The Peerless Prognosticator

The Peerless Prognosticator is ON THE AIR!!! -- Game 49: Capitals at Lightning, January 31st

2012-01-31T06:44:00.000-05:00

The Peerless Prognosticator is ON THE AIR!!!

The All Star Game is history. Goalie-Cam, Corey Perry’s stick, Patrick Kane’s Superman glasses and cape, white gloves… all put away. It is back to business, and for the Washington Capitals that means a 34-game sprint to the finish of the regular season that starts tonight in Tampa to face the Lightning. The Caps start the sprint from the pole position, first place in the Southeast Division by virtue of the fact that they actually win hockey games in the hockey portion of the hockey game. Despite their having the same number of standings points as the Florida Panthers, the Caps have 25 regulation and overtime wins to 19 such wins for the Panthers. That could be a big deal down the stretch, since it is the first tie-breaker if the teams finish the season tied in standings points at the top of the division.

But we get ahead of ourselves. Tonight the Caps visit Tampa Bay for the first time this season after winning the first two games of the season series in Washington. The left coast of Florida has been rather kind to the Caps, who are 10-2-0 against the Lightning in their last dozen regular season visits. They were 2-1-0 in their three visits last season.

The hosts come into this game riding a four-game winning streak after opening January 0-6-1. The difference between the two streaks has been defense and goaltending. In the first seven games of the month the Lightning allowed an average of 4.71 goals per game with an accompanying save percentage from their goaltenders of .849. In their four game winning streak they have allowed an average of 2.25 goals per game with an accompanying save percentage of .923. Here is how the two teams stack up overall for the season:

(click pic for larger image)

1. Even though there is a bright line separating the goaltending performance between the seven-game losing streak and the four-game winning streak in January, it hasn’t been a product of picking one goalie over another. In the seven-game losing streak, Dwayne Roloson was 0-2-1, 3.55, .870; while Mathieu Garon was 0-4-0, 5.36, .850. In the four-game winning streak, Garon is 3-0-0, 2.00, .926; while Roloson has won his only decision, allowing three goals on 33 shots. Roloson has the reputation as the Cap killer with an 8-6-5, 2.30, .916 record against Washington with four shutouts.

2. If Steven Stamkos is going to slow down in his goal scoring pace, he has given no signs of doing so yet. He has not gone consecutive games without a goal since December 21-23. In the 14 games since then he has 12 goals, and he is on a pace to be the only 50-goal scorer in the league (55). He has nine in 20 career regular season games against Washington.

3. Tampa Bay’s power play has struggled in the new year. In 11 games during January the Lightning are 3-for-33 (9.1 percent). The other side of the special teams has not been much better. The penalty killers are 29-for-37 (78.4 percent) over the same 11 games, although during the four-game winning streak they are 12-for-13 (92.3 percent).

4. Tampa Bay is the only team in the league to have allowed a total of at least 50 goals in each of the first, second, and third periods of games this season.

5. The Lightning lead the league in most losses by three of more goals (13). Only two teams have more losses by two goals. This is not a team that loses close.

1. For all the angst displayed by Caps fans this month over the team’s playoff chances, they are 5-2-1 since they laid an egg out on the two-game west coast trip. They have done it largely with defense, allowing an average of only 2.13 goals per game over those eight games.

2. Washington has the second worst combined power play/penalty kill index number in the league. Adding their 76.6 percent penalty kill to their 13.0 percent power play on the road makes their combined index of 89.6 second worst only to Columbus’ 87.6.

3. As if you need reminding, with Nicklas Backstrom and Alex Ovechkin out, your top three scorers taking the ice tonight for the Caps will be Dennis Wideman (9-25-34), Alexander Semin (12-16-28), and Marcus Johansson (10-18-28). Tampa Bay will start three players with more than 40 points (Steven Stamkos, Martin St. Louis, and Vincent Lecavalier).

4. Michal Neuvirth would appear to be ticketed to baseball cap duty tonight, but he does have an odd career record against the Bolts. He has won both decisions in four appearances against Tampa Bay, but he has a GAA of 3.38 in doing it.

5. This is the first of a back-to-back set of games in Florida. The Caps are 3-2-0 in the opening game of back-to-backs so far this season.

The Peerless’ Players to Ponder:

Tampa Bay: Steve Downie

Two years ago, Steve Downie had a breakout season. With 22 goals and 46 points in 79 games, he gave indications he could be more than just a pot-stirrer. Last season, however, he dropped to ten goals in 57 games. This season he has eight goals in 45 games (a 14-goal pace), but is a minus-18, worst on the team and 822nd among 828 skaters in the league. He has been a little more productive of late, going 1-3-4, plus-1 in his last four games. But someone has to take some pressure off the big-three of Stankos, St. Louis, and Lecavalier, and Downie might be someone to look for to do that, and not just be the guy with 111 penalty minutes in 45 games.

Washington: Brooks Laich

Part of being Mr. Versatility for the Caps is not just being able to skate in all situations, but being able to produce in them. And that brings us to goal-scoring. Brooks Laich has one goal in his last 15 games (34 shots on goal) and is on a pace to finish the season with 15 goals, a total that would be his lowest since the 2006-2007 season. He has eight in 43 career games against the Lightning, but the bigger picture here is that even if Nicklas Backstrom and Alex Ovechkin were in the lineup, the Caps need to get a bit more goal scoring from Mr. Versatility.

Keys:

1. First 20. Any team coming off a long hiatus might be susceptible to a slow start in their first game back. The Caps are already a team that seems to have that problem, regardless of time between games. They are a minus-7 in the first period of games this season and have allowed the first goal 25 times in 48 games. The Caps are not in a position to let anyone get off to a fast start against them, given their struggles to mount offensive pressure in the last month.

2. Score by Committee. As long as Backstrom, Ovechkin, and Green are out – and even when they are back, for that matter – the Caps need to do a better job of scoring by committee. Laich has that one goal in his last 15 games. Joel Ward has one in his last 35 games. Mike Knuble has one in his last 39 games. Even Jason Chimera, who started the season so hot, has only one in his last 15 games. The Caps are going to struggle to win games if this kind of production doesn’t change.

3. Play Smart. Only one team has fewer power play opportunities at home than does Tampa Bay (69 in 21 games). Only seven teams have fewer power play goals at home than the Lightning (14). Don’t give them any cheap opportunities.

In the end, maybe treating the first half as a bad dream and tonight as if they were 0-0-0 is the best way to go. The first half was disappointing to say the least, but the Caps have an opportunity to make things right in the last 34 games. On paper, they are still the class of the Southeast, but they played those first 48 games as if “on paper” was enough. Starting tonight, they have to toss that paper in the waste basket and tend to their business on the ice.

Caps 4 – Lightning 2

What can one expect?

2012-01-30T11:42:00.000-05:00

Over the course of his six-year career preceding this season, Alex Ovechkin has scored 105 goals in 171 games following an All-Star or Olympic Games break. That works out to a 50.4 goals average per 82 games, precisely what his career average is overall for goals scoring per 82 games.

In the last two seasons he scored 21 goals in 46 games after the breaks, a 37.4 goal pace, slightly (but not significantly) higher than his 33.8 goals-per-82-games pace from the end of the Vancouver Olympics through the end of last season.

Ovechkin is on a pace to score 33.6 goals this season, which means perhaps 14 more in the 32 games he is still eligible to play in before the end of the regular season.

Maybe it is the new normal.

The Cousins of the Roundtable: Part V

2012-01-30T09:07:00.000-05:00

There is but one more question to have the cousins take a stab at, and it really is the only question worth asking at this point.

Will the Caps make the playoffs?

Fearless: Yes, and here is why. There are 14 games between now and the trading deadline, and the Caps’ schedule is set up in such a way that they can stick a fork in Florida’s chances and deal a harsh blow to Winnipeg’s to win the Southeast Division. The Caps will face the Panthers three times in the next nine games, and they might be getting them at the best time, if you are a Caps fan. The Panthers closed the pre-All Star Game portion of the season by going 4-6-5. Of the 13 points they earned in those 15 games, seven of them came in extra time (1-0-5). Their lone extra time win came in a Gimmick. And when they have lost in regulation, it hasn’t been close much of the time. Of their six losses four of them came by three or more goals, including a ghastly 8-0 whitewashing by the Boston Bruins.

Even if you set the Caps’ three upcoming games with Florida aside, things do not look good for the Panthers. This is a team that has not won a road game in regulation since December 8th (they are 1-4-4 on the road since then, their only win coming in a trick shot competition). What is worse, Jose Theodore has allowed seven goals on 66 shots since returning from a knee injury. Perhaps the All Star break gave him time to recuperate a little more, but that isn’t a stat line that should give much comfort to Panther fans.

As for Winnipeg, they are five points behind the Caps, and the Caps have two games in hand. Worse, they have been awful in the new year, going 3-8-1 since January 1st to drop back down to .500 (22-22-6). The Caps get the Jets here on February 9th, and the Jets have a road record that is worse than Washington’s, if you can believe that. On top of all that, Evander Kane – the Jet’s leading goal scorer – has missed the Jets’ last three games with a concussion, and Dustin Byfuglien hasn’t dressed since December 23rd as a result of a knee injury.

The Caps might not light up the sky with their play in the second half, but this is going to be a long slow march of attrition, the Caps being the ones standing at the end, albeit on unsteady feet going into the playoffs. Ninety-five points might be the cutoff point for the eighth place finisher in the Eastern Conference, but the Southeast Division winner (and third seed for the opening playoff round) might not crack 90.

Cheerless: Sorry, cuz. A team that more or less sleepwalks its way through the first half of the season, gets it coach fired, doesn’t do all that much better with the new coach, stinks on the road in all three zones at even strength and on special teams, can’t get out of their own end whether they are playing Pittsburgh or Plattsburgh, and is starting the second half with their captain in the hooskow for an illegal hit is not gonna find a pony in a barn filled with all the manure from the first half of the season. Sometimes, it’s just a pile of manure.

OK, that’s a bit harsh, but not by too much. Take a look. Y’know how many times Alex Ovechkin has had a points streak of more than one game since Thanksgiving? Three. He had a two-gamer on December 7-9, a seven-gamer from December 20th to January 3rd, and another two-gamer on January 13-15. That’s not goals, cuz, that’s points. He had his first three-point game of the year in the game that got him his suspension. He hasn’t had a game-winning goal since December 15th, which happens to be his only one of the year. He’s gonna finish with fewer game-winning goals than in his rookie season when he had five for a team that won only 29 games the whole year.

And it’s not like the rest of the team is lighting it up. Alexander Semin is on a pace to finish with 21 goals. Brooks Laich is on a pace to finish with 15. Joel Ward and Mike Knuble might not ever score again. Between them they have one goal since December 7th; that’s 22 games. Mike Green is out, Nicklas Backstrom is even outer. The Caps are giving 16 minutes a night to a defenseman who is in his first pro season and who was supposed to spend it in Hershey (Dmitry Orlov) and benched Jeff Schultz in favor of Tomas Kundratek. Y’know when was the last time the Caps won a road game against a team in the top-eight of their conference? December 7th, against Ottawa. OK, they’ve only had four such games since then, but in all road games since then they are 3-5-2.

And then there is the goaltending. Yeah, Tomas Vokoun was pretty much keeping the Caps in games there for a while. He had a stretch there where he was 5-2-0 in eight appearances, 1.88, .938, and a shutout. But since then he has allowed three goals in four of five appearances. Michal Neuvirth had a nice shutout in Montreal a couple of weeks ago after he had only 31 minutes of work since Christmas, but then he gave up four goals to Pittsburgh. Maybe that goaltending run is coming to an end. In any case, this team is a bigger mess than a baby’s diaper. Add it all up, and they are not making the playoffs.

Peerless: Well, we know how Cheerless got his name. We see only one viable path to the playoffs, and the road sign marking it says, “Southleast Division Champion, This Way.” Given the absences of Green and Backstrom to start the second half (and who knows if/when Backstrom will return this season), the persistent domination of opponents in shots and chances in the 20 or so games leading up to the All Star break, the lack of consistent offense, the too-hard leaning on goaltending to win games, and that awful road record, it is hard to see any way short of divine intervention that the Caps make the playoffs as an at-large team. Their best, and likely only path to the post season is to take advantage of the fact that the Southeast has once more reclaimed its rightful place as the worst division in hockey (and perhaps not as good, top to bottom, as either the East or the West Division in the AHL).

The Caps have what looks like a favorable road schedule through February. They get seven divisional opponents and four others below them in the standings over the 15 games through the end of next month. But then there is that whole “home-road” thing. Nine of the 15 games will be played away from Verizon Center, where the Caps have the third worst road record in the East and only two more standings points earned than 15th place Carolina away from home. If they do not turn that around and take advantage of the weaker teams on the slate, regardless of where the games are played, things get rougher on the schedule dramatically after that. In their last 19 games the Caps will play 10 games against teams that start the second half as playoff eligibles in their respective conferences. Three other games will be played against ninth or tenth place teams at the moment likely to be fighting for a spot in their respective conferences.

It all might come down to three letters for the Caps – “R-O-W.” Regulation and Overtime Wins. At the moment the Caps are fourth in the East in ROW with 25 such wins, and they might have all but insurmountable leads over Florida (19) and Winnipeg (21) in that category. It will be the first tie-breaker to determine playoff seeding for teams tied in standings points at the end of the season. It might be how the Caps find their way to the post season.

The Cousins of the Roundtable, Part IV

2012-01-29T23:33:00.000-05:00

We continue this little interlude with two more questions of a forward-looking nature. Let’s hope the cousins are up to it.

The NHL trading deadline is 3:00 p.m. (EST) on February 27th. The Caps have 14 games to go before that date, so there is some time to find out if they will be a buyer or a seller. Which will they be?

Fearless: A buyer. Of the 14 games to go between now and the deadline, seven of them will be against Southeast Divisions teams, and three others will be against teams below them in the standings. The Caps will not win them all, but they should be favored in all of them (Cheerless…” cough-road games-cough”).

Cheerless’ juvenile commentary notwithstanding, the other four games will be against strong teams such as Boston, the Rangers, and San Jose, but two of those are at home (the Caps will be at Madison Square Garden to face the Rangers on February 12th). If you look at the 14 opponents and their respective win-loss records at home; then compare them to how they fit those records into the Caps’ schedule, they have a combined 168 wins in 340 games. That’s a roundabout way of saying that it is not as tough a schedule of opponents as it could be.

Cheerless: Fearless, you are a certifiable, 200-proof idiot. The Caps scrooed the pooch getting to this point, cuz. They’re gonna be sellers. Take a good look at those 14 games until the deadline. Nine of them – nine! – are on the road. They have a three-game road trip coming out of this break; then they have a four-game trip in the middle of next month. Last time I looked, and that was about two wags of a dog’s tail ago, the Caps had the third worst road record in the Eastern Conference. Only Carolina has a worse road record in the Southeast, for cryin’ out loud.

Then there is the matter of whether Mike Green comes back healthy and effective, and whether Nicklas Backstrom comes back at all this season. Who is a number one center on this team with Backstrom out? Who is a number two center when he’s in? And this team hasn’t figured out a way to string a lot of wins together. Since the seven-game streak to start the season, the Caps have two winning streaks of more than two games, the same number of losing streaks of more than two games since then. Hard to see how they suddenly do more than tread water, and that schedule ain’t lookin’ too good, and it’s gonna be hard to be a buyer when you’re falling out of the playoff group. The Caps made their bed in the first half, and now they have to pay the band in the second half.

Peerless: Neither, at least in the sense a contender is looking to add the last pieces, and an also-ran is looking to sell assets for futures. The Caps have too many holes to think that adding a player like a Jason Arnott, or a Dennis Wideman, or a Sergei Fedorov is going to be the piece that makes them a good bet to go deep in the playoffs. The team has not displayed enough depth or production to warrant that kind of a conclusion. But there will be no selloff, either. One thing that will probably signal whether the Caps are going to be a “buyer” is what happens to Jeff Schultz. If he is traded at the deadline, it will not be for a top-six forward or a top-four defenseman. But packaging him with something else could yield an asset that could be valuable for the playoffs. If the Caps hold onto him, then perhaps it is a signal that they are going to cast their lot with this roster and for Schultz to regard it as a lost season for him, the aim being that perhaps next year he can be a more consistent contributor.

If the Caps do a face-plant out of the gate to start the second half, then one wonders what will happen to Alexander Semin. The Caps could then become sellers, accelerating what some (ok, we) presume, that Semin will not be re-signed. He could be a valuable asset for a team looking for a forward with a history of scoring goals (whatever his performance this season). That is on the daring end of the spectrum in terms of team shake-up. But the fact is that the Caps have stumbled their way to their place on the edge of the playoffs. They have given little evidence that things are going to change by magic in the second half. And Cheerless, in his convoluted way, has a point – the Caps didn’t do enough in the first half, and now with the schedule putting them on the road, where they have not done well, things do not look promising.

**********

So, you have offered your points of view on buying and selling. Who – or what positions – are bought and sold?

Cheerless: Heck, just about anybody with an expiring contract could be moved. It wouldn’t be the yard sale the Caps had a few years ago, but if the Caps are going to do some renovating, then maybe they start now instead of the summer. Even if they are not a “seller,” they might have to be a “seller.” The Caps don’t seem to have much, if any room to add a piece without sending out a piece. That might be the “Schultz” argument – sending out a player who does not fit into the team’s short term plans for a player who can help them down the stretch. The buyer would have to be a team thin on defense that is out of contention who wants to move an older player or expiring contract.

Fearless: The Caps do not seem to have much room to maneuver here and might have to buy in what amount to chewable bites. They might have to move money out as part of a two-step that brings in another player. In that instance, the first part that deal might not mean much except for what money it frees up. There might not be much return in that part of a deal. As for need and the kind of player the Caps might be bringing in, they have the perennial problems to solve – a second line center and some scoring support on the lower half of the forward lines. Another adept puck mover from the blue line might be nice to try to reverse this nasty trend of getting out shot, out attempted, and out chanced by opponents.

Peerless: One difficulty the Caps will face is that by the end of the month, there might be only half a dozen or so teams that are truly out of contention, the usual suspects for finding a spare part or two. Who might be a trading partner? Columbus has two forwards that might be of interest in Vaclav Prospal and Samuel Pahlsson. If Montreal drops further out of contention, perhaps a Travis Moen comes into play. Anaheim has a number of forwards on expiring contracts, but the Ducks are 8-1-1 in their last ten games and are showing signs that they might yet challenge for a playoff spot.

The point here is that there would not seem likely to be a clear fit of the sort Jason Arnott was thought to be last year, and a bombshell like having Sergei Fedorov come to D.C. is hard to see happening. If the Caps are to be buyers at the deadline, it would seem this year will be more like 2010, when the players obtained – Eric Belanger, Joe Corvo, and Scott Walker – probably were not on anyone’s radar but might have had fans thinking, “OK, that makes sense.” Let’s just hope that if they do go in that sort of direction, it makes more sense after the deals than was the case in 2010.

