating offense (3.08 goals per game/14th in scoring offense), does have decent balance in their production. Seven Predators have reached double digits in goals scored, led by Filip Forsberg with 24. Forsberg is well-known among Capitals fans as one of two first round picks in the 2012 Entry Draft, the 11th overall pick. He was traded by the Caps to Nashville in April 2013 for Martin Erat and Michael Latta. Erat and Latta played in a combined 175 regular season games for the Caps, posting a combined scoring line of 6-38-44, plus-5.
On the other side of the deal, Forsberg will probably become the leading goal scorer in franchise history this season (he has 202 to David Legwand’s 210). He is fifth in team history in points (425) and could pass Shea Weber for fourth place by year’s end (443). Of 140 players to dress for at least 50 games as a Predator, Forsberg ranks fifth in points per game (0.80). He ranks second in power play goals in team history (52) and sixth in power play points (123). With eight overtime goals as a Predator, he needs one to tie Legwand for the top spot in team history, and with 39 game-winning goals he needs two to tie Legwand for the top spot in that category. By season’s end he could become the tenth player in team history to log 10,000 minutes for the club (he has 9,530 minutes). And this year might be his best yet. He is averaging a career high 2.3 goals per 60 minutes and a career high 3.8 points per 60 minutes. His 0.69 goals per game is more than 50 percent higher than his next best season (0.44 in 2018-2019), while his 1.14 points per game is the first time in his ten-year career he averaged more than a point per game. He has 12 multi-point games among the 35 he has played this season and is 10-7-17, plus-6, since January 1st. Forsberg is 8-8-16, plus-8, in 12 career games against the Caps.
It took Matt Duchene a while to warm up to Nashville after signing with the Predators as a free agent in July 2019, but he has had a superb year so far this season. His 23 goals in 44 games to date (second on the club) exceed the 19 in 100 games he posted over his first two seasons in Nashville. His 43 points in 44 games top the 42 points he posted in 66 games in 2019-2020, his first season with the Predators. His team-leading ten power play goals is the first time he reached double digits in that category since he recorded ten as a rookie with the Colorado Avalanche in 2009-2010. Duchene also has three overtime goals, most on the team, and five game-winning goals (second). If there has been an odd aspect to Duchene’s game this season, it is in his home-road splits. He has been a more productive player on the road, where he is 14-11-25 in 23 games with a 22.6 shooting percentage. At home, he is 9-9-18 in 21 games and shooting 13.4 percent. He has ramped up his game a bit on home ice of late, though. Over his last 15 home games he is 7-9-16, and the Preds are 10-5-0 over those 15 games. Duchene has faced the Caps 18 times in his career and was a “minus” player in 12 of them, a “plus” player only twice. His career minus-14 against the Caps is his worst against any team in the league, and he has a scoring line of 2-4-6 in those 18 career games against Washington.
Nashville has dressed seven rookie skaters so far this season, and three of them have appeared in more than 40 games – Tanner Jeannot, Alexandre Carrier, and Philip Tomasino. Jeannot is the leader in the Nashville rookie class with 48 games played and a 14-14-28, plus-8, scoring line. Nicknamed the “Oxbow Ox” for having been born in Oxbow, Saskatchewan, and for his physical edge, he was signed as an undrafted free agent by the Predators in April 2018. He is tied for the league lead among rookies in goals (14, with Toronto’s Michael Bunting), ninth in assists (14), sixth in points (28), seventh in plus-minus (plus-8), and tied for second in game-winning goals (three). He has a healthy lead in credited hits among rookies (159, 26 more than the Caps’ Martin Fehervary) and in penalty minutes (87, 19 more than Montreal’s Michael Pezzetta). No rookie has taken more penalties than Jeannot (26) or more major penalties (nine), and his net penalties (those drawn less those taken) of minus-9 is worst in the league. Not that his propensity for taking penalties has hurt the Nashville cause much; the Predators are 13-6-2 in the 21 games in which he logged penalty minutes. Jeannot is 0-1-1, even, in his only career appearance against Washington.
1. Filip Forsberg has five game-winning goals in 18 home games so far.
2. No team has allowed fewer first period goals on home ice than Nashville (11, tied with Anaheim).
3. The Predators have allowed the third-fewest goals at 5-on-5 in the league (30).
4. Nashville is one of three teams in the league (Florida and Edmonton being the others) not to have lost a game in extra time on home ice this season.