That Was The Week That Was -- Week 16 (January 22-28)

2012-01-29T22:10:00.000-05:00

There was hockey not of an all-star game sort this past week, so let’s take a look at what the Caps did…

Record: 1-0-1

It could have been better, and it could have been worse. Getting three points out of four has to qualify as a pretty good week, though, given the opponents. The Caps went to Pittsburgh to face a team that had won five in a row and managed to get a point out of it, even after falling behind, 2-0, in the first period. But the Caps did have a lead in that game, taking a 3-2 lead early in the third on a goal by Alex Ovechkin. Pittsburgh evened it later in the period, but the Caps halted any further Penguin marches and squeezed out a standings point, even as Evgeni Malkin converted a friendly bounce off the end boards for a 4-3 overtime winner. The Caps returned home to win in unexpected fashion against the Boston Bruins, 5-3, the first time the Caps scored five goals in a game in 21 games. It made for the first week since Week 11 that the Caps did not lose a game in regulation and only the second time since their seven game winning streak to start the season.

Offense: 4.00/game (season: 2.81/rank: 9th)

Last week it was five goals on 80 shots on goal (6.25 percent); this week, eight goals on 43 shots (18.6 percent). Neither would seem to be the norm. But what does seem to be the norm is that inability to get shots on goal. With 20 against Pittsburgh and 23 against Boston, the Caps now have gone 19 consecutive games without going over 30 shots in a game, and they have been outshot by opponents in 16 of those 19 games (their last ten in a row). They are, however, 11-6-2 in those games. We do not see this as a long term recipe for success.

Individually, it was the Mathieu Perreault Show this past week. Perreault was 3-2-5, plus-4, including his first career hat trick in the 5-3 win over Boston. The Alexes – Ovechkin and Semin – each had a three point week, both going 1-2-3. Ovechkin got his in one game, having to sit out the second game of the week as a result of his suspension for a hit on Pittsburgh’s Zbynek Michalek in the 4-3 overtime loss last Sunday.

Defense: 3.50/game (season: 2.81/rank: 18th)

It is a broken record by now, but the Caps were badly out-attempted in shots this past week. Opponents launched 145 shots toward the Caps net, and 59 of them got through, seven of them for goals. Compare that to 100 shot attempts for the Caps, 43 of which made it to the net, eight of which found their way over the goal line. The Caps just are not doing a very good job of keeping opponents out of the Caps' own end. They are now allowing 2.5 more shots at 5-on-5 per 60 minutes than they are getting for themselves (numbers from behindthenet.ca). that might not sound like much, but there are two things to consider here. First, that 2.5 shots is 9.2 percent more shots than the Caps are getting. Second, let’s say that a typical goalie’s save percentage at 5-on-5 is .920 (a reasonable conclusion, since 20 of 38 goalies having played at least 20 games have that mark or better). Caps goalies have to have a save percentage of ,927 just to stay even. What is Tomas Vokoun’s save percentage at even strength? You guessed it, .927. Which brings us to…

Goaltending: 3.45/.881

Can’t call it a great week, even with the strength of competition. Tomas Vokoun and Michal Neuvirth split the work this week, each getting a game and each allowing at least three goals. If there was a ray of sunshine, it was that the two combined to stop 19 of 20 third period shots in the two games. Trouble is, that one goal tied what was a 3-2 game in Pittsburgh, and the Penguins went on to win in overtime. If anything, this week was an early warning that some fine goaltending that had gone to waste over the previous month might be normalizing a bit, and that is not a good thing. Tomas Vokoun allowed three goals to Boston, and that makes three in a row and six of his last eight appearances in which he allowed three or more goals. The Caps are 2-4-0 in those six games. Neuvirth has allowed three or more in three of his last five appearances (one of those appearances being a 20 minute stint in which he allowed one goal on eight shots). If the goaltending starts to sputter, and the Caps’ offense cannot find its rhythm, this team is toast for this season.

Power Play: 0-for-5/0.0 percent (season: 18.5 percent/rank: T-12th)

In the space of two weeks, the Caps have dropped seven places in team power play rankings, this week dropping four places on the 0-for-5 effort. They managed only two shots on goal in eight minutes of man-advantage time, including 19 seconds worth of 5-on-3 time and 1:13 of 4-on-3 time. Sure, Boston and Pittsburgh are good penalty killing teams (seventh and fourth, respectively, in penalty killing), but this was just short of awful, the only mitigating factor being that the Caps were missing their biggest power play weapons in Alex Ovechkin, Mike Green, and Nicklas Backstrom against Boston, against whom they had no shots on goal on their only opportunity.

Penalty Killing: 5-for-7/71.4 percent (season: 80.8%/rank:23rd)

Well, at least they didn’t drop any more places in the league rankings. Other than that, it was not a very good week. The Caps have now allowed at least one power play goal in eight of the last nine games in which they faced at least one shorthanded situation. They are 28-for-38 over that span (73.4 percent) and have a record of 4-4-1 in those games. Allowing nine shots in 8:27 of penalty killing time isn’t awful, but the Caps are slowly digging themselves a hole by allowing power play goals on what is has become a regular basis. It is just one more thing that has to be corrected if this club is to have a chance at making the playoffs.

Paying the Price: 59 hits/46 blocked shots (season rank:14th/9th)

The Caps keep getting chances to block shots, so they block shots. Another two games this week with at least 20. On one level, that’s a good thing. The Caps are showing a willingness to try to make things easier on their goaltenders. On the other hand, it is a symptom of a lot of shot attempts against – the Caps blocked more shots this week (46) than they had shots on goal of their own (43). And there is this. The Caps rank ninth in the league in blocked shots. Of the eight teams ahead of them, only three – Minnesota, the Rangers, and San Jose – are among the playoff eligibles of their respective conferences.

Faceoffs: 55-for-116/47.4 percent (season: 51.1 percent/rank: 8th)

Faceoffs – another element that seems to reflect the inability of the Caps to start and keep plays going in the offensive end. Going 55-for-116 for the two games this week is by no means awful, being three wins short of a 50 percent week, but it is the numbers by zone that continue to be troubling. The Caps took 27 draws in the offensive zone this week (winning 13) and took 51 in the defensive zone (winning only 23 of them). That the Caps would earn three points for the week while starting plays in the defensive zone by almost a two-to-one margin compared to starts in the offensive zone either speaks to their goaltending or to a bit of Perreault-fed luck (or poor Boston defense in the 5-3 Caps win).

Turnovers: plus-3

One cannot help but think that this week’s results were a reflection of the scoring differences one finds from rink to rink. The Caps and Penguins combined for only 11 turnovers in the 4-3 Penguins win last Sunday in Pittsburgh (the Caps being minus-3 in that game), while the Caps and Bruins combined for 42 turnovers in the 5-3 Caps win on Tuesday at Verizon Center (the Caps finishing plus-6). Boston had a particularly sloppy game that played a pivotal role in the Caps’ win. On balance, though, there was not much to take away from the turnover numbers this week.

Impressions:

A 1-0-1 week is not to be sneered at, but the way the Caps won these points is not the kind of method one can or should count on over the last 34 games of the season. They had to claw back from an 0-2 hole on the road to get a point in the first game of the week, then they had the benefit of an opponent playing a poor defensive game to get a win in the other contest. Make no mistake, that win was a good one, coming as it did while the Caps skated with three big pieces out of the lineup in Alex Ovechkin, Nicklas Backstrom, and Mike Green. But in neither game did the Caps mount any consistent offensive pressure, and they showed cracks in their defense and goaltending in giving up seven goals in the two contests.

We made a point a couple of weeks ago that the Caps had six games on each side of the All-Star break that could very well make or break their chances to make the playoffs. We speculated on their chances to match their standings points mark last season after 54 games, which would come at the end of this 12-game stretch. Well, having finished the first half of that stretch of a dozen games with a 3-2-1 record, even a sweep of their next six games would leave them short of last year’s points mark after 54 games (they can finish with 67 points in 54 games, compared to 68 last season). And given the way the Caps have lurched from winning to losing in short spurts over the last two-and-a-half months, no reasonable person should be thinking “sweep” in the next six games.

The Caps have played this season like the story about a frog in a pot of water. Turn up the heat too fast, the frog jumps out. But if the water is heated gradually, the frog doesn’t have a clue what is happening until it is too late. The Caps have avoided the long losing streak for the most part this season, not having one of more than four games so far. But they have lost often enough in bits and pieces that the heat has been turned up gradually on their chances to make the playoffs. And if they don’t make something of these next six games, when the schedule favors them with four divisional games and another against a team behind them in the standings, the Caps might find themselves cooked.

The Cousins of the Roundtable, Part III

2012-01-29T04:40:00.002-05:00

We are Day Four of the All Star break, and the cousins have been helping out in our look back at the first half. So let’s see…what to look at next.

Who is the most valuable player of the first half for the Caps?

Fearless: Nicklas Backstrom. Sometimes you do not know how valuable a player is until he is out of the lineup, and the fact is that the Caps are only 5-4-1 since Backstrom was elbowed by Rene Bourque in a 3-1 win over Calgary in the first game of the new year. When the Caps skated off with their 3-1 win over Calgary on January 3rd – a game in which Backstrom assisted on all three goals – the Caps were averaging 2.97 goals per game, ninth in the league in offense.

Since then, the Caps have a total of 22 goals in ten games. They have scored more than three twice in that span and have been shut out twice. In the first 16 games under Dale Hunter, the Caps wouldn’t make anyone think of a Gatling gun with their shots on goal, but they were averaging 26.2 shots per game. Since Backstrom went out, that has dropped to 21.6 shots per game. In those first 16 games under Hunter, with Backstrom in the lineup, the Caps were 11-for-45 on the power play (24.4 percent). In the last ten, with Backstrom out, that has dropped to 15.4 percent on 4-for-26 success. Backtrom’s value has been underlined by his absence from the lineup. He is the most valuable player of the first half for the Caps.

Cheerless: Well, if Backstrom is out, it’s good that Tomas Vokoun is in. He didn’t have such a good start with the Caps, even though he had a good record. Under former coach Bruce Boudreau he was 10-5-0, but he had a goals-against average of only 2.82, and his save percentage was only .905. And even after there was a change behind the bench, there were a few potholes on the way – Vokoun played in only five of the first 11 games under Hunter. He was 2-3-0, 2.80, .912 in those games.

Vokoun has played in 13 of the Caps’ last 15 games, though, and over that span he is 8-4-0, 2.17, .931. Although two of the losses came in the road trip out to California – Vokoun gave up four goals in each of the 5-2 losses to San Jose and Los Angeles -- in the other two losses the Caps were shut out.

Peerless: Well, you guys covered the obvious choices, so we will put in a plug for Dennis Wideman. The Caps have employed ten defensemen so far this season, but that number does not reflect the churning that has taken place on the blue line. Only three defensemen – Wideman, Karl Alzner, and John Carlson – have played in all 48 games; only four have played more than 30 games so far. With Mike Green hurt, Jeff Schultz benched, John Carlson having an up-and-down year, and Dmitry Orlov getting significant minutes as a rookie, Wideman has provided some semblance of stability on the blue line. Like a lot of Caps, he had a bumpy ride early. In 22 games under Bruce Boudreau, Wideman was 3-10-13, minus-6, but even that 22-game stretch could be cut in half. He had a difficult time in the second 11 games of that stretch, going 0-3-3 and a minus-14.

That has turned around with the change in coaches. Since Dale Hunter took over, Wideman is 6-15-21, plus 6 in his last 26 games. He is 3-7-10 on the power play, which has made up a large portion of the power play production one might have expected from Mike Green. If we could only keep him from playing teams from the state of New York. In seven games against Buffalo, the Rangers, and the Islanders, Wideman is 0-1-1, minus-8. He is 9-24-33, plus-8 in 41 games against everyone else.

**********

Let’s assume that the Caps need to have the Young Guns firing with a little more frequency in the second have than they did before the All-Star Game. Who from among the rest of the players on the roster needs to raise his game from his first half performance for the Caps to make the playoffs?

Cheerless: Joel Ward. In his first dozen games with the Caps, Ward was 4-3-7, plus 6, and the Caps were 9-3-0. Since then, Ward is 1-6-7, even, and the Caps are 17-16-3. Even his four goals in his first dozen games was a bit of a stretch. He got them on a total of 12 shots. In his last 35 games he has that one goal on 39 shots. Of course, not all of the Caps’ slump can be placed at Ward’s feet, but it just goes to show that the Caps need to have some secondary goal scoring to jump up in the standings. And then there is this. In three seasons in Nashville, Ward averaged about two minutes of shorthanded ice time per game, never ranked lower than fourth in any season among Nashville forwards and second among Predator forwards in 2009-2010. He is averaging about half of that with Washington – 54 seconds per game – eighth among Caps forwards. Would Ward, and the Caps for that matter, benefit from his having more time a man down?

Fearless: John Carlson. One might have thought that having played for a season in juniors for Dale Hunter, that Carlson might have thrived in Hunter’s system. That has not been the case, at least so far. In 22 games skating for Bruce Boudreau, Carlson was 4-8-12, plus-5, and had only five “minus” games in all. But under Hunter, Carlson is 1-10-11, minus-5, and has had a total of 11 “minus” games in the 26 he has played under the new coach. His goal production has declined in step with his shot production – 54 in 22 games to start the year, only 42 in 26 games since the coaching change. More specific to his position, he has spent too much time and too many instances of seeing pucks head into his own net. To date this season, only five defensemen have been on the ice for more goals against. Part of that is ice time (he is second on the team to Wideman in total ice time per game), and part could be due to his assuming some more responsibility in the absence of Mike Green, but the 61 goals for which he has been on ice this season is almost equal to his entire total for last year (66). That is going to have to improve in the second half.

Peerless: I'm going to pull rank here and cheat by taking Alexander Semin. The fact that Alexander Semin has only 12 goals has to be considered something of a surprise. His pace of 21 goals for the season would leave him with a career low for a full season (he had 10 in 52 games as a rookie in 2003-2004). But looking for a cause does not seem to be a long trip. In 44 games so far, Semin has 89 shots on goal. His 13.5 percent shooting percentage is not far off his career average (14.4 percent). However, he is on a pace to finish with 158 shots on goal, about 30 percent lower than his average season shots on goal over the last five years. His shooting percentage is about half as high under Dale Hunter (9.6 percent) than it was under Bruce Boudreau (18.9 percent), even though his shots are up (2.26 per game versus 1.76 under Boudreau). Getting more production from Semin is going to be an important ingredient in ensuring the Caps finish these last 34 games of the season well.

The Cousins of the Roundtable, Part II

2012-01-28T08:41:00.002-05:00

We took a look at the roster changes the Caps have made and surprises from the first half. Now the cousins and I take a look at what might have been pivotal moments in the first half. Guys, are you ready?

If the Caps should make the playoffs and an eighth-seed by one or two points, can you point to one game in the first half and say that it was the critical win, the unexpected win, the big win that provided the extra point or two to put the Caps over the top?

Fearless: December 7th. The Caps were coming off an ugly loss in Florida in which they gave up five goals in the first half of the game to the Panthers, then fell short in a comeback try, 5-4. From there they traveled to Ottawa, a team that was just starting to turn things around after a mediocre start. The Caps fell behind 2-1 after two periods after allowing a couple of late goals in the period by the Senators. Ottawa almost made it 3-1 when Milan Michalek had a breakaway just five minutes into the third. Goalie Tomas Vokoun stopped him, and the Caps’ skaters took over from there. Nicklas Backstrom tied it 9:45 in, then Alex Ovechkin and Troy Brouwer scored 15 seconds apart to give the Caps a 4-2 lead. After Michalek got the Senators back to within one with less than four minutes left, John Carlson ended it with an empty net goal for the 5-3 win.

The Caps, coming off a bad loss, having a poor first 40 minutes in this one, could have just chalked it up as another road loss. But they did come back, got goals from the players who have to contribute on a consistent basis, then had Tomas Vokoun turn away five shots on goal in the last 90 seconds to help seal the come-from-behind win. Instead of skating off with no points, they got two, and it got the Caps started on a 13-7-2 record leading into the All-Star break.

Cheerless: Cuz, you gotta be kidding. Ottawa? I look at a game where the Caps lost two in a row, three of their last four, were coming home with three of their top Young Guns on the bench, their top scorer taking the ice being a defenseman, their top two goal scorers for the season that night being a couple of grinders – Jason Chimera and Troy Brouwer, two rookies in the lineup, a couple of others (Mathieu Perreault and Jay Beagle) with less than a hundred games of experience apiece.

And who do they get? A team with a plus-gazillion goal differential for the season and a goalie with a goals-against average you’d need a magnifying glass to see. Unless you were a player or a coach, or maybe Slapshot, you already chalked up the January 24th game against the Boston Bruins as a no-point night. But the Caps beat the Bruins, 5-3, and went into the All-Star break maybe feeling a little better about themselves. If they make the playoffs by two points, then these two points – two they had no business to expect – will have been the most important ones.

Peerless: Hey, Cheerless, I had the Caps in that Boston game, too. And I even had the Caps scoring five goals…

Fearless: Bragging is unseemly, cousin…

Peerless: Well, since Cheerless took the Boston game for two points the Caps had no business getting, I’ll take a game that they got two points in for how they can – and have to – play when motivated. December 28th against the Rangers. New York came to Washington feeling all fat and happy with a five-game winning streak, sitting on top of the Eastern Conference, being the toast of New York hockey. The Caps? Losers of two in a row, three of four, and four of their last six games. Even with the Rangers starting backup goalie Martin Biron, they had to be considered a favorite.

The Caps and Rangers traded goals in the first period, but then the Caps squeezed. They got goals from Troy Brouwer and Alexander Semin less than three minutes apart in the second period and went off after 40 minutes with a 3-1 lead and having held the Rangers to only 17 shots on goal. The Caps went into a defensive shell around Tomas Vokoun in the third and frustrated the Rangers, who failed to score on any of their first 14 shots of the period. Then Alexander Semin scored to ice things, Vokoun turned away one more shot for his 31st save on 32 shots, and the Caps had a 4-1 win.

*****

Now let’s turn that on its head… If the Caps miss the playoffs by one or two points, what game in the first half to you think will be the one that did them in, the one game in which they should have come out with two points and didn’t?

Cheerless: October 27th in Edmonton. The Caps were 7-0-0, starting their first western road trip. The big game would be in Vancouver, but the Caps had that stop in Edmonton first. And it looked good early. The Caps outshot the Oilers, 7-1, in the first 11 minutes and got a goal by Karl Alzner, of all people, to take a 1-0 lead. But then the offense shut down for the rest of the period. Edmonton got a late 4-on-3 power play goal from Taylor Hall to tie things up, and whatever momentum the Caps had in the first ten minutes was pretty much gone in the last ten. The Caps had a flat second period, getting only two shots on goal in the first 11 minutes. Jordan Eberle scored a power play goal at 12:44 to give the Oilers the lead. After that, Edmonton left it in the hands of goalie Nikolai Khabibulin, who had given up only five goals on 134 shots coming into this game, and that was enough. The Caps never regained the momentum they had early, even if they would get 19 shots on goal in the third period. It shouldn’t have come to that; this was a game the Caps should have won. The Caps seemed to be peeking ahead, and when they lost momentum after having it early, they squandered two points.

Fearless: You could end this conversation by picking an Islander game, and you would have choices. I’d take the game on November 5th. The Caps lost both games of that western road trip to Edmonton and Vancouver, but the won their next two, scoring five goals in each in games against Anaheim and Carolina. They were in the second half of a road back-to-back on Long Island, but they jumped on the Islanders for a pair of goals in the first period – one by Joel Ward, the other by Alex Ovechkin. But the Caps gave away their advantage in the second period, letting the Islanders tie things up while getting only seven shots on Islander goalie Rick DiPietro.

Again, and just like in that Edmonton game – momentum taken, then given away. And the Caps could not get it back. They did trade goals in the first half of the third period, but PA Parenteau gave the Islanders a 4-3 lead with less than two minutes left, they John Tavares iced it with an empty netter. The Islanders, muddling along with a 3-5-2 record coming into this game, took away a win from the Caps – a team with a 9-2-0 record entering this contest – that the Caps might regret down the road. Parenthetically, since he had a goal in that game, Joel Ward has had but one in 35 games since.

Peerless: It would be easy to pick the other ugly loss to the Islanders, the 3-0 shutout on January 17th, or even the 3-0 loss in Carolina three days later. But we are going with the 5-1 loss to Buffalo on November 26th. This was not a game that the Caps might regret for the two points in this game that they forfeited, but what it revealed about the team that laid bare the fact that they might not be the sum of their parts. The Sabres came into this game having lost three in a row, four of five, and five of their previous seven games. What is more, they were missing nine regulars from their lineup, forcing coach Lindy Ruff to patch together a lineup from spare parts and call-ups from the AHL.

The Caps lost five of seven, themselves, but surely against a patchwork lineup – one missing top goalie Ryan Miller, to boot – they would be able to muster enough to leave with a win. But Buffalo jumped on the Caps early with a pair of goals in the first period. Then they shrugged off a penalty shot goal from Jason Chimera in the second by getting a goal of their own. The two goals in the third period for the Sabres, the last coming on a shorthanded goal by Jochen Hecht, made for an embarrassing night for the Capitals. Alex Ovechkin and Nicklas Backstrom each were on the ice for four goals against (each finishing minus-4). The top line managed five shots on goal, one more than Mike Knuble had on his own. They turned Jhonas Enroth – a decent goalie (7-3-1, 2.40, .922 going into that game) – into a great one, shutting out the Caps save for a penalty shot. And they did this against a team that was not far above a good AHL squad in talent with the injuries decimating the Sabres. They didn’t give the two points away, they presented them to the Sabres on a silver platter. And it would be the last game Bruce Boudreau coached for the Capitals.

We have other things to cover, but that will have to wait for the next time.

The Cousins of the Roundtable, Part I

2012-01-27T07:21:00.000-05:00

The All Star Game break is a time to step back, take stock, reflect, and ponder. As the brightest stars gather in Ottawa to celebrate hockey this weekend, the cousins and I have a chance to take a look at the Capitals – where they have come from in their first 48 games, where they stand, and where they might be going as the league’s 30 teams start their sprint to the finish of the season.

“In other words, you couldn’t procure tickets to the All Star Game…”

Pretty much, Fearless. But let’s get started...

The Caps made some significant roster changes from last season. Jeff Halpern, Joel Ward, Roman Hamrlik, Troy Brouwer, and Tomas Vokoun. Who has made the biggest contribution so far?

Fearless: One might not have thought so, perhaps, in the first 20 games, but I would go with Roman Hamrlik. True, he is on track to have his lowest goals and points totals of his career, and he had a difficult start – 1-0-1, minus-10 in his first 22 games, but since the coaching change he is 0-6-6, plus-9 in his last 22 games. But more than that, with Mike Green out, Jeff Schultz benched, a rookie – Dmitry Orlov – getting a lot of playing time, John Carlson in a funk, and the Caps resorting to bringing up Tomas Kundratek to help shore things up, Hamrlik has turned back into what folks might have expected when he was acquired – a steadying influence on the blue line, the kind of defenseman who won’t excite, but who will be consistent.

Cheerless: You forgetting about Tomas Vokoun, cuz? He’s had a season a little like Hamrlik’s – sucked early, great late. If you look at his first 22 games, ending with a four goals on 21 shots in 40 minutes performance against the Flyers that got him benched in favor of Michal Neuvirth, he was 12-8-0, .907, 2.81. He was played less like “Tomas Vokoun” – the goalie who didn’t have a save percentage for a full season since the lockout below .919 – and more like your garden variety $1.5 million goalie. But in 13 games since he returned to the lineup, he is 8-4-0, 2.17, .931. Only twice in that span has he allowed more than three goals and only three times has stopped fewer than 90 percent of the shots he faced in a game. Over the last month, as Vokoun goes, so go the Caps.

Peerless: I’m going to put in a plug for Troy Brouwer here. Of all the new acquisitions, he has been consistently as advertised – he hits, he goes into tough places, he will mix it up and agitate, and he is on a pace to set a career best in goals (24). Five of the 14 goals he has so far are game-winners, and that leads the club. I'm a little surprised at his versatility, or at least his being applied to different situations. He has been able to contribute to a scoring line or to a checking line. He is fourth among forwards in shorthanded ice time; he gets almost as much power play time (2:06 per game) as Alexander Semin (2:26). He is much like Brooks Laich in his ability to play in a variety of situations, but with more of an edge to his game.

OK, guys, what surprised you most in the first half of the season?

Cheerless: Ovi. Not in a good way, either. Not for all this All Star Game crap. That is going to be forgotten by next weekend. It’s just that when he came to camp in September, it all looked like it would come back together for him. He looked like he was in better shape than last year; he looked like he had more focus than he had too often last season. He even though he had a decent start to the season -- 5-4-9 in his first nine games – it wasn’t any better than the start he had last season (4-5-9). Then, in his tenth game, he got benched for that last shift in regulation against Anaheim. In his next 12 games he had three goals, the Caps went 4-7-1, and his coach got fired. In 25 games since Bruce Boudreau left, he is 12-10-22, so he seems to be getting some of his game back. But keep in mind that after 47 games last season he was 16-30-46. This year, he is 20-19-39.

Fearless: John Carlson. Perhaps young defensemen are more prone to ups and downs early in their careers than forwards, but Carlson has had a curious season. The optics of his play give the impression he lacks awareness. Only five defensemen in the league have been on the ice for more goals (he was tied for 88th last season; and among the 30 defensemen playing all 82 games, only four were on the ice for fewer goals). What is especially confounding about his play is that he looks a bit lost in the system Dale Hunter is employing. He played for Hunter at London for a season and put up fine numbers (16-60-76, plus-23, in 59 games). He is only 1-10-11, minus-5 since Hunter took over and 0-4-4, minus-8 in his last 21 games.

Peerless: Dale Hunter. There is a bright line between the responsibilities of player and that of coach, between those who toil and those who manage. But we would have thought this team might have taken on a bit more of the Hunter personality as player. We don’t mean the nasty, sharp-elbowed, in your face personality of Hunter the player, but the simple matter of aggressiveness. The Caps have been – are, as a matter of fact – a quite passive team offensively. They have been consistently and significantly out-shot, out-attempted, and out-chanced by their opponents since the change behind the bench. The Caps have gone 19 straight games without more than 30 shots on goal; they have topped 20 in only three of their last seven games. I don’t think anyone would confuse Bruce Boudreau and Dale Hunter in terms of approach, but I don’t know that anyone might have expected this team to struggle so much in terms of puck possession and the ability to generate offense from it.

Well have more from the cousins and the roundtable in the next edition.

“Cuz, why do they call it a roundtable when we’re sitting at keyboards?”

Save it for next time, Cheerless…

The Ovechkin Redemption

2012-01-26T07:11:00.004-05:00

An old con turned minor league hockey player ambles into a locker room. Red finds Ovi sitting against the wall, listlessly taping his sticks. Red waits for some acknowledgment. Ovi doesn't even look up. Red hunkers down and joins him. Nothing is said for the longest time. And then, softly:

Ovi: My old coach used to say I'm a hard man to know. Like a closed book. Complained about it all the time…He was sick, unbelievable. I love him. But I guess I couldn't show it enough... I didn’t win for him, Red. Because of me, the way I am.

Red: That don't make you a bad kid. Immature, maybe. Feel bad about it if you want. But wasn’t just you that didn’t win for him.

Ovi: No. I didn't. We all did, but I wound up here, taping sticks during All Star Game; suspended; hockey writers writing bad things about me. Bad luck, I guess.

Red: Bad luck? Jesus.

Ovi: It floats around. Has to land on somebody. Say storm comes through. Some folks sit in their living rooms and enjoy the rain. The house next door gets torn out of the ground and smashed flat. It was my turn, that's all. I was in the path of Shanny. I just had no idea the suspension would be as long as it is... Think you'll ever get out of there?

Red: To the NHL? Sure. When I got a long white beard and about three marbles left rolling around upstairs.

Ovi: Tell you where I'd go. Stanley Cup finals.

Red: Stanley Cup finals?

Ovi: In June. Downtown. You know what hockey writers say about the Stanley Cup finals? They say it is sick…unbelievable. That's where I'd like to finish out my season, Red. A loud finals that is sick, unbelievable. Score a couple goals. Win games. Get Cup from Commissioner and skate around... You know, a place like that, I'd need a man who can get me puck; you know, since Nicky’s hurt.

Red: Jesus, Ovi. I couldn't hack it up there. Been down here too long. I'm an AHL institutional man now. Like old Bruce Boudreau was in his playing days.

Ovi: You underestimate yourself.

Red: Bullshit. Down here I'm the guy who can get the puck to you. Up there, all you need are Nicky and Greenie, and maybe Sasha. I wouldn't know where to begin. Stanley Cup final? Hell. Like to scare me to death, somethin' that big.

Ovi: Not me. I didn't hit Michalek that hard, and I didn't have a tantrum about All-Star Game, and whatever mistakes I made I've paid for and then some. That finals and that Cup...I don't think it's too much to want. To take it back to Russia for a couple of days. Touch the names on it. Drink in the water from it. Feel free.

Red: Goddamn it, Ovi, stop! Don't do that to yourself! Talking shitty pipedreams! The finals are out there, and you're in here, doing your time, and that's the way it is!

Ovi: You're right. It's out there, and I'm in here. I guess it comes down to a simple choice, really. Get busy winning or get busy dying.

(with apologies to Stephen King and his fine story, "Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption," and Frank Darabont and his wonderful script of "The Shawshank Redemption")

A TWO-point night -- Game 48: Capitals 5 - Bruins 3

2012-01-25T06:56:00.003-05:00

“Perreault”…”chapeau”

Head wear was the choice of fashion last night at Verizon Center as Mathieu Perreault recorded a hat trick in the Washington Capitals’ unexpected and unlikely 5-3 win over the Boston Bruins. It was a classic case of a player stepping up when adversity presented an opportunity. With Nicklas Backstrom and Mike Green out due to injury, and with Alex Ovechkin taking a seat in the first game of a three-game suspension, the Capitals looked as if they would be offense-challenged against a formidable opponent.

And early on it looked as if Boston would make good on the formidable part. Boston recorded the first seven shot attempts and the first five shots on goal. The Caps did not get their first shot on goal until the 6:49 mark. The shots were 9-2 almost 12 minutes into the period. But even though Boston would draw first blood on a goal by Rich Peverley with 2:14 left in the first period, the Caps had started to tilt the ice in the other direction. They finished the first period with more shot attempts than did the Bruins, 22-20, although they were on the short side in shots on goal, 12-10.

The hard work that ended the first period yielded dividends in the second period as twice within 41 seconds in the period’s third minute, the Caps scored on rushes. First it was Cody Eakin taking a pass from Joel Ward at the Boston blue line, then cutting between Steven Kampfer and Adam McQuaid to take the puck through the left win circle. He snapped the puck at goalie Tuukka Rask, who appeared to trap the puck between his right arm and body, but the puck trickled through. Rask then nudged the puck backward with his blocker so that it bounced over the line to tie the game.

Mathieu Perreault scored 41 seconds later when he worked a nice give-and-go with Alexander Semin, finishing the play with a quick snap shot past a lunging Tuukka Rask. After Tyler Seguin knotted things up again, Perreault took advantage of two mistakes by the Bruins in the neutral zone. First, Johnny Boychuk tried to throw a blind cross-ice pass with a teammate blocking his view. The pass made it only so far as Perreault’s stick. And as Perreault was starting to move the puck the other way, Zdeno Chara was caught backing up to the faceoff dot on the left wing, opening up the middle of the ice. Perreault jumped into the hole and used his speed to outrace Chara and Boychuk to the slot. Perreault had easy pickings on Rask with no defenders back to give the Caps a 3-2 barely lead two minutes after Seguin’s goal.

Brad Marchand tied it once more on a power play at 17:42 of the second period, the teams played back and forth through the first half of the last period. But Roman Hamrlik did a fine job of keeping the puck in the offensive zone in the period’s eighth minute. He fired on net, where Rask made the first save. But defensemen Dennis Seidenberg and Adam McQuaid lost Perreault in the noise, and Perreault was left all alone in front to swat in the rebound, and it was Les Chapeaux Perreault. Dennis Wideman added an empty netter with 27 seconds left, and the win was complete.

Other stuff…

-- OK, it wasn’t Boston’s best effort. With rare exceptions, they looked as if they mailed it in after the first ten minutes. But give the Caps some credit. The line of Mathieu Perreault, Alexander Semin, and Marcus Johansson was 3-2-5, plus-6. Maybe that’s a second line when things settled down in a few weeks. Or maybe it’s a one-and-done thing. But it did look good last night.

-- The line of Cody Eakin, Jay Beagle, Joel Ward was 1-2-3, plus-2, and managed five shot attempts, which was not bad for a line that averaged less than 10 minutes of ice time per player.

-- Three goals off what were essentially cases of rushes coming off neutral zone pressure (Eakin, the first two by Perreault). Is this still in the Caps’ playbook?

-- The other side of that is that Boston’s defensemen, almost without exception, gave the Caps too much room entering the offensive zone, backing off and leaving themselves in poor position to defend or block shots.

-- Brad Marchand might be the “little ball of hate” (a nickname we though had already been taken), but the line of Brooks Laich, Troy Brouwer, and Matt Hendricks was sort of the “Line of Lumps.” They had only one point (an assist by Brouwer on the Wideman empty netter), but they managed 11 shot attempts, a combined nine hits, and four blocked shots. They earned their pay, although all of them were on for a Boston goal (Hendricks and Brouwer on the Seguin goal, Laich for the Marchand power play goal).

-- Territory continues to be a problem area. There were 25 faceoffs in the Boston offensive end (13 wins for the Caps), 11 in the Caps’ offensive end (four Caps wins).

-- You might expect that with Alex Ovechkin, Nicklas Backstrom, and Mike Green out, that the Caps’ power play would struggle. It did, even though they had only one. They had no shots on goal in their two minutes of man advantage.

-- Boston outshot the Caps 32-23, but five of the Bruin shots came from Dan Paille, tied for the team lead. We think the Caps will take that.

-- Eleven of the 32 Bruin shots came from defensemen. They generate a lot of activity from their blueliners. The Bruins had three assists from the defense (two for Dennis Seidenberg, one for Steven Kampfer).

-- Tomas Vokoun was not at his sharpest, but in fairness, the Bruins did do a pretty good job of breaking the Caps’ defense down in deep to give the Bruins advantages in numbers in close.

In the end, this was a good win. Few would have though the Caps could win this game, let along finish the night with five goals against a goalie with a goals-against average well south of 2.00 coming into this one. Mathieu Perreault, a player who recorded 93 goals in three years of Canadian juniors, has no doubt had hat tricks before. But he sure picked a good game to get his first hat trick in the NHL. He did it using the skills he has – speed and quickness, and a certain fearlessness to mingle with big bodies in close, despite his slight build. These are things he can contribute on a more regular basis. That is not to say he is suddenly going to be a hat trick machine, but with the Caps struggling and missing key parts, his contributions are going to be important. Last night we saw what those kinds of contributions can mean.

(Photo by Greg Fiume/Getty Images)

The Transcript You Didn't Get to Read

2012-01-24T13:25:00.000-05:00

Those pepperoni, anchovy, and marshmallow fluff pizzas did their work again last night. The dreams, the dreams. Now we're seeing Brendan Shanahan...

Sunday afternoon in Pittsburgh, an incident occurred during the game between the Penguins and the Washington Capitals. At 8:27 of the second period, Pittsburgh defenseman Zbynek Michalek and forward Matt Hendricks of the Washington Capitals were chasing a loose puck in the Washington end of the ice. Michalek trailed Hendricks on the play, and as the players arrived at the puck, Michalek lifted his elbow and forearm to the back of Hendricks’ head and propelled him into the end glass. This is elbowing.

As the video shows, Michalek has Hendricks lined up for what could and should be a clean and hard body check. However, he uses his elbow to deliver a hit on Hendricks. This is a violation of the elbowing rule, which states: 'The referee, at his discretion, may assess a minor penalty, based on the degree of violence, to a player guilty of elbowing an opponent.” The referee exercised his discretion and called Michalek for elbowing Hendricks.

Although both players are pursuing the puck, the act of elbowing causes contact to Hendrick’s neck and head. Some interpretations of the video record indicate that as Michalek closed in on Hendricks, his knee hit Hendricks’ leg and caused Michalek to lose balance and lurch into Hendricks. It is as good an explanation as any.

Often when players are competing for or racing a loose puck, a violent collision will ensue as a result. This is one of those occasions. The fact that Michalek’s elbow made contact with Hendricks’ head was incidental to the play, and besides, in addition to “losing balance,” a situation I encountered often as a player (wink), as Michalek himself noted, “I know that I made a bad play and maybe I was still a little bit mad about the hit before [from Alex Ovechkin]. That’s how it is.”

There are occasions when violent collisions, even ones involving elbows in an opponent’s neck and head, just happen. That’s how it is. There also are occasions when a player is fresh from a hit he has taken, and takes out his anger on an opponent when the opportunity presents itself, either intentionally or unintentionally. That’s how it is.

We accept Michalek’s assertion that, “that’s how it is.” This absolves Michalek of any further responsibility for any contact to the head. It is important to note that Michalek has never been suspended by the league for prior transgressions or violations of the rules. He is not a repeat offender. Having been absolved as an offender in this instance, he cannot be a “repeat offender” if he should be involved in a similar incident in the future. On the other hand, Matt Hendricks is a tough guy and should just have just rubbed some spit on it and skated off.

To summarize: The players were competing for a loose puck. Michalek trailed the play and, as the players arrived at the puck, Michalek’s knee struck Hendricks’ leg, causing Michalek to lose balance and lurch forward, elbowing Hendricks in the back of the head and neck. Michalek was called for a penalty. However, he has never been suspended by the league and thus is not a “repeat offender.” We did not think the incident was much of a penalty, for that matter.

The department of player safety has decided against suspending Zbynek Michalek for his elbowing Matt Hendricks.

That’s how it is.

We Are No-Go for "Launch"

2012-01-24T07:28:00.000-05:00

“Repeat Offender”

That was the headline on tsn.ca with a photo of Alex Ovechkin sitting on the bench, leaning over the railing of the boards and watching play. All that was missing was a set of cell bars PhotoShopped into the image.

Alex Ovechkin was give a three-game suspension yesterday by Brendan Shanahan, Senior Vice President for Player Safety and Hockey Operations for the NHL, for Ovechkin’s hit on Zbynek Michalek during last Sunday’s game between the Caps and the Pittsburgh Penguins. This is Ovechkin’s third suspension for excessively violent hits on players. The first came on December 1, 2009 -- a two game suspension for a knee-on-knee hit to Carolina's Tim Gleason. The second came on March 15, 2010 – another two-game suspension for was was called a "reckless" hit for boarding defenseman Brian Campbell in a game between the Caps and the Chicago Blackhawks.

Shanahan cited three factors in his decision to suspend Ovechkin. First, that the act constituted “charging” under Rule 42, which states: “A minor or major penalty shall be imposed on a player who skates into of jumps into or charges into an opponent in any manner.” Ovechkin was not penalized by the on-ice referees during the game for charging on the play (although in our opinion he should have been).

There can be little doubt that the collision between Ovechkin and Michalek was violent. The issue, though, is whether the hit constituted “charging” under the rule. If there is a tendency for some players to “embellish” calls on the ice to try to draw a penalty, the league should be considered of being guilty of “embellishment” in this instance to sell a decision. Shanahan used the word “launch,” or a variation of it, six times in a 409 word statement announcing the decision.

Ask yourself, which of the two verbs, “jump” (which is used in the rule) or “launch” – the verb of choice for Shanahan – is the more pejorative. Note that Shanahan does not used the verb “jump” except to recite the rule. The word "launch" does not appear in the NHL rule book.

The second factor in Shanahan’s decision is apparently a mitigating one; Michalek suppered no apparent injury on the play. This is the 26th in-season suspension meted out by Shanahan this season, the average length being slightly more than three games (a high of eight games to Edmonton’s Andy Sutton for charging and a low of one that was given to three different players). This should be considered an “average” suspension in the Shanahan body of work. But that is after the mitigating circumstance of Michalek’s physical condition after the hit that presumably shave some number of games off what the nature of the hit merited on its own. Well, was it the nature of the hit that presumably merited more games, absent the state of Michalek’s health? Shanahan’s statement notes that “Although Michalek's shoulder might be the initial point of contact for this hit, the act of launching causes contact to Michalek's head (there is that verb, “launch,” again).”

This was not a head shot of the sort that, say, Rene Bourque received five games for – a suspension that did not have the mitigating factor of Nicklas Backstrom’s not being injured on the play (Backstrom has not returned to the lineup since that hit in a game on January 3rd; he has missed nine games). Was Ovechkin’s hit, absent the mitigating factor of Michalek’s returning to the game (and later inflicting his own hit on Capital Matt Hendricks that was reviewed by the league), the equivalent of Bourque’s hit on the merits in the league’s eyes? If one believes that Ovechkin caught a break because Michalek was not injured, then that would seem a reasonable conclusion. It would be hard to equate an elbow to the side of the head with a hit in which the first point of contact was the shoulder, though.

Third, Shanahan noted that Ovechkin has a “supplemental discipline history.” This is fun with words. The NHL does not consider Ovechkin a “repeat offender” because he has not been disciplined by the league in the past 18 months. But the fact that he has prior offenses weighs in the decision to apply a suspension and/or to settle on the number of games to be served. Either prior transgressions are, or they are not a factor. The “repeat offender” tag and the “statute of limitations” attaching to it would appear to have little, if any meaning.

The wild card in this is the fact that the Washington-Pittsburgh game was televised to a national audience in the U.S. During that telecast, the hit was replayed several times with voice-over commentary on what was wrong about the hit. We understand that this is the job of analysts such as Ed Olczyk and Pierre McGuire, who offered their own takes on the hit during those replays. But the commentary was lacking on Michalek’s hit later in the contest on Matt Hendricks when he elbowed Hendricks in the back of the neck and drove him into the boards. The worst that could be said of that incident in the commentary was that it was “pretty graphic” in the words of McGuire. Otherwise, it was treated as a garden variety elbowing penalty (for which Michalek was charged).

On balance, stripping away all the words, all the terms like “repeat offender” and “supplemental discipline history,” even who was involved, we are left with the act itself. Was a player hitting another player shoulder first upon leaving his feet (which the player did, in fact, do), then riding up and making contact with the opponent’s head, a penalty? We would think so. Hockey is played at high speed, and watching replays in slow motion do not do justice to the manner in which decision have to be made in the blink of an eye. But we think Ovechkin had sufficient time and space to either avoid the hit or to merely let Michalek know that he was there with a less violent hit. Was it a suspendable offense? If you are of a mind that the NHL is and should be trying to take collisions involving contact with the head out of the game, then a reasonable person could conclude that this hit was suspendable. But there is a curious sliding scale being imposed in these decisions, and two hits serve to make the point. Not coincidentally, they involve the same team.

In one instance, a player elbows another in the head and is a repeat offender in the eyes of the league (having been suspended only 16 days before this incident). The player is injured and has yet to return to the lineup. In the other incident, a player checks – charges into, if you will – another player into the boards without initial contact involving the head, is not a “repeat offender,” and the opponent does not miss a shift to injury.

If you take out the injury variable and the fact that the league apparently treats the terms “repeat offender” and “supplemental discipline history” interchangeably, it would appear that the Rene Bourque hit on Nicklas Backstrom and that of Alex Ovechkin on Zbynek Michalek are essentially one and the same. We beg to differ, and it makes one wonder if the league has improved itself in applying penalties consistently for the same offenses, or if it has merely settled on consistent length-of-suspension for hits that are very different, merely adjusting for whether the victim of a hit returns to the game. For the record, we probably would have given Ovechkin a game, but we will acknowledge that we see that through the red, white, and blue eyes of a Caps fan. Nevertheless, consistency seems still to be an issue with these things.

The Peerless Prognosticator is ON THE AIR!!! -- Game 48: Bruins at Capitals: January 24th

2012-01-23T23:26:00.000-05:00

The Peerless Prognosticator is ON THE AIR!!!

Somewhere up there, in the great hockey beyond, there is a ledger. And the person keeping it is a Boston Bruins fan. On it, they have one entry:

March 3, 2008. Washington 10 – Boston 2

And that person has been waiting for this day. It isn’t bad enough that the Boston Bruins, a team averaging almost a goal and a half more per game than their opponents and is scoring goals at 5-on-5 at an almost two-to-one clip over their opponents, is coming to Verizon Center to take on the Washington Capitals, losers of three of their last four games.

No, that would make the Bruins merely a “favorite” to win Tuesday’s matchup in Washington. The Caps will be missing three of their four “Young Guns” for this game. Nicklas Backstrom is still out with lingering effects from an elbow to the head offered by Rene Bourque. Mike Green is recuperating from sports hernia surgery. And now, Alex Ovechkin will be sitting out Tuesday’s game as a result of a decision handed down by Brendan Shanahan to suspend the winger for three games after his hit on Zbynek Michalek in Sunday’s game in Pittsburgh. That is almost 28 percent of all the goals scored by the Caps this season on the shelf against a team that ranks first in scoring and third in defense in the league.

Boston could start a top line of Tyler Seguin, Patrice Bergeron, and Brad Marchand, a trio that has 49 goals among them. The Caps might start a top line of Mathieu Perreault, Mike Knuble, and Alexander Semin (if Semin takes Ovechkin’s place on the top line that faced Pittsburgh). That trio has 19 goals among them, one more than Seguin has by himself.

As the teams prepare for Tuesday’s game, here is how their numbers look:

Yeah, that guy with the ledger has been waiting for this.

1. Boston is 16-1 in games decided by three of more goals. This is an amazing record until one realizes that in 46 games the Bruins have allowed three or more goals only 18 times (the Caps have done so 25 times). The only team to beat Boston by at least three goals? Carolina, in a 4-1 win in Boston on October 18th.

2. The Bruins are actually in a slump – 3-2-1 in their last six games and two of the wins came in a Gimmick. Both losses in regulation time came to teams from the Southeast Division – Carolina and Tampa Bay.

3. Boston’s power play is in a slump, too. In their last nine games, the Bruins are 4-for-32 (12.5 percent). You might think that their penalty killers are in a slump, too. They are 27-for-36 (75.0 percent) over those same nine games. But seven of the nine power play goals allowed came in two games – four of them in a 4-3 loss to Vancouver on January 7th and the other three in a 6-5 trick shot loss to Philadelphia in their last game, last Sunday.

4. Boston does not have a 20-goal scorer, but they do have seven players in double digits. They don’t have a 30-assist player, but they do have six with at least 20. The Bruins have 10 players with at least 20 points; they have 13 players who are at plus-10 or better… the Caps have one (Karl Alzner).

5. The Bruins even do the little things well. No Bruin having taken more than 250 faceoffs this season (there are five players in that group) has a winning percentage below 53 percent. But here are some things to think about… Boston is 25th in the league in hits (one might think a team with their reputation for toughness would have more). They are 24th in blocked shots, yet have allowed the fifth most shots per game in the league (maybe they just let their goalies get good looks at shots).

1. If you think of shots on goal against and shots blocked taken together as “shots defended,” the Caps have defended the tenth-highest number of average shots so far this season (45.5 per game). Only three of the nine teams defending more shots are currently playoff-eligible (New York Rangers, Nashville, and Ottawa).

2. Remember that 10-2 win over Boston? Dennis Wideman was there… for the B’s, that is. Stranger thing – he had a goal, and former Cap Marco Sturm had the other goal for Boston in that game.

3. That 10-2 game was played on March 3, 2008. Only three of the 20 Caps dressed for that game are likely to be in this one – John Erskine, Brooks Laich, and Alexander Semin. Three of the four Caps to record three-point games in that contest are gone – Matt Bradley, Eric Fehr, and Matt Cooke. The other one – Alex Ovechkin – will be taking a seat courtesy of Brendan Shanahan.

4. How long ago is that 10-2 game in hockey time? Tom Poti actually played in it (23 minutes, two assists, plus-3). Donald Brashear actually had a goal in it (oh, and two fighting majors). Tim Thomas was pulled, not once, but twice.

5. Washington is one of only five teams that have not scored a shorthanded goal at home. The others are: Tampa Bay, the Islanders, Calgary and… Detroit? Yup, Detroit.

The Peerless’ Players to Ponder

Boston: Rich Peverley

Hidden among the Chara’s and the Seguin’s and the Lucic’s’s’s is Rich Peverley, a player of modest accomplishments (67 goals and 183 points in 316 career NHL games), but who seems to have a knack against the Caps. In 17 career games against Washington, Peverley is 5-8-13 and has scored on both the power play and while shorthanded. Last year he faced the Caps six times and was 2-3-5 in those games, his highest point total against any team. He comes into this game on a three-game points streak and is 3-11-14 in his last 14 games.

Washington: Alexander Semin

OK, it’s up to you to keep the Young Gun flame alive, Alexander. He is certainly capable; he is 7-9-16, plus-11 in his last 16 games, playing with a Whitman’s Sampler of linemates. And, eight of his 12 goals this season have come at Verizon Center. He has not had much success goal-scoring against Boston in his career – four goals in 18 games, but interestingly enough, he does have six power play assists in those 18 games. Against Boston on Tuesday, Semin is going to have to do more on his own if the Caps are going to fight through the absences of other players from the lineup.

Keys:

1. Simplicity. You can almost hear the late Herb Brooks… “Cuteness? Gentlemen, you don’t have enough cuteness to win on cuteness alone.” Certainly this Caps team doesn’t (as if they did when completely healthy). The only reliable skill player they will have in this lineup is Alexander Semin, and by “reliable,” we mean he’s actually scored more than 30 goals in a season a few times. A team that is going to have Brooks Laich, Troy Brouwer, Jason Chimera, and maybe Mike Knuble playing big chunks of minutes has to keep things simple. Get pucks to the net, pounce on pucks at the net, put pucks in the net.

2. Volume. The Caps troubles in getting shots on goal in the last month has been well-chronicled. But on the other side, Tim Thomas is facing almost 32 shots per 60 minutes, a higher number than you might think for a goalie on what might be the best team in the league. The Bruins are a team that will allow shots to get to the net. The Caps have to get them there.

3. Outside-in. If you look at the Caps, 13 of their top 15 shooters are forwards. The Bruins do things a little differently. Four of their top six shooters are defensemen. All of them – Zdeno Chara, Joe Corvo, Johnny Boychuk, and Dennis Seidenberg – have more than 90 shots. Only five Cap skaters have more than 90 shots. The Capitals will have to defend “outside-in” or at least prevent the Bruins from getting second chances when the defensemen get pucks to the net.

In the end, let’s do a little comparing. Boston has 28 goals at 5-on-4, the Caps have 25. Not much difference there. Washington has three goals at 5-on-3, Boston has two. Washington has ten goals at 4-on-4, Boston has five. Washington has two goals at 4-on-3, Boston has none. At something other than full and even strength, these teams are roughly comparable. But at 5-on-5… Boston has 118 goals (best in the league), Washington has 84. And on top of that, Boston has allowed only 64 goals at 5-on-5 (second best in the league), while the Caps have allowed 87. Boston plays an average of about 80 percent of their games at even strength. And the Caps will be facing that team with an offense that isn’t many rungs above an AHL roster at the moment. This is the magnitude of the challenge the Caps face. One would have to be of questionable sanity to think the Caps had even a glimmer of a chance in this one.

Well, question away…

Capitals 5 – Bruins 4

A ONE-point night -- Game 47: Penguins 4 - Capitals 3 (OT)

2012-01-22T21:04:00.000-05:00

The sun has risen in the east a trillion or so days in a row. Someday, that streak will end. All other streaks come to an end much sooner than that. So it was that the Washington Capitals saw their eight-game winning streak it the city of Pittsburgh end with a 4-3 overtime loss to the Penguins this afternoon.

Evgeni Malkin scored the game-winner when he took a puck that rebounded off the end boards and snapped it over Caps goalie Michal Neuvirth 1:31 into the extra session. Before Malkin's goal, it was a game the Caps were going to lose ugly, then win valiantly, but ended up losing frustratingly. The ugly part came early as the Penguins got off to a 2-0 lead less than six minutes into the game on goals by Kris Letang and James Neal on the second and fourth shots for the Penguins.

But the Caps made a game of it in the second period on goals by Brooks Laich and Alexander Semin. When Alex Ovechkin scored barely a minute into the third period, it looked as if the Caps would extend their winning streak in Pittsburgh to nine. But that lasted about six minutes when James Neal got his second goal of the game to tie things up and set the stage for Malkin’s game-winner in overtime.

Other stuff…

-- The eight-game winning streak the Caps had in Pittsburgh before this game tied a Penguin franchise record for consecutive wins by an opponent in Pittsburgh. A ninth would have left the Caps all alone with that record.

-- The goal and two assists was Ovechkin’s first three-point game of the season. It is the latest, by far, that he has gone into a season without a three-point game. He had never failed to record a three-point game before December 31st in any season before this, and this was the first time since the 2006-2007 season that he did not do it at least once in the first ten games of the season.

-- It might be the last chance Ovechkin gets to post a three-point game for a while. One supposes that his hit on Zbynek Michalek early in the second period will be looked at by the league and that a video message from Brendan Shanahan might be forthcoming. We did, however, find Pierre McGuire’s breathless commentary on the hit a bit over the top, though.

-- Another game, another finish without topping 20 shots. The Caps had just 20 shots, the fourth time in their last six games they have not had more than 20 shots. They did break a streak of ten periods without reaching the ten shot mark. They had 10 shots in the second period of this game. The Penguins out-attempted the Caps, 72-50. The had more shots (27), more shots blocked (25), and as many misses (20) as the Caps had shots on goal.

-- Another disturbing trend. The Caps allowed the Penguins five power play opportunities this afternoon. Since holding the Penguins without a power play opportunity when they beat Pittsburgh, 1-0, on January 11th, the Caps have allowed teams five or more power play opportunities four times in six games and are 2-1-1 in those games. It is also the fifth time in those six games that the Caps have allowed a power play goal (23-for-30; 76.7 percent).

-- On the other side, the Caps had four power play chances without success. That makes 19 straight games they have not had as many as five power play opportunities. And, since going two-for-four against Tampa on January 13th, the Caps are 1-for-15 on the power play (6.7 percent).

-- The Caps are still having difficulty starting plays at the offensive end of the ice. There were 16 faceoffs in the offensive end for the Caps (nine wins; 56.3 percent) and 26 faceoffs in the defensive end (10 wins; 38.5 percent).

-- Dale Hunter leaned heavily of Brooks Laich this afternoon. Laich led everyone on the ice for both teams in ice time (27:57), had more than four minutes of power play time, more than three minutes of penalty killing time (his 7”12 in special teams time being by far the most of any player for either team), and took 39 of the 60 draws in the game for the Caps. He had a goal, four shots, seven attempts, three hits, and two blocked shots. The bad news…he was on the ice for each of the Penguins’ four goals. Laich is now tied for the third highest number of goals scored against/on ice in the league. Only Eric Staal and Shawn Horcoff have been on ice for more goals scored against.

-- The Caps have had 19 fighting majors this season. Seven of them have come in the last eight games. Today’s contestant was Troy Brouwer (his third of the season), who squared off with Tyler Kennedy.

-- Speaking of penalties, a lot of games have the majority of the infractions called be those of the obstruction variety – holding, interference, tripping. Not so in this one. In addition to the coincidental majors for fighting to Brouwer and Kennedy, there were 11 minor penalties called. Six of them might be termed physical fouls – three for Washington (all cross-checking), three for Pittsburgh (high-sticking, elbowing, slashing).

-- The Caps opened with a top line of Alex Ovechkin, Mathieu Perreault, and Mike Knuble. As a group, they finished the game with four shots on goal and one goal (Perreault and Ovechkin split four assists as well). It was kind of like a meal that seems satisfying at the time, but leaves one hungry for more in short order.

-- The top three centers – Mathieu Perreault, Brooks Laich, Jeff Halpern. The Caps have had trouble with settling on a second line center for years now. Today, everyone played at least one level higher than they probably should have with Nicklas Backstrom and Marcus Johansson out.

In the end, one might say that it was a standings point hard-earned, that it was the tenth straight game earning a standings point in Pittsburgh, this one against a hot team. One could point to the fact that the Caps were without two productive centers, one of them being arguably their most valuable player so far this season. But if a team is going to be a Stanley Cup contender, moral victories go only so far. The Caps got behind the eight-ball early and had to scratch and claw to get even and then get a one-goal lead. But a thin team playing on a thin margin is going to have a tough time holding on to that lead after expending that kind of effort, and that is what happened to the Caps this afternoon. And when all is said and done about this, the fact remains that the Caps have played ten games in 2012 and have a record of 5-4-1. They are going to have to do better if they are to ensure that they play hockey past the first week in April.

That Was The Week That Was -- Week 15 (January 15-21)

2012-01-22T19:03:00.000-05:00

Week 15 started against Carolina, and with the Hurricanes it ended. In between the Caps played one of their better and one of their worst games of the season. It made for an up-and-down week against weak competition that made for disappointing results.

Record: 2-2-0

Coming into Week 15 the Capitals had a home record of 16-5-1, one of the best records in the league. With two games at Verizon Center to close a four-game home stand against teams not in the playoff-eligible top eight in the Eastern Conference, one might have thought – have expected, in fact – that Washington would leave town with a couple more wins in the bank. The Caps made good on half of that when they beat Carolina, 2-1, last Sunday. But a loss to the Islanders by a 3-0 margin on “getaway day” (the day before a road game in Montreal) made for a bitter end to a decent home stand. The Caps would close the week stuck on “3-0” scores, beating Montreal in that second of a back-to-back, then losing to Carolina on Friday to split the week. It was the first time the Caps were involved in three straight decisions settled by a shutout in ten years.

Offense: 1.25/game (season: 2.76 /rank: 11th)

Five goals on 80 shots on goal. A 6.25 shooting percentage is bad enough, but 80 shots on goal? The Caps closed the week having played 17 consecutive games without topping 30 shots in any of them and only once topping 25 shots in the nine games since the start of the new year. In 12 periods of hockey this week the Caps hit the ten-shot mark once, none in their last nine periods. The Caps found themselves tied for 27th in shots on goal per game at the end of the week. Their neighborhood includes teams that one normally associates with grind-it-out, defensive hockey – New Jersey, Calgary, Nashville, Minnesota. Edmonton and Anaheim are also in this neighborhood, but…well, they’re not very good.

If you could find a silver lining in this cloud band (more like a dull tin color), it would be that the Caps had balanced scoring. Five different players had the five goals for the week, and ten different players had points. None, however, had more than two points. Kudos, though, to Dmitry Orlov, one of those players with a goal, for that goal being his first in the NHL and a game-winner in the 2-1 win over Carolina to start the week.

Defense: 1.75/game (season: 2.78/rank: 15th)

A team gives up seven goals in four games, you might conclude they played pretty good defense. Well, maybe. Giving up 136 shots in four games to three opponents (including Carolina twice) ranking in the lower half of the scoring rankings and in the middle of the pack in shots per game is not necessarily the hallmark of tight defense. And the defense was, in one respect, almost a mirror image of the offense. Opponents recorded ten or more shots in eight of 12 periods of hockey this week. Part of this is scoring effect. Carolina had 18 of their 44 shots on goal in the third period of the 2-1 Caps win to start the week. Montreal had 17 of their 31 shots on goal in the third period of the Caps’ 3-0 shutout of the Habs on Wednesday. But even with that, the rink was tilted toward the Caps’ end of the rink this week. It has been for some time now.

Goaltending: 1.75 /.949, one shutout

Four games, and Tomas Vokoun got the nod in three of them, Michal Neuvirth the other. This is perhaps the way it will play out for the rest of the season. This week, it worked out pretty well. Vokoun stopped 98 of 105 shots on goal (a .933 save percentage), and Neuvirth blanked Montreal with 31 saves. In fact, goaltending has not been the problem lately. Since allowing five goals on 30 shots in a 5-1 loss to Philadelphia on December 5th, Neuvirth has stopped 149 of the 160 shots he has faced (.931 save percentage). In his last 12 appearances, Vokoun has stopped 338 of 362 shots faced (a .934 save percentage). The Caps are 7-5-0 in those appearances by Vokoun, and Neuvirth is 3-2-1 in six decisions (eight appearances) since December 5th. One gets the impression the Caps are wasting some pretty good goaltending.

Power Play: 1-for-11/9.1 percent (season: 19.1 percent/rank: 8th)

The Caps dropped three places this week in team power play rankings, a product of converting only one of 11 opportunities. It should not be surprising that the Caps had so little success. They had a total of nine shots on goal in those 11 opportunities. And if there is anything noteworthy about the shots, it is that they were perimeter shots, or at least from perimeter shooters – Alex Ovechkin had three (getting the only goal on a shot from the point in the 3-0 win over Montreal), Dennis Wideman had two, Alexander Semin had two, and Dmitry Orlov one. Only Jason Chimera could be thought of as a “grinder” getting a shot, but his shot came from 65 feet in the same power play on which Ovechkin scored in the win over Montreal (actually during the first half of a double minor penalty to Mathieu Darche for high-sticking Marcus Johansson). The Caps just did not generate anything from in close on their own power play, and they would end up the week “even” on their own power play, allowing a shorthanded goal to Carolina in the 3-0 loss to close the week.

Penalty Killing: 15-for-20/75.0 percent (season: 81.2%/rank: 23rd)

Not much good to talk about on the penalty kill this week. First, there were too many opportunities allowed. The 20 shorthanded situations was the high for any week so far this season. Oddly enough, the game in which they faced the most – seven shorthanded situations against Montreal – was the one in which they killed off all of them. The Caps were only 8-for-13 in the other three games and lost two of them. In the 20 shorthanded situations the Caps faced this week, they faced 26 shots on goal, allowing five goals (19.2 percent shooting for the opponents). You give up more power plays than you earn, 20-11, and you get out-shot on power plays, 26-9, it is not bound to be a very good week. And the penalty killers certainly did not have one.

Paying the Price: 95 hits/81 blocked shots (season rank: 15th/12th)

An average of 20.25 blocked shots a game. It does show a willingness to pay a price. But a price for what? For allowing 272 shot attempts in four games, an average of 68 a game. Compare that to the Caps getting 170 shot attempts – more than 100 fewer than their opponents – over those four games. Spending so much time in the defensive end of the ice, giving up so many shot opportunities with so few of their own, having to do what needs to be done to try and keep those shot attempts out of the net. The blocked shot totals might look nice, and they might reflect positively on the players who piled them up – Dennis Wideman had 12, John Carlson had 11, Brooks Laich had 10. But they are another symptom of too many chances – good scoring ones or not – taking place at one end of the ice at the expense of chances at the other end. Can a team keep doing this and not be worn out by March?

Faceoffs: 122-for-226/54.0 percent (season: 51.3 percent/rank: 8th)

The Caps won the week, but that was somewhat deceptive. Overall, if you look at the three players taking the most draws for the week – Jeff Halpern, Brooks Laich, and Marcus Johansson – they were 95-for-185 (51.4 percent), but the 50-plus share of that group is explained by Jeff Halpern winning 22 of 32 draws (71.0 percent). By zone, the faceoffs paint a chilling picture of possession. The Caps won more faceoffs in the defensive zone (52) than they took in the offensive zone (50) for the week. The totals were 96 draws taken in the defensive zone (54.2 percent wins) and only 50 in the offensive zone (54.0 percent wins). It is not that they are not winning offensive zone draws to start plays, the Caps are not getting them in the first place.

Turnovers: minus-22

The Caps were charged with 44 giveaways in four games this week. To put that in perspective, to average 11 giveaways a game would leave the Caps with the fourth worst total of giveaways over the season so far (they ranked 11th through games of Saturday). It all seems part of a piece; the Caps find themselves in positions where they have to end up defending a lot more than they are attacking. And being on the wrong side of turnovers is just another part of that.

Impressions:

A team hovering on the margins of playoff-eligibility 42 games into the season, then going 2-2-0 for the week, is not doing themselves any favors, especially since the competition was not the strongest imaginable. All four games this week were played against teams below the Caps in the standings, and to finish the week splitting the four games has to be viewed as disappointing. And what’s more the Caps seem to be settling into a pattern that cannot end well. They get out-attempted, out-shot, out-turnovered, rely too much on goaltending to win games on a regular basis, and are not getting nearly enough from the guys who have to drive scoring. And getting Nicklas Backstrom and Mike Green back at some point might help halt that trend, but it is hard to think that their return alone will reverse it. Much as folks would like to think otherwise, at the moment this is a very average team that played a very average 2-2 kind of week.

The Peerless Prognosticator is ON THE AIR!!! -- Game 47: Capitals at Penguins: January 22nd

2012-01-22T00:31:00.000-05:00

The Peerless Prognosticator is ON THE AIR!!!

The Washington Capitals take to the ice this afternoon to renew the most intense rivalry in the NHL as they visit the Pittsburgh Penguins at Consol Energy Center in a…

“Most intense rivalry? Surely you just, cousin.”

Fearless…but it’s Caps and Penguins.

“This isn’t the most intense rivalry in the Eastern Conference. Nay, this isn’t the most intense rivalry involving bird mascots.”

You think there is a more intense rivalry involving the Anaheim Ducks?

“I’m speaking figuratively, cousin. This just isn’t the rivalry it was in days gone by.”

Days gone by. You talk about this rivalry as if its best days were in the age of black and white. These are two teams that played in the Winter Classic just a year ago.

“Yes, and look at how different these teams look today.”

Well, there are the injuries.

“Well, there is that… Pittsburgh is missing two top centers, the Caps are missing their top center and top defenseman.”

And their place in the standings…

“A year ago, the Penguins were 29-15-4 and in fourth place in the East; the Caps were 26-14-8 and in fifth place. Now, they’re hanging on to playoff spots.”

Well…

“OK, the Caps are.”

It wasn’t that long ago that the Penguins found themselves on the outside looking in at the top-eight in the East. On January 11th, Pittsburgh was 21-17-4 and in ninth place in the East, suffering a six-game losing streak in the process. The last of those losses came in a 1-0 shutout at the hands of the Caps at Verizon Center. But since then the Penguins have won five in a row. Part of that is benefitting from beating up on three of the four Southeast Division teams in the Eastern time zone – wins over Florida, Tampa Bay, and Carolina. But they also took down the high-flying New York Rangers in Madison Square Garden on Thursday before getting past the Montreal Canadiens in a Gimmick on Friday.

As a result of their five-game run, the Penguins have climbed back into fifth place, four points behind the fourth-place Ottawa Senators with three games in hand. It is the Caps who are hanging on to a playoff spot by the thinnest of margins. With Florida winning a trick shot competition in Winnipeg last night, the Caps fell to eighth place in the East, one point ahead of the Toronto Maple Leafs. Here is how the teams stack up against one another, numbers-wise:

(click pic for larger image)

The Caps can leap frog past Florida once more with a win and, for those who remember when this was a rivalry, win the season series against the Penguins. It would be the fourth straight season that the Caps would win the season set against Pittsburgh.

1. Evgeni Malkin has jumped to the head of the scoring rankings by putting the Penguins on his back since Sidney Crosby left the lineup after his last appearance on December 5th. In 19 games since then, Malkin is 16-15-31, plus-6. In the Penguins’ five-game winning streak he is 8-2-10, plus-8.

2. Two weeks ago, head coach Dan Bylsma said that forward James Neal would be out “weeks” with a broken foot. As it turned out, Neal did not miss a game. He has three goals in the Penguins’ five-game winning streak, his 24 goals for the season closing in on a career best (27 in 78 games with Dallas in 2009-2010). He has three goals in six career games against Washington.

3. The Penguins are getting scoring in this streak from unexpected places. Richard Park has doubled his goal total during the streak by scoring a pair, and Dustin Jeffrey has scored his first two of the season as part of this streak.

4. Have the Penguins had to deal with injuries this season? Through 47 games they have already gone through 30 skaters, 12 of them being defensemen. No defenseman has played in all 47 games for the Penguins, and only two – Matt Niskanen and Deryk Engelland – have skated in more than 40 games.

5. Only Boston enjoys a higher winning percentage (.941) in games decided by three or more goals than the Penguins (.786). The Penguins are one of eight teams with more three-or-more goal wins than one-goal wins.

1. One area in which the Caps have improved under Dale Hunter is in winning games decided by more than one goal. The Caps were 5-8 in such games under Bruce Boudreau; they are 8-6 in such games under Hunter.

2. The last three games for the Caps have been decided by identical 3-0 scores, the Caps losing two of them. The last time that the Caps had three consecutive decisions decided by a shutout was January 12-16, 2002 when they won consecutive 1-0 shutouts over Florida and Boston before dropping a 2-0 decision to Montreal.

3. Folks might have an impression that the Caps find themselves behind the eight-ball early in games. However, they have scored the first goal of the game 23 times and allowed the first goal of the game 23 times.

4. When the season started you might have expected that Dmitry Orlov would spend the year honing his skills at Hershey, perhaps getting a cup o’ coffee with the Caps here and there. Well, he now has appeared in the fifth most games among Caps defensemen (28), one more than Jeff Schultz. He is fourth in scoring among the Caps’ blueliners (1-7-8) and is 11th in scoring among all rookie defensemen despite playing in fewer games than eight of the ten players ahead of him.

5. Tomas Vokoun is 2-1-0 against Pittsburgh this season, 1.32, .962, and one shutout.

The Peerless’ Players to Ponder

Pittsburgh: Matt Cooke

Once a player as likely to appear in a photo posted in a Post Office, Cooke had a conversion of sorts this season – no major penalties of any kind, and he is tied for seventh on the Penguins in minor infractions. He has been sent to the penalty box only once in his last 17 games. Those 17 games also represents the length of time he has gone without a goal. He has but two points in that span and is a minus-5. He is 1-3-4, minus-5 in 22 career games against Washington.

Washington: Matt Hendricks

The task of stirring the pot for the Caps appears to have fallen to Matt Hendricks. When the Caps visited Montreal and faced Rene Bourque for the first time since Bourque put Nicklas Backstrom out of the lineup, it was Hendricks to squared off with Bourque 75 seconds into the game. In the Caps’ last game Hendricks dropped mitts with Carolina’s Derek Joslin less than five minutes into the contest. Hendricks has had four fights in his last seven games. What he has not had is a point in his last dozen games. He has only one (a goal against Buffalo on December 26th) in his last 35 games. He is doing what he can to try and spark the club, but the Caps have had trouble getting much in the way of contributions on offense from the 3rd or 4th lines. He is in that group.

Keys:

1. Oh, hell…what’s the point of this? We know what needs to be done. We’ve been reading it and hearing about it for the last month… get pucks to the net!

In the end, it’s Caps-Pens, but it’s not “Caps-Pens.” Pittsburgh is a hard-working team, but they are riding the hot hand of Evgeni Malkin at the moment to halt the slide that came with their recent six-game long streak. Their five-game winning streak has them merely treading water since Christmas (6-6-0). The Caps remain an enigma, until you look closely enough. A team with Alex Ovechkin and Alexander Semin – even with Nicklas Backstrom and Mike Green out – should be more of a threat on offense than they have been. But look closely, and this is not a very deep team offensively. They are spending too much time in their own end and putting too much pressure on their goaltenders to perform. This game might turn on whether the Caps can stifle Malkin, who does not have a point in either of the last two games these teams have played against one another.

Caps 2 – Penguins 1

A NO-point night -- Game 46: Hurricanes 3 - Capitals 0

2012-01-21T08:16:00.000-05:00

Well, they played them even at even strength.

Unfortunately for the Washington Capitals, there is also the matter of special teams play in the sport of hockey, and they lost that battle – and last night’s game – to the Carolina Hurricanes, 3-0, in Raleigh.

Two power play goals allowed; a shorthanded goal allowed, and only 23 of their own shots on goal. When added to the fact that they lost their 14th game in 22 tries on the road, the Caps had on display all the things that could keep them out of the playoffs. It had the added ingredients of sloppy play in their own end with the puck (John Carlson getting picked by Eric Staal leading to Jussi Jokinen’s shorthanded goal) and a propensity for allowing goals in the last minute of periods (twice, once in the second period and once in the third period).

You could call this a team effort in suckitude.

Other stuff:

-- What is happening to John Carlson? It is hard to look at one play and paint a complete picture of a player from it, but that giveaway (actually scored as a takeaway by Eric Staal, but still) can’t happen there. It had all the look of simply not paying attention, of being too lackadaisical with the puck, expecting that no one would challenge him. That’s “January” thinking, not “playoff” thinking. Think a player can just flip a switch from one to the other?

-- OK, you could say that on the second Jokinen goal that there was some “puck luck” involved, the puck hitting a stick and falling – figuratively – into Jokinen’s lap for a wide open look at an open net. That would be one way to look at it. Here is another way…

Tim Brent throws the puck from the side wall to the middle toward teammate Jay Harrison. The Caps’ Mike Knuble tries to intervene from the other side, but cannot get to the puck before Harrison receives the pass...

Harrison steps around Knuble and steps into open space as Jason Chimera skates past. Harrison now has a clear path forward to the net, two Caps behind the play...on a penalty kill...

Dmitry Orlov leaves his man to try and disrupt a shooting attempt. Harrison has open space and shoots, Jokinen going to the net behind Karl Alzner...

The puck hits Orlov’s stick and is deflected into the air, but Jokinen is now the only player in a position to react to that event, as he is at the top of the crease, only Alzner within ten feet of him and on the wrong side of the play as it is unfolding...

Alzner cannot get to Jokinen as Vokoun tries to scramble into position after the deflection, but Jokinen now has the puck on his stick. This play can end only one way. If you looked at the last couple of seconds of it you might conclude it was misfortune, a deflection off a stick that led to a loose puck. But the Caps appeared to put themselves in a poor position to defend against such an occurrence by all that happened before those last moments...

-- Alex Ovechkin had two shot attempts in the first 40 minutes – one was blocked by Zac Dalpe at 8:46 of the first period, the other was a shot on goal from 43 feet at 4:31 of the second period. Alexander Semin had two shots on goal – one at 1:03 of the first period, the other at 4:24 of the first period, then…nothing. With Nicklas Backstrom and Mike Green out, the Caps need more engagement from these two in the offensive zone.

-- Eric Staal was a plus-1. It was only his ninth “plus” game all season.

-- Odd statistic… there were 14 offensive zone faceoffs. Marcus Johansson took seven of them, not unexpected (or undesired) since he was centering Alex Ovechkin and Troy Brouwer on the first line. But he won just two of them.

-- Three power plays, one shot, that coming from a defenseman. Carolina had three shots while shorthanded. Six minutes of “ugh.”

-- The Caps and the Hurricanes were relatively close in even-strength shots on goal (26-22, Carolina). Carolina outshot the Caps on special teams, 7-1.

-- Zac Dalpe, a player who until last night had recorded only 13 shots on goal in 13 games, had four shots on goal 13 minutes. That number was more than any Capital. Jiri Tlusty had eight attempts in less than 17 minutes of ice time. That was two more than any Capital.

-- The Caps recorded 11 shots on goal in the third period of last Sunday’s 2-1 win over the Hurricanes. They have gone nine straight periods without recording double digits in shots on goal. The have reached double digits in shots on goal in only one of the last 21 periods of hockey they have played.

In the end, it is said that goaltending is the most important ingredient in winning a championship. That is true in large part because a championship team has to have solid goaltending all the time and the capacity for that goaltending to steal a game here and there. The Caps have had that kind of goaltending lately, at least the solid part. Last night, Tomas Vokoun stopped 30 of 33 shots, and it would be hard to fault him much on any of the three Carolina goals. In fact, Caps’ goalies combined have allowed more than three goals in a game only three times in the last 17 games and have played to a combined save percentage of .933 since a 5-1 loss to Philadelphia on December 13th. And this level of goaltending is coming despite the Caps averaging only 22.8 shots per game since that loss to the Flyers.

One can talk schemes and coaches and stats all one wants. But at some point it boils down to a simple case of heart and pride, and that’s on the players. In January the Caps are averaging 1.89 goals per game. They are getting little from their skaters, spiraling into a situation in the last three games in which if their goaltenders don’t pitch a shutout, they don’t win.

That the Caps are still leading the Southeast Division is something of a marvel, and it makes one wonder if the winner of this division won’t finish the season with fewer standings points than the eighth place finisher in the Eastern Conference.

It’s a good thing that the Southeast Division this season really is turning into the “Southleast” Division.

The Peerless Prognosticator is ON THE AIR!!! -- Game 46: Capitals at Hurricanes, January 20th

2012-01-20T06:21:00.001-05:00

The Peerless Prognosticator is ON THE AIR!!!

Weren’t we just here last Sunday with a Caps-‘Canes game?

“Not on yer life, cuz! We’re in Ca-rol-LI-na! Yee-haw! NASCAR, barbecue, and betcha didn’t know this, cuz…”

Oh, please, go on, Cheerless. You’re on a roll.

“There are more breweries per capita over in Ayshvull…”

You mean, “Ashville?”

Yeah, whut I said, ‘Aysh-vull’… there’s more breweries there per capita than any city in the Yoo-nited States. Hey, is that why they call it ‘per CAP-ita? Like a bottle cap?”

Uh, no.

“Oh, maybe they like cans better.”

Yeah…go with that.

Whether you prefer your adult beverages in a glass or an aluminum container, stock up and get ready for an always entertaining Southeast Division matchup (and we can’t wait until that day when we don’t have to say that anymore…please guys, realign!) between the Washington Capitals and the Carolina Hurricanes. The Caps and ‘Canes have completed half of the season series with the Caps having won all three games to date.

When the teams met last Sunday in Washington, Carolina was having trouble in most statistical categories – 15th in scoring, 28th in defense, 27th in 5-on-5 play, 20th on the power play, 27th in penalty killing. It added up to a 4th place spot in the Southeast Division and a 13th place ranking in the Eastern Conference. The Caps squeezed out a 2-1 decision against Carolina that was probably closer than the relative statistical positions of the teams would have suggested. And maybe it is fortunate that Carolina has had to take the ice only once since dropping that 2-1 decision to the Caps last Sunday. They lost to Pittsburgh in a trick shot competition, 2-1, on Tuesday. What that loss means, when coupled with their relative inaction this week, is that they have sunk a bit further in the number rankings:

(click on pic for larger image)

And with just that one loss, even with the extra-time point, the Hurricanes find themselves at the bottom of the Eastern Conference as action is about to begin on Thursday night. They are in no danger of being overtaken by Columbus any time soon, but they have Anaheim and Edmonton breathing down their necks for 27th place in the league.

1. When last we wrote of the Hurricanes, we noted that thirteen times the Hurricanes trailed after one period; twelve times they lost in regulation time. That has not changed. But instead of there being two teams with a worse record (Anaheim and Phoenix), now there are three – add Buffalo to that group. Baby steps.

2. Last Sunday, Carolina had the worst record in the league when being outshot by their opponent (6-15-4). Now it is 6-15-5, and they still have the worst record in the league.

3. When Carolina took the ice against the Caps last weekend, Eric Staal was last among 813 skaters in plus-minus (minus-21). Well, he is still last (minus-22), but now it is of 816 skaters. He is the only skater worse than minus-20. He has been on the ice for more goals against (65) than any other league forward, and it’s not close for second (Shawn Horcoff: 53).

4. Carolina actually saw their goals allowed average in the third period drop since taking the ice on Sunday, from 1.41 to 1.38. The gap between that number and Tuukka Rask’s GAA in Boston (which was 1.59 last Sunday) is widening (Rask is now at 1.61).

5. Every Carolina defenseman having played in at least 20 games has been on the ice for more goals than games played, except for Jaroslav Spacek. Too bad that his record includes his time with Montreal, and besides, he’s been out with a head injury and is questionable for this game.

1. Only seven defensemen have more assists on the road than Dennis Wideman (11).

2. Think the Caps don’t miss Nickas Backstrom? Only one forward (Claude Giroux: 16) has more power play assists than Backstrom (15). Then again, since he left the lineup the Caps are 4-for-18 on the power play (22.2 percent, compared to 19.5 percent for the season). Still, all things considered, we’d rather have him back.

3. Half of Jason Chimera’s 14 goals have come against Southeast Division opponents. One of them came against the Hurricanes (opening night).

4. Alexander Semin is seventh among all NHL forwards in minor penalties taken, but he has only one taken in his last 11 games.

5. Only three teams have allowed more power play goals on the road than the 19 allowed by the Caps (Carolina, Columbus, and Toronto).

The Peerless’ Players to Ponder

Carolina: Alexei Ponikarovsky

Who? Well, the guy who happens to have only seven goals, but four of them have come on the power play – tied for the team lead. He has nine goals in 28 career games against the Caps. None of them have come against the Caps this season. Moreover, he does not have a goal in his last 16 games.

Washington: John Carlson

Only nine defensemen in the league have been on the ice for more goals against than John Carlson. One of them happens to be Chicago’s Duncan Keith, so there is that. Still, it is not a list on which one hopes to rank highly. He had a stretch of five games (December 30 – January 9) in which he had no points and was a minus-seven. Since then he is 0-1-1, plus-1. Hopefully, he is working himself out of the bit of a funk in which he has found himself in the defensive zone.

Keys:

1. Short Sell. Only four teams in the league have had to skate off fewer shorthanded situations at home than Carolina. Carolina is 20th in the league in home penalty killing. The Caps do not have the most efficient road power play (14.3 percent/tied for 20th), but forcing Carolina into more shorthanded situations could pay dividends.

2. Familiarity Breeds…Complacency. The Caps are three-for-three against the Hurricanes this season, and Carolina is at the bottom of the Eastern Conference standings. With the Penguins waiting for the Caps on Sunday in Pittsburgh, there is the threat of the Caps taking this team and this game lightly. If there is a team that really cannot afford to take anyone lightly, it is the Caps.

3. Score first. In the last five games, the Caps scored first four times. They won four times. In the other one, they were shut out. This is not a hard game to figure out in terms of the benefits of scoring first.

In the end, there is a big neon flashing sign saying “DON’T LOOK AHEAD” concerning this game. The Caps have Pittsburgh on Sunday, then Boston on Tuesday. This is the kind of game made for the phrase, “take ‘em one at a time.” As for this one…

Capitals 3 – Hurricanes 1

A Tale of an Opportunity

2012-01-19T15:46:00.000-05:00

In 2009-2010 the Washington Capitals were the most entertaining team in the National Hockey League. They were averaging 3.82 goals a game, more than half a goal a game more than their closest pursuer in the scoring rankings (Vancouver: 3.27). They were beating up opponents along the way, the only team in the league that scored more than a goal a game, on average, more than their opponents.

But amidst all this entertainment, the hockey intelligentsia were proclaiming, “yes, but the Caps can’t (or don’t) play defense; they will fail in the playoffs.” And when the Caps did, in fact, fail in the playoffs, the hockey intelligentsia was validated. The Caps learned their lesson, but not after having a refresher course in pain the following season in the form of a December eight-game losing streak.

The Caps decided in the midst of that eight-game losing streak last season that the blueprint for success had to be tossed out and replaced by a new one, a plan that emphasized more focus in the defensive zone, trapping in the neutral zone, and restraint in the offensive zone to avoid turnovers. No more flying the zone before you get possession, no more daring stretch passes, no more pressing the attack.

And it worked…kinda. The Caps went 30-11-7 after that losing streak and after first installing their new “defense first” approach. When they defeated the New York Rangers in the first round of the 2011 playoffs, it appeared that the change was further validated. The hockey intelligentsia looked on and smiled. And then it all blew up when the Caps were swept by the Tampa Bay Lightning and the fearsome (if sleep-inducing) 1-3-1 defense. The hockey intelligentsia clucked that the Caps didn’t have the defense or the goaltending to go deeper (the Caps allowed 16 goals to the Lightning in the four-game sweep).

The Caps took their lessons to heart in the off-season, adding grit and hockey toughness in players like Joel Ward and Jeff Halpern and Troy Brouwer. They added a defenseman who knew how to play the game (as in, “won’t go jumping up in the offensive end”) in Roman Hamrlik. They got an elite goalie at a discount.

The Caps went out to a 7-0-0 start, and folks might have been thinking, “see? It was worth it to change styles.” Then, the Caps record fell through the floor. They went 5-9-1 in their next 15 games, and it got their coach fired. They went 12-9-1 in their first 22 games under the new coach, the same record the old coach started the season with, and folks might have been thinking…”what the #@$%?”

And now, we’re all frustrated as Caps fans. But it got us to thinking… did the Caps abandon that hell-bent-for-leather style too soon? Humor us.

Let’s look at that Caps team that was defeated by Montreal in the 2010 playoffs. Let’s look at the defensive side of the roster. First, the four defensemen who played in all seven games against Montreal – John Carlson, Mike Green, Joe Corvo, and Jeff Schultz. Carlson had so few games played in the regular season, he would qualify for rookie of the year selection the following season. Green was finishing up his fourth full season. Corvo was, well…ugh. And Schultz was coming off a freakish plus-50 season in which he put up 23 points. You get to that plus-50, perhaps, by being dependable at the defensive end while your teammates are having fun at the other.

Then there is the rest of the group that dressed. Tom Poti played in six games (suffering a gruesome eye injury in Game 6 that kept him out of Game 7). He was a player of considerable experience and had a reputation of being competent at both ends of the rink (if he had played that Game 7 and the Caps won, would there ever have been a change in philosophy?...hold that thought). On the other hand, there was Shaone Morrisonn. A player of modest skill, but let’s face it. He now toils for Rochester in the AHL and cannot crack the Buffalo Sabres lineup. Tyler Sloan played in two games and would never be thought of as a top-four (or top-six, seeing as how he is playing in Milwaukee of the AHL) defenseman. Karl Alzner (with barely 50 games of experience) played one game – Game 7 in Poti’s place – as a call-up.

The goalies? For the second straight year, the Caps started with Jose Thoedore, then had to give way to Semyon Varlamov when Theodore faltered. In the 2010 playoffs, Varlamov was the starting goalie for the last six games of the series against Montreal with a total of 32 games of NHL regular season and 13 games of playoff game experience.

Here we had a defense lacking in experience in a Game 7 (Carlson, Alzner), a defenseman entering who might be entering his prime (Green), a competent if unexciting stay-at-home defenseman with fewer than 250 games of experience (Schultz), a current minor leaguer (Morrisonn), and a defenseman for whom “defense” did not seem to apply (Corvo). It should never have come to that in a Game 7, but that was the hand dealt, and Montreal ended the night with better cards.

In retrospect, perhaps the Caps’ wide open style might not have been doomed for lack of sufficient detail to defense. Perhaps it was abandoned before the defense could mature and catch up to the offense, or at least have the ability from added experience to bar the door when the Caps weren’t wreaking havoc in the other end. Look at the John Carlson and Karl Alzner of today, with perhaps a Dmitry Orlov, and let’s even throw in a healthy Mike Green (like we said, humor us). Heck, swap out the 2010 Corvo model for the 2012 Alzner edition. A Jeff Schultz with another 100 games of experience. If that defense had been there in 2010 with the level of skill they now have (yes, we realized Orlov would not have been there), would that Montreal series have ended differently? Would there have even been a Game 6 in which a Tom Poti could get hurt? And more to the point, would the Caps today be the juggernaut with the plus-68 goal differential that folks talk about instead of the Boston Bruins, and with Bruce Boudreau still at the helm?

Perhaps it was a time and case of opportunity knocking, and the Caps opened the door to an exciting brand of hockey, only to close it too soon.

We shall never know.

What's a Captain to Do?...shoot

2012-01-19T13:53:00.000-05:00

It is April 18, 2006, and the Washington Capitals have just closed the book on Year 1 after the lockout with a 4-1 win over the Tampa Bay Lightning. For the Caps it would be a year that measured in standings would have to be deemed “unsuccessful.” The win over the Lightning raised the Caps’ record to 29-41-12 – 70 points. They were last in the Southeast Division, 14th in the Eastern Conference. If the 15th-ranked Pittsburgh Penguins were the floor of the conference, the Caps were the carpet padding just above them.

But standings was but one way to look at the season. The Caps and their fans had the opportunity to witness the introduction of one of the most remarkable rookies in recent NHL history. Alex Ovechkin did not have a goal in that 82nd game of the season, but he did have 52 of them in the first 81 games, good for third among all NHLers and 13 more than the next highest goal total for a rookie (Sidney Crosby).

Although the Capitals had the player who would win the Calder Trophy as the league’s best rookie in their fold, there was not a lot of talent surrounding him. His 52 goals in 2005-2006 constituted 22.6 percent of the 230 goals scored by the team that season. And, his 425 shots on goal was 17.3 percent of all the shots taken by the Caps that season. Ovechkin was a cornerstone to build around, but building was what was necessary. There was not enough around him to either take the pressure of scoring off him or to move the Caps’ scoring needle past 23rd place in scoring in that 2005-2006 season.

Ovechkin scored 46 goals the following year, 19.7 percent of the 234 scored by the Caps, and his 392 shots on goal was 17.1 percent of the 2,296 shots taken by the team in 2006-2007. But the Caps finished once more with 70 standings points and again in 14th place in the Eastern Conference. Clearly, it was what was going to be built around Ovechkin that would be the key to the Caps joining the elite in the NHL.

The following year, Ovechkin had his season for the ages – 65 goals, the most by a left wing in NHL history. The 65 goals was 27.3 percent of the 238 goals scored by the team. In a perverse sort of way, it was a step back for the team, even though they made the playoffs with a win in Game 82 of the season. Ovechkin’s goal total jumped by 16 from the average of his first two seasons, but the team’s goal total – 238 – was only an improvement of eight goals over the total the Caps scored in Ovechkin’s rookie year.

But there was the promise of talent starting to catch up. Alexander Semin scored 26 goals. That was a drop from his 38-goal total the previous season, but he played in 14 fewer games, too. His 0.41 goals/game projected to a 34-goal season if healthy. Brooks Laich recorded his first 20-goal season, the 21 goals he had being a 13-goal jump from his previous season. Mike Green had 18 goals, a big leap from the two goals he had in 70 games in 2006-2007. And there was Nicklas Backstrom chipping in 14 goals as a rookie and Tomas Fleischmann getting ten in his first full season with the Caps.

But that was the promise. There was also the matter of the veterans; Viktor Kozlov had 16 goals. Michael Nylander had 11. If the Caps could realize improvement among those young players and surround them with veterans who could reliably contribute scoring, then the team would improve even as Alex Ovechkin’s goal numbers might drop. In fact, you might almost say that Ovechkin’s numbers had to drop for the Caps to take the next leap. Stanley Cup winners didn’t have 55-60 goal scorers leading their teams:

2008: Henrik Zetterberg – 43
2007: Teemu Selanne – 48
2006: Eric Staal – 45
2004: Martin St. Louis – 38
2003: Patrik Elias – 28

What’s more, those goal scoring leaders had wingmen. Zetterberg had Pavel Datsyuk scoring 31 goals and three other teammates with at least 20. Selanne had four teammates scoring between 25 and 30 goals. Staal had three teammates with 30 or more. The three champions since the lockout to that point had even more support – Detroit had ten players with at least 10 goals. Anaheim had 11, and Carolina had nine in their championship seasons.

One could expect that Alex Ovechkin could and would be the straw that stirred the drink, but that drink was going to have to have some more ingredients. And that leaves us with this edition of the Washington Capitals and the question of whether that team has grown up and been built up around Ovechkin to provide the balance and support to accommodate a reduction in Ovechkin’s goal totals as a welcome result if the team could win.

How is this team doing? Through 45 games, the Caps have scored 127 goals (not including trick shots). That is a pace for 231 goals, a number almost identical to that of the team in Ovechkin’s rookie season (230). In that sense, the team is more balanced than those of Ovechkin’s early days. At the moment, Ovechkin is on a pace to score 35 goals, a total that would be 15.2 percent of the club’s projected total of 231. And, remembering the experience of the Stanley Cup winners in Ovechkin’s early days, he has support…maybe.

If you look at the Caps’ goal scoring to date, four of Ovechkin’s teammates are on a path to 20-plus goals, but only if you make certain assumptions about and avert your eyes from the history of some of those players. For example. Nicklas Backstrom has played in 38 games. If he was to dress tomorrow against Carolina and play in every game for the rest of the season, scoring goals at his pace to date, he would finish with 26 goals. He is not going to dress tomorrow and probably will not until after the All-Star break, if then. Who knows what his production (not to mention his durability) will be when he comes back?

Then there is Jason Chimera. He is on a pace to score 26 goals, based on his 14 goals to date. Well, Chimera has never scored more than 17 goals in a season, and he has one goal in his last 12 games. That is not the profile of a 20-goal scorer in waiting.

Troy Brouwer is also on a pace for 26 goals. He does have a 22-goal season on his resume covering four full seasons before this one. But his pace at the moment might be distorted by his first hat trick in his career. Until that three-goal performance against Tampa Bay, he was on a pace for 22. He is not a sure bet to get to 20.

Alexander Semin is on a pace to score 21 goals if he plays in all of the games remaining in the season. That his projection would be that low is disappointing. He was not with the Caps for that first season with Ovechkin, but in the four seasons that followed he scored goals at a 41-goal per 82 game pace. Even with his injuries over those four seasons he averaged 35 goals a season.

Given the history and injury situation of these players, you might think Semin could do better (he’s healthy and has a history of goal scoring), but the other three? Iffy.

Then there are the disappointments. Brooks Laich is on a pace to finish the season with 15 goals. If he finishes with that total, it would be his lowest total since the 2006-2007 season (eight). Mike Green is reported to be on a path to rejoin the team in 4-6 weeks after sports hernia surgery, but he has played sparingly in the last two seasons and has only ten games played this season. If he was to return at the beginning of March and play the last 19 games, scoring goals at his pace in the ten he played so far, he would finish with nine. Better than the eight he had last year (in 49 games) but a far cry from the 68 goals he had over a three-season period ending in 2009-2010.

The last piece of this is the addition and/or presence of veteran role players who can provide reliable support. In 2005-2006, that was Brian Willsie recording 19 goals. It was Ben Clymer with 16. On defense it was Bryan Muir with eight and Jamie Heward with seven. Who are those players on this team? Well, by and large, they are not here. Taking the defense first, you could look at Dennis Wideman and his projected 15 goals and think that he does replace those 15 goals of Muir and Heward. But that is the “all the eggs in one basket” problem. Roman Hamrlik is on a pace for two goals, which would be a career low. He had three when he was a 19-year old in Tampa Bay in 1993-1994.

Then there are the forwards. Who replaces those 35 goals from a Brian Willsie and a Ben Clymer? You cannot find those forwards on this roster. Joel Ward is on a pace for nine goals. Jeff Halpern is on a pace for six; Mike Knuble for five.

You could fry millions of brain cells debating in your own mind whether this team was not built effectively or if it has not been utilized effectively. But the incontrovertible fact is that if you were expecting that Alex Ovechkin would see his goal totals drop while those of his teammates rose, the result being a more balanced scoring attack with a higher total goal total compared to, say, Ovechkin’s rookie year, it has not happened. And looking at the mix of players, production, and projections, it will not.

After 45 games, this team – once the most entertaining in the league – has become a disappointment at the offensive end of the ice. And that brings us back to Ovechkin. His projected 35 goals would be 15.2 percent of the team’s projected total for the year. His projected 304 shots on goal would be only 13.4 percent of the team’s projected shot total, a far cry from the 17.2 percent in his rookie year or the 17.6 percent of the shots the team took in 2007-2008, when he scored 65 goals.

The Caps are in a hard place these days. They are spending too much time in their own zone defending shots and shot attempts, not getting nearly enough zone time or shots in the offensive end of the ice. They are relying too much on their goaltenders to eke out 2-1 or 3-2 wins. They are not getting much goal-scoring support from the 3rd or 4th lines, and one wonders about those players who project to 20 or more goals and whether they will revert to their respective histories and fall off that pace. The result is their dancing on the margin of playoff eligibility.

Hockey is a team sport. It takes 20 guys to win night in and night out. But having passed the half-way point of the season, one has to wonder if the “support” players around Alex Ovechkin have it in them to ramp up their offensive production. It would be reasonable to have doubts. And that leads one to wonder. It is a good thing for a captain to try to lift all of his teammates, to spread the wealth around. But perhaps there comes a point – perhaps we are at that point – where Ovechkin needs to be a little more assertive (call it “selfish” if you want) and shoot more when he has the opportunity instead of looking for the pass. To be less “Magic Johnson” and more “Michael Jordan.”

Caps Throwback Jersey Record Update

2012-01-19T07:09:00.001-05:00

Because you didn't know you wanted to know...

The Caps have 20 road games left, 13 in the throwbacks.

A TWO-point night -- Game 45: Capitals 3 - Canadiens 0

2012-01-19T06:30:00.000-05:00

The Washington Capitals might have explained away a loss last night to the Montreal Canadiens as their having to play their third game in four nights. That is, had they lost the game. The Caps used goals from Mathieu Perreault and Marcus Johansson to give the Caps a lead in the first period, then a power play goal from Alex Ovechkin mid-way through the second period, to combine with Michal Neuvirth’s 31-save effort in goal to post a 3-0 win over the Canadiens.

The theme lately has been shots, specifically the Cap’s seeming inability to generate many. Last night, it was an issue again. The Caps managed only 16 shots on goal for the game, the 16th consecutive game in which they did not top 30 shots and the third time in four that they did not have more than 20. But let’s break that down a bit.

In the first 4:41 of the game, a period of time ending with Mathieu Perrault’s goal, the Caps had five shot attempts (two shots, two misses, and a shot blocked) to Montreal’s four attempts (two shots, a miss, and a shot blocked).

In the next 3:42, the period ending with Marcus Johansson’s goal, the Caps had four shot attempts (two shots, two shots blocked), while Montreal had only two shot attempts (two shots on goal).

So, by the time the Caps went out to a 2-0 lead, they had nine shot attempts (four shots, two misses, three shots blocked), the Canadiens had six shot attempts (four shots, one miss, one shot blocked).

Montreal closed the first period with a rush, getting nine shot attempts in the last 11:37 – three shots, three misses, and three shots blocked. The Caps had six attempts – one shot and five misses. In the first half of the second period, the Caps would out-attempt the Canadiens leading up to the third and final goal of the evening (the power play goal from Alex Ovechkin). Washington had ten shot attempts – five shots on goal, three misses, and two shots blocked, while Montreal had seven shot attempts – one shot, three misses, and three shots blocked.

With the Caps having a 3-0 lead at the 10:44 mark of the second period, they had 25 shot attempts – ten shots, five misses, and ten shots blocked. Montreal had 22 shot attempts – eight shots, seven misses, and seven shots blocked.

After that, the Caps went almost silent on shot attempts. In the last 29:16 of the game, Washington had only 11 shot attempts – six shots on goal and five shots blocked. Meanwhile, Montreal would register 50 – that’s right, 50 – shot attempts: 23 shots on goal, nine misses, and 18 shots blocked. Of that number, 36 shot attempts – half of Montreal’s total of 72 attempts – came in the third period.

At 1-0, attempts were 5-4, Caps.

At 2-0, attempts were 9-6, Caps.

At 3-0, attempts were 25-22, Caps.

After that, over the last 29:16 of the game, the attempts were 50-11, Montreal.

Other stuff:

-- Three goals, three different players; nine points, nine different players; two even strength goals, ten different plus-1’s.

-- Montreal’s power play was every bit as bad as the statistics indicated. At first blush, getting nine shots on goal in 11:59 of power play time is not too bad, but having had that 11:59 in power play time, one might have thought they would get a goal just from having so much in-game practice and from wearing Caps penalty killers down.

-- OK, we’ve seen the fight with Rene Bourque. Kudos to Matt Hendricks for being that stand-up guy for the Caps, but it is time to move on. Although we are wondering what might have prompted Joe B. and Craig Laughlin to opine that it would be the first of several instances involving Bourque on the evening. Perhaps the lack of a second (or a third) was the product of too much time being a man down over the rest of the contest, and by the time the third period got started – the Caps having their 3-0 lead – it was a case of “what’s the point, look at the scoreboard.”

-- In the 2007-2008 season, Alex Ovechkin scored his 19th goal on November 30th in Game 26 of the season. He got his 19th of this season last night in Game 45. Different time, different place.

-- The Scott Gomez goal watch continues. It is 45 games without a goal (not including seven playoff games without one). At this point, Gomez Addams would seem a better bet to score first. Scott Gomez had five shots and eight attempts without finding the back of the net.

-- Montreal had as many missed shots as the Caps had shots. They had nine more shots blocked than the Caps had shots (25-16). The Caps had only ten shots at even strength (four on the power play, two shorthanded). We had to get that in.

-- Speaking of which, Roman Hamrlik had one shot on goal for the game… it came while shorthanded.

-- Sixteen faceoffs in the offensive end (nine wins), 24 in the defensive end (14 wins). That is still quite a difference.

-- In killing off seven of seven shorthanded situations, it is the first time the Caps handled that many cleanly since killing of eight of eight on December 13, 2008… against the Canadiens… in Montreal (Semyon Varlamov’s first appearance and first win for the Caps).

-- Mathieu Perreault had 6:09 of ice time last night covering eight shifts. A goal, three hits, and he won all four draws. A nice, tidy night.

In the end, we are still not sure this is a long-term formula for success. “Prevent” defense is said to prevent only one thing – “winning.” Allowing 50 shot attempts in the last half of the game might have been a product of this being the third game in four nights, in which case Michal Neuvirth more than deserves that first start of the night in the NHL. But if this is how the Caps are choosing to play, one wonders if teams like Boston or the Rangers, who lurk on the schedule’s horizon, will be as accommodating as the punchless Canadiens.

Still, the win pushed the Caps back ahead of Florida atop the Southeast Division, by virtue of having more wins in regulation and overtime. And speaking of the latter, maybe is has escaped notice, but the Caps have only one fewer win in regulation and overtime than the Boston Bruins.

They just do it differently.

The Peerless Prognosticator is ON THE AIR!!! -- Game 45: Capitals at Canadiens, January 18th

2012-01-18T06:54:00.000-05:00

The Peerless Prognosticator is ON THE AIR!!!

OK, now it’s the Caps’ turn. After facing four opponents at Verizon Center that had come off games the day before visiting the Caps, Washington gets the tables turned. One night after facing the New York Islanders at Verizon Center, the Caps take to the road Wednesday against the Montreal Canadiens at Bell Centre.

And not only will the Canadiens be catching the Caps on the back half of a back-to-back, they will be doing it having played their last two games at home and not having had a game since Sunday (a 4-1 win over the New York Rangers). The Habs will be well-rested.

Of course, perhaps the Canadiens needed that respite. This has not been the best of years for the Canadiens. After finishing sixth in the Eastern Conference last season and taking the eventual Stanley Cup champion Boston Bruins to overtime in a seventh game in the opening round of the playoffs last season, fans might have been hopeful for improvement this season. Strike that; it’s Montreal – improvement is expected.

Well, that did not work out as hoped, did it? Montreal did not stumble out of the gate to start the 2011-2012 season; they did a full face-plant – a 1-5-2 start. They did win four in a row to get themselves even at .500 (5-5-1), but then spent the next six weeks treading water. Again, this is Montreal, and treading water is not preferable to carving up the ice, so after posting a 13-12-7 record, Jacques Martin was relieved of his duties on December 17th.

Enter Randy Cunneyworth, a veteran of more than 850 regular season games with six different NHL teams, who was promoted from the Hamilton Bulldogs, the Montreal affiliate in the AHL. One might have wondered if Cunneyworth – who had a 302-241-48-40 record in eight seasons as an AHL head coach with Rochester and Hamilton – had the experience and the talent to manage behind an NHL bench. But the big story upon his elevation to the Canadiens’ top spot was the fact that he did not speak French (the first non-French speaking head coach for the Canadiens in more than 40 years). It was the stuff of government involvement (the Quebec Culture Minister calling for the situation to be rectified), commerce (a call for a boycott of Molson products, the Molson family being club owners), and club management itself (stating that the permanent replacement for Martin must be bilingual).

Hockey was almost a distraction for this franchise. Not that it has been an altogether pleasant distraction, either. Since Martin was relieved, the Canadiens are 4-8-1. And the latest “scandal” is whether P.K. Subban spit at New York Rangers defenseman Michael Del Zotto this past Sunday after the Rangers took a 2-1 lead in what would be a 4-1 win. This is not the team of Scotty Bowman. Scott Towels, maybe.

One might think all this will make for an ornery bunch of Canadiens, but there is another twist to this that might have the Capitals in an ornery mood. It started with two entirely unrelated events involving different team and different cities. The Montreal angle on this starts with Michael Cammalleri and comments he was reported to have said concerning the Canadiens after a practice on January 11th, "I can't accept that we will display a losing attitude as we're doing this year. We prepare for our games like losers. We play like losers. So it's no wonder why we lose." But this was reported by a French media source, and there is some dispute about whether Cammalleri meant “losers” or suggested a “losing mentality” (there’s that language thing again).

Nevertheless, he was shipped to Calgary in a trade (with rights to goaltender Karri Ramo) for Rene Bourque. But not even something so simple as a trade could escape intrigue. Cammalleri was in the midst of a game last Thursday against the Boston Bruins (one that Montreal lost, 2-1). Through two period he had skated a total of 9:02, but was held out in the third period of the game, the trade apparently having been consummated.

Which brings us to the return on the trade and why the Caps might be in as ornery a mood as their hosts. When the Calgary Flames visited Washington on January 3rd, the Caps had a 3-1 lead over the Flames, due in no small part to Nicklas Backstrom getting assists on the first and second Caps goals. But with just under ten minutes left in the game, Rene Bourque congratulated Backstrom on his achievement by elbowing him in the head. The elbow ended Backstrom’s night (in fact, ended Backstrom’s participation for five more games, and counting) and earned Bourque a five-game suspension. On Wednesday, Bourque – who seemed to warm up for this contest by delivering an iffy hit on New York Ranger Carl Hagelin in Bourque’s first game with the Habs – will renew acquaintances with the Caps. And remember, Bourque is also the player who jumped Tyler Sloan in a game in Calgary in October 2008 after Sloan delivered a big hit on Flames’ forward Daymond Langkow (it was Sloan’s first game), earning him 19 minutes in penalties and putting the Caps on a nine-minute power play (the Caps did not score, and subsequently lost the game, 2-1).

This isn’t a game, it’s a mini-series.

Meanwhile, the numbers for the two teams shake out like this:

(click pic for larger image)

1. As if it was not bad enough with “'Équipe Feuilleton Mélo” (pardon us if our French is rusty), Scott Gomez was on injured reserve following a lower body injury sustained in late November. But he returned to the lineup on Saturday against the Ottawa Senators. He did not score a goal. He did not score a goal in his next game, on Sunday against the New York Rangers. In fact, going into Monday’s action, 611 skaters dressing for NHL games this season had more goals than Scott Gomez, including such household names as Aaron Volpatti, Lance Bouma, and Cody Almond. You see, Scott Gomez has yet to score a goal this season. OK, it is only 15 games, but hey, for a cap hit of $7,357,143 one might expect him to be out-scoring Aaron Volpatti, Lance Bouma, and Cody Almond (combined cap hit: $1,949,166).

2. Montreal seems to have to play with a lead…a big lead. They are 7-8-8 in one-goal games, good for 28th best winning percentage in the league. Only Edmonton and Carolina are worse, not the company you want to keep.

3. Montreal seems to have to play with a lead…a big lead, Part 2. The Canadiens are ranked 27th in the league in games decided by two goals (3-7). Only Anaheim, Columbus, and Tampa Bay are worse. Another bad neighborhood.

4. Only one team in the league has been shorthanded more often in the first period than Montreal’s 64 occurrences (Philadelphia: 69). Only seven teams have more shorthanded situations in the second period. Seems it takes this group a while to figure out the rules on a game-to-game basis.

5. Montreal is dead last in the league in winning percentage when scoring first (.429). They are one of only two teams (Columbus is the other one) with winning records below .500 in such situations.

1. As noted in the post-game from last night, in 16 games in which the Caps have allowed five or more power plays they have a record of 6-9-1 and have killed 65 of 86 shorthanded situations (75.6 percent). In games in which they have allowed fewer than five power play opportunities they have a record of 18-9-1 and have killed off 61 of 69 shorthanded situations (88.4 percent).

2. On the other side, the Caps are 4-2-1 in games in which they received five or more power plays and are 6-for-39 in those games (15.4 percent). They are 20-16-1 in games in which they receive fewer than five power plays and are 22-for-106 (20.8 percent) in those games.

3. The Caps have allowed only one 5-on-3 power play goal this season. Only Detroit and Vancouver have yet to allow one.

4. This whole getting out-shot thing is having an effect. It has happened in 27 of 44 games, and the Caps have a record of 12-13-2 when the opponent records more shots on goal (tied for 19th in winning percentage). They are 12-5-0 when outshooting the opponent (second in winning percentage). The Caps need to find a way to either reverse the getting out-shot trend or find a way to be more successful in enduring it.

5. The Caps need to keep games close, it seems. They are 18-8-2 in one- or two-goal games, 6-10 when the decision is by three or more goals.

The Peerless’ Players to Ponder

Montreal: Erik Cole

Erik Cole is Montreal’s leading goal scorer, but after getting four in five games from December 27th through January 7th, has not recorded one in any of his last four games (tying his longest streak without a goal this season since a seven-game streak to start the campaign). He has had success against the Caps, though, with 20 goals in 44 career games (20-13-33). He has 13 power play points among those 44 career points against the Caps (6-7-13), and he has seven power play goals this season overall to lead the Canadiens.

Washington: Michal Neuvirth

It might be time to give Tomas Vokoun a breather, especially in the Caps going on the road right after a home game. Michal Neuvirth has not appeared in a game sine January 9th – a 20 minute mop-up stint in a 5-2 loss at Los Angeles – and has not started a game since December 26th, a game in which he allowed three goals on six shots in 11:15 before being pulled in a 4-2 loss to the Buffalo Sabres. His last “60 minute” game was going the distance in a 3-2 Gimmick loss to New Jersey on December 23rd. He does not have much of a record against Montreal (1-1-0, 2.91, .887), but at some point he needs to scrape some of the rust off.

Keys:

1. SHOOT
2. THE
3. PUCK!!!

In the end, the Caps have to show that they can win games away from the friendly confines of Verizon Center. They are 3-5-1 in road games since Dale Hunter took over, and with six of their next seven on the road, they have a chance to turn that record around. If they don’t, then this 3-1-0 home stand will have been wasted. That means that tonight, distractions like what to do about seeing Rene Brouque again are just that – distractions. There are more important things to work on.

Capitals 4 – Canadiens 2

A NO-point night -- Game 44: Islanders 3 - Capitals 0

2012-01-18T06:18:00.000-05:00

Manhole cover… pancake… Capitals last night…

What is “things that are flat?,” Alex.

One might have watched the Washington Capitals’ 3-0 loss to the New York Islanders last night and asked, “why bother coming to the rink?” One might rationalize this by saying that these things happen, that there will be nights like this, but once more it was a case of doing too little at one end (17 shots on goal, only 14 at even strength), and relying too much on one guy at the other (Tomas Vokoun, 25 saves on 28 shots). Toss in a little “what happened to the penalty kill?”, and it was a recipe for a loss that the Caps might come to regret down the road.

Other stuff…

-- In the first three games of the home stand, the Caps had seven goals on 65 shots (10.8 percent shooting). Even had they done that well in this game they would have lost. Averaging 20.5 shots on goal (as they did for this home stand) just will not get things done.

-- To emphasize the point, that makes 15 straight games that the Caps did not top 30 shots (they hit 30 once in that span). Ten times in those 15 games – and in each of their last five – they did not make it to 25 shots on goal.

-- From the “hand in glove” file…eight offensive zone faceoffs. Eight. Nineteen in the defensive zone. Nineteen. The Caps are starting – and spending – too much of the time in the defensive zone.

-- From the “get well at Caps expense file,” PA Parenteau had his first two-goal game of the year, the first multiple-goal game of his career (in his 152nd game), and broke a seven-game streak without a goal.

-- Not really sure who Dmitry Orlov was passing the puck to when he went cross ice just before Parenteau’s first goal. There wasn’t a soul on the other side of the ice.

-- Last night was the first time since December 7th (17 games) that the Caps allowed more than five power plays (they were 4-for-6 on the penalty kill). They have done so four times this season and are 1-3-0 in such games. Here is your penalty killing takeaway. In 16 games in which the Caps have allowed five or more power plays they have a record of 6-9-1 and have killed 65 of 86 shorthanded situations (75.6 percent). In games in which they have allowed fewer than five power play opportunities they have a record of 18-9-1 and have killed off 61 of 69 shorthanded situations (88.4 percent). Practice -- at least within games -- does NOT make perfect.

In the end, call it “one of those games” or the “letdown before the road trip” sort of game, but it was two points the Caps should have and needed to earn. They didn’t. We will see if it does come back to haunt them.

The Peerless Prognosticator is ON THE AIR!!! -- Game 44: Islanders at Capitals, January 17th

2012-01-17T04:05:00.000-05:00

The Peerless Prognosticator is ON THE AIR!!!

The Washington Capitals end their four-game home stand on Tuesday when they host the New York Islanders. The Caps have a chance to make this four-game home stand end a whole lot better than their last one. You will recall that the last time the Caps had a home stand of this length, they lost them all. From December 4th through December 11th last season, the Caps dropped all four games of a four-game home stand (0-3-1), getting outscored by 13-7 in the process (not counting a trick shot game-winner). They also dropped all of a four-game home stand in March 2009. And they lost all four of a four-game home stand in late February/early March in 2007. In fact, the last time the Caps swept a four-game home stand was March 11-19, 2000, when they beat the Devils, Islanders, Hurricanes, and Lightning.

In trying to sweep their home stand and extend their winning streak to four games, the Caps will be facing their fourth straight opponent playing the second of a back-to-back set of games. The Islanders dropped a 3-1 decision to Nashville on Monday. And the Islanders do not come to Verizon Center on a hot streak. In their last six games they are 2-4-0, and they have struggled to find any consistency at either end of the ice, having been outscored in those games, 18-15. Only one of the six decisions was of the one-goal variety. How they compare to the Capitals, numbers-wise, looks like this:

(click pic for larger image)

It is a profile that seems to suggest that the Islanders will find themselves at season-end once more in fifth place in the Atlantic Division. It they end the season that way, it would be the fifth consecutive season they finished last in their division.

1. Only one team in the league has a worse record in game decided by three or more goals (4-10). Only three teams have more losses by that margin. The Islanders do seem to be improving in that regard, though. They have only two losses by three or more goals in their last 16 games, although their record is still only 7-9-0 in that span.

2. In that 7-9-0 record over their last 16 games, three of the wins have come in the Gimmick, all on the road. The other four wins have come at home.

3. Shots do not seem to matter in games played by the Islanders. New York is 26th in the league in games they outshoot opponents (8-10-3), 27th in games in which they are outshot (6-10-3). They do, however, do well with a lead. The Isles are 10-0-4 when leading after one period, 10-1-3 when leading after two. But note that they have only held leads 14 times at the first or second intermission in 43 games.

4. What happened to Josh Bailey? When he scored 16 goals in his second season in the NHL in 2009-2010, he might have been thought of as one of a group of young Islanders who could restore the club to competitiveness. He has only 11 goals in 70 games last season, and he finds himself with only three so far this season in 43 games, none in his last 15 contests and only two assists, despite getting more than 15 minutes of ice time a night on average in those games.

5. The Islanders have dressed five different goalies so far this season – Evgeni Nabokov, Rick DiPietro, Al Montoya, Kevin Poulin, and Anders Nilsson. DiPietro might miss the rest of the season to sports hernia surgery. If so, it will mean he will have dressed for a total of 47 games over the last four seasons. Al Montoya has missed a month to a concussion. They Islanders turned to Kevin Poulin on Monday in the 3-1 loss to Nashville.

1. The Caps stumbled out of the gate under new coach Dale Hunter, losing three of their first four games. Since then, though, they are 11-5-1. They are 7-2-0 in their last nine contests.

2. Assuming Mike Green and Jeff Schultz will be out of the lineup, only five Capitals will dress having a “plus” next to their stat line. And if Cody Eakin does not dress or is sent down, there would be four “plus’ players – Karl Alzner, Jason Chimera, Jeff Halpern, and Joel Ward.

3. As the Caps try to make it four in a row, the first wins three in the streak have come by one goal. The Caps are fifth in the league in winning percentage in one-goal decisions (12-5-2).

4. The Caps have only one shorthanded goal this season (Jason Chimera). Calgary is the only team in the league yet to score a shorthanded goal.

5. Brooks Laich has been stingy with the puck so far this season. He leads the Caps in takeaways (31) and has given away the puck only 12 times in 43 games. But for really stingy? Jeff Halpern… he has three giveaways in 42 games.

The Peerless’ Players to Ponder

New York: Evgeni Nabokov

In the merry-go-round that is the Islanders’ net this season, Evgeni Nabokov has been pretty good lately. In his last eight appearances he is 5-3-0, 2.49, .907. What he has benefitted from in that run is not having to see a lot of rubber, an average of 26.8 shots per 60 minutes played. The Caps have had singular difficulty in generating shots on goal – an average of 23.7 over their last 14 games, only once getting as many as 30 shots on goal in that span. Nabokov has sparkled against the Caps with a 9-1-0, 2.18, .929 record against Washington with one shutout. The trouble, if there is one, is that he is only 2-7-0, 3.20, .896 in 10 games on the road this season.

Washington: John Carlson

John Carlson has had his difficulties on defense lately, having been on the ice for three of the four goals scored against Washington in this home stand (all of them against Tampa Bay). But at the other end, he hasn’t recorded a goal in 16 games and does not have a point in his last eight contests. With Mike Green out, it would be good to have him take some of the blue line scoring burden off the shoulders of Dennis Wideman. He is 0-5-5 in five career games against the Islanders.

Keys:

1. Fast out of the gate. We’ve hinted at this in the last few games, but once more the Caps get a team fresh off a game the previous day. It has happened in their last three games. The Caps do have goals in the first period in two of those games, which is a good thing. They need to keep up that kind of pressure on a team playing on little rest.

2. Activate! In the three game home stand, the Caps have one point from a defenseman not named “Wideman” (Dmitry Orlov’s game winning goal against Carolina). The Caps have 18 shots on goal from defensemen in this three-game home stand, eight of them from John Carlson and five from Dennis Wideman. That leaves five shots on goal over three games from the other four defensemen. That is contributing to the low shot totals for the Caps.

3. Patience. When these teams met on November 5th, the Caps allowed three goals in the third period in a 5-3 loss on Long Island. But the Islanders are not, as a rule, a very good third period team. They have been outscored in the third periods of games this season by 48-30. Only five teams have allowed more third period goals.

In the end, the Caps have made good on their opportunities on this home stand so far, both in getting teams coming off games the day before facing the Caps and in winning those games. But they have done it by the thinnest of margins, each result being of the one-goal variety. They get one last opportunity to use this formula on this home stand before heading out on a three-game road trip. The added incentive here is that a win will allow the Caps to leap back over the Florida Panthers into first place in the Southeast Division (the Panthers taking the top spot with their earning a standings point in a Gimmick loss to Boston last night). That should be enough to make the Caps’ home stand a complete success.

Capitals 3 – Islanders 2

A TWO-point night -- Game 43: Capitals 2 - Hurricanes 1

2012-01-15T22:21:00.001-05:00

Keep telling yourselves, “it’s not ‘how,’ it’s ‘how many.’”

If you looked at anything but the scoreboard – highlights, game summary, event summary, the looks on Caps fans’ faces during the game – you would have thought that the Washington Capitals were being run out of their own rink by the visiting Carolina Hurricanes. But the Caps parlayed a lasr of a shot from Alexander Semin and a chip shot from an impossible angle by Dmitry Orlov, plus 43 saves on 44 shots from Tomas Vokoun into a 2-1 win over the Hurricanes.

It looked for a time that the teams would go all 60 minutes without scoring, Vokoun stopping everything thrown his way and Carolina goalie Cam Ward being tested about as often as the television time outs. But with about three minutes left in the second period, Carolina made two mistakes. First, Andreas Nodl skated the puck through neutral ice for the Hurricanes and tried to chip the puck deep into the Caps’ end. He managed only to hit the logo on the jersey of Caps defenseman Dennis Wideman. The puck bounced to Alex Ovechkin, who started the other way with Marcus Johansson. After Ovechkin slid the puck across to Johansson on his right, Johansson dropped the puck for Alexander Semin just inside the Carolina blue line. Semin wound up to shoot, but here is where the second mistake took place. Carolina defenseman Derek Joslin started backing up. It looked as if he might not stop until he had a seat in Section 117 behind the Carolina goal. The space given up was just what Semin needed as he edged in and ripped a shot over Cam Ward’s glove and just under the crossbar to give the Caps the first goal.

It lasted only 2:46. With Jay Beagle off for elbowing, Jussi Jokinen tied the game with only five seconds left on the power play and only 17 seconds left in the period on the third whack at a puck in front of Vokoun.

The tie lasted only 1:29. In the second minute of the third period, Tomas Vokoun kicked out a drive by Jeff Skinner from the right point. Orlov picked up the loose puck from between the hash marks and skated the other way. He sent the puck up to Jason Chimera down the left wing, who pushed the play into the Carolina zone. As Chimera crossed into the Carolina zone, he tried to chip the puck over Jussi Jokinen’s stick to Orlov charging down the middle. The puck bounced over Orlov’s stick and on goal, but Ward could not control the puck, either. It bounced to his right and to Orlov, who chipped the puck up and behind Ward just as he was about to circle around the net. Dmitry Orlov’s first NHL goal would be a game winner.

(image: CSN)

Other stuff:

-- That was the fifth straight game in which the Caps were outshot. Over those games the Caps have been outshot by an average of 36 – 23. Carolina had more shots on goal (44) than the Caps had shot attempts (38).

-- The disallowed goal off the stick of Brooks Laich will make for interesting bar talk over the next cycle. Several Rules appear to apply here. First, there is Rule 69.1, which states:

“This rule is based on the premise that an attacking player’s position, whether inside or outside the crease, should not, by itself, determine whether a goal should be allowed or disallowed. In other words, goals scored while attacking players are standing in the crease may, in appropriate circumstances be allowed. Goal should be disallowed only if: (1) an attacking player, either by his positioning or by contact, impairs the goalkeeper’s ability to move freely within his crease or defend his goal; or (2) an attacking player initiates intentional or deliberate contact with a goalkeeper, inside or outside his goal crease.”

Rule 69.3 goes on to state that, “if an attacking player initiates contact with a goalkeeper, incidental or otherwise, while the goalkeeper is in his goal crease, and a goal is scored, the goal will be disallowed.”

If these Rules are applied in this instance, it had to be the case that Laich was deemed to have been: (a) in the crease, and (b) impairing Cam Ward’s ability to defend his goal by virtue of contact, despite its being incidental contact.

Then there is Rule 78.5 concerning disallowed goals:

“Apparent goals shall be disallowed by the Referee and the appropriate announcement made by the Public Address Announcer for the following reasons:…(v) when an attacking player has interfered with a goalkeeper in his goal crease.”

And Rule 38.2 concerning video review and announcements:

“Once the play has been reviewed and deemed a goal, the goal will be announced in the normal manner. If the review reveals that the goal must be disallowed, the Public Address Announcer shall announce the reason for the disallowed goal as reported by the Referee.”

Maybe we missed it, but there was no announcement of a reason for the disallowance of the goal. The referee left the referee’s crease signaling “no goal,” then went to the Capitals’ bench to inform the coaching staff.

-- Back to the game…the hit by Alex Ovechkin on Tuomo Ruutu was a thing of beauty that gets lost among head shots and elbows. Shoulder in the logo, and Ruutu was planted in the ice. Ovechkin has spurts when he will hit anything that moves, but this might have been a bit of payback for the hit Ruutu had on Dennis Wideman in a game last March that ended Wideman’s season and that had Ovechkin going after Ruutu.

-- Back to that shots thing. Every single Carolina skater had at least one shot on goal. Fourteen had at least two. Stormy, the Carolina mascot, was credited with two shots on goal.

-- On the other side, 15 Capital skaters were credited with at least one hit. They outhit Carolina, 36-21.

-- The Caps had more blocked shots (25) than they had shots on goal (24).

-- The Caps went ten games – from November 29th through January 11th – without allowing a power play goal on Verizon Center ice (26-for-26). Jussi Jokinen’s power play goal for Carolina makes it power play goals allowed in consecutive games at home.

-- The Caps had one power play opportunity tonight. That is the sixth time this season (and third in the last seven games) that the Caps have had only one power play opportunity. In the previous five instances they had four power play goals on their lone opportunity. They were unsuccessful tonight.

-- Seventeen Russians have scored goals in the season so far. With Orlov’s first, the Caps have three of them. That ties Columbus for the league lead. That’s right, the Blue Jackets are tied for first in something (Fedor Tyutin, Nikita Nikitin, and Maksim Mayorov).

-- That makes 7-0-0 for the Caps on home ice in the last four weeks. They have outscored the opposition 21-8 in those seven games.

-- With 43 saves on 44 shots tonight, Tomas Vokoun has stopped 101 of 105 shots what is now a three game winning streak (.962 save percentage).

In the end, it is two points. But more than that, it means the Caps are now atop the Southeast Division and headed in the opposite direction from that of their closest pursuer, the Florida Panthers (with whom they remain tied in standings points). The Caps will get the Islanders, Montreal, and Carolina one more time this week. Florida will get Boston, Colorado, and Chicago in their next three. Opportunity awaits, but the Caps still must take care of their own business.

That Was The Week That Was -- Week 14 (January 8 - 14)

2012-01-15T13:05:00.001-05:00

Fourteen weeks in and crossing the half-way point of the season. All in all, not a bad week, but nothing to get excited about, either. Kind of like the first fourteen weeks and the first half overall…

Record: 2-1-0

The Caps started the week in the second game of a two-game road trip to California, which for the Capitals might as well be named, “Bataan.” We are loathe to compare a hockey road trip with a forced march of more than 75,000 prisoners of war, but it is the only simile we could think of this early in the day. It got better for the Caps upon their return home, but that is almost expected for a club that finished the week with the second best home record in the Eastern Conference. Those wins did come, however, against teams the Caps have to beat – against Pittsburgh, with whom they are fighting for a playoff spot, and Tampa Bay, who is struggling to win against anyone these days.

Offense: 2.33/game (season:2.90 /rank: 9th)

The Caps managed only two goals in that game in Los Angeles against the Kings and did not do a lot better when they arrived home for the last two games of the week. The Caps managed five goals in the two contests, but only two of them came at 5-on-5 with the opponent’s net manned. Two others came on power plays, and the fifth on an empty net goal.

It wasn’t all “meh,” though. Remember that the Caps were without the services of their leading scorer (Nicklas Backstrom) and their top offensive defenseman (Mike Green) this week. They got two goals from Marcus Johansson in Los Angeles, a hat trick from Troy Brouwer in the win against Tampa Bay, and between those they got a goal from Jason Chimera that was the only goal scored in the game against Pittsburgh. This the kind of secondary scoring the Caps need in the absence of Backstrom and Green, and especially since the Alexes – Ovechkin and Semin – were held to one goal for the week (Ovechkin). Even Mike Knuble, relegated to fourth line duty for most of the season, contributed two assists – his first points since he had an assist in a 4-2 win over Toronto on December 9th.

Defense: 2.67/game (season: 2.90/rank:T-20st)

The Caps are really a Jekyll and Hyde team when it comes to road and home games, and it manifested itself this week as well. Against the Kings, they allowed five goals – the fourth time in nine road games under Dale Hunter that they allowed four or more goals. Against the Penguins and Lightning they allowed a total of three goals. The shutout of the Penguins was the ninth time in 11 home games under Hunter that the Caps allowed two or fewer goals. But think of how this is unfolding, too. On the blue line, Mike Green is out; Tom Poti is out. Dmitry Orlov is getting the kind of minutes one would have expected he would have been getting in Hershey (he is averaging more than 16 minutes per game for the season and averaged more than 17-and-a-half minutes for the week). Tomas Kundratek was called up from Hershey and got more than 18 minutes of ice time in two games. This is not the defensive corps folks imagined at the start of the season. It’s not the one folks might have imagined at the start of 2012. In that respect, it hasn’t done badly.

Goaltending: 2.67 /.917, one shutout

Tomas Vokoun got most of the work for the week (again), sitting only for the last 20 minutes in the 5-2 loss to the Kings in Los Angeles to open the week. His was a glass half full/glass half empty week. There was stopping 81 of 88 shots (a .921 save percentage), but he allowed four goals on 27 shots against the Kings and three on 31 shots against the Lightning (.879 combined) wrapped around a 30-save shutout of the Penguins. He figured in all three decisions for a 2-1-0 week.

For Michal Neuvirth it was another week with the realization that absent an unforeseen circumstance, the number one goaltender issue is settled (as if anyone thought it would be settled any other way). Neuvirth got 20 minutes of mop-up duty this week (seven saves on eight shots in the loss in LA). He has appeared in nine of the 20 games played by the Caps under Dale Hunter, but two of those were relief appearances. He is 3-3-1, 2.61, .907 in his nine appearances overall. But given the situation at the moment, it would seem that Neuvirth’s apperances might be limited to spot duty – relief and/or playing one of a back-to-back set of games.

Power Play: 2-for-9/22.2 percent (season: 19.9 percent/rank: 5th)

Here we are with the Jekyll and Hyde theme once more. The Caps were 0-for-3 against the Kings to bring them to 9-for-66 for the season away from Verizon Center. That is 25th in the league in power play efficiency. Then, they were 2-for-6 in two home games (both goals coming against Tampa Bay), leaving them at 19-for-75 for the season, that 25.3 efficiency being tops in the league at home.

Getting shots to the net seemed to make a difference. The Caps had only two shots on three power plays in Los Angeles and had nothing to show for it. They had one shot on two power plays against Pittsburgh and had nothing to show for it. Of course, the Kings (fourth in home penalty kill) and the Penguins (ninth in road penalty kill) are pretty good on the PK. Against Tampa Bay the Caps had seven shots on four power plays, and they scored on two of their first three shots. The Lightning are 18th in road penalty killing. You could say the week unfolded about as one would expect.

Penalty Killing: 6-for-8/75.0 percent (season: 82.1%/rank:T-18th)

The good… only eight shorthanded situations faced in three games. The bad, the Caps allowed a power play goal in each of the games in which they had to kill off a shorthanded situation. In the middle game of the week – the 1-0 win over Pittsburgh – the Caps did not face a shorthanded situation. There also was a certain symmetry to the week. Two goals allowed in eight shorthanded situations, two goals on eight shots faced in those situations. What you can say about the week is that neither power play goal allowed influenced the result too much. The first one was the fifth goal by Los Angeles, giving them a 5-1 lead midway through the third period in their 5-2 win. If there is a complaint about that one, it is that both Justin Williams and Dustin Penner got behind defensemen John Carlson and Karl Alzner to whack at a shot from the point by Drew Doughty. On the other one, a goal by Steven Stamkos that closed the gap to 3-2 in favor of the