5. The Predators are the only team in the league to have dressed three rookies for more than 40 games.
1. In the Caps’ 4-1-0 record over their last five road games, two came by shutout – 2-0 over the New York Islanders on January 15th and 5-0 over the Dallas Stars on January 28th.
2. If the Caps are to win, a two-goal margin seems more likely than others. The Caps are 6-0 in two-goal decisions on the road this season.
3. On the other hand, if the result is a one-goal decision, the Caps have not fared well in such circumstances, going 3-3-4 in one-goal games.
4. Only three teams have taken fewer penalty minutes on the road than the Caps (158) – Dallas (157), Edmonton (153), and Pittsburgh (148).
5. The Caps and the Penguins are the only teams in the league that have not been assessed a major penalty in a road game this season.
The Peerless’ Players to Ponder
Nashville: Roman Josi
Roman Josi is on a short list of most productive defensemen on offense in the league. And, he has been doing it for quite a while. Since 2013-2014, when he went 13-27-40 in 72 games to post his first career 40-point season, he has eight 40-plus point seasons in nine years (he was 8-25-33 in 48 games last season). Over those nine seasons he ranks second in goals scored among defensemen (120, to Brent Burns’ 146), sixth in assists (339), fifth in points (459), fifth in power play goals (40), tied for eighth in power play points (161), and tied for fifth in game-winning goals (22). He has also been a leader in categories that get less attention, such as blocked shots (eighth with 1,191) and on-ice goals for at even strength (613, tied for fifth with the Caps’ John Carlson). He has also been a leader in ice time, averaging 25:25 per game over those nine seasons (fifth), and he is one of three defensemen over that period to average at least 20 minutes per game at even strength, at least three minutes per game on power plays, and at least two minutes per game killing penalties (Ryan Suter and Drew Doughty are the others). Josi has been a consistent performer by venue this season, going 6-16-22 in 22 home games and 7-18-25 in 24 road games, a split that is in line with his career numbers (home: 69-184-253 in 369 games; road: 61-179-240 in 357 games). He has been hot lately, going 2-15-17 over his last 14 games. Josi is 5-8-13, plus-5, in 15 career games against the Caps.
Washington: Tom Wilson
If Filip Forsberg is the cream of the crop among the 2012 draft class (first in goals (202), first in points (425), first in power play goals (52) and power play points (123), first in game-winning goals (39)), Tom Wilson can be said to have outperformed his 16th overall selection in the same 2012 draft. Wilson ranks sixth in goals in his draft class (106), 12th in assists (148), sixth in points (254), tied for ninth in plus-minus (plus-41), tied for ninth in power play goals (nine), tied for fifth in shorthanded goals (six), tied for eighth in shorthanded points (nine), tied for ninth in overtime goals (two), seventh in game winning goals (17), 12th in shooting percentage (11.6; minimum: 100 games), first in credited hits (1.838), tied for sixth in first goals scored (19), second in empty net goals (11), and tenth in takeaways (236).
And what has emerged over the last several years is a consistency in his game. He has averaged at least 1.0 goals per 60 minutes in each of the last four seasons, including this one, averaged at least 1.0 assists per 60 minutes in four of the last five seasons, averaged at least 2.0 points per 60 minutes in each of the last four seasons. His 0.33 goals per game is within shouting distance of his 0.35 goals per game in 2018-2019, and his 0.72 points per game this season is a career best. Most notably, he has done it while whittling his penalty minutes, averaging just 1.37 PIMs per game, a 32.8 percent reduction from last year’s 2.04 penalty minutes per game and tied with his 2019-2020 average for a career low. He has taken penalties in only 14 of 46 games, although the Caps are 10-4-0 in those games. What might be of note about his penalty minutes is that his high for a game this season came on December 29th, when he took 19 minutes in a 5-3 win over Nashville. Wilson is 4-1-5, minus-3, in 15 career games against the Predators.
In the end…
The Caps are 7-2-2 over their last 11 road games. Room service has been kinder to the Caps than home cooking over the last two months. But Nashville has been a particularly difficult place for the Caps to play, given their 5-9-1 (with one tie) in their all-time record in Music City, including a four-game losing streak in Nashville going into this game in which the Caps allowed at least five goals in each game (outscored 24-12 in those four games). That is the fault line for the Caps on which this game rests – a good road record overall in recent weeks versus playing in a venue that has been brutal on them in recent games there. We will go with the former as the factor that wins out, but you knew we would.
Capitals 5 – Predators 3
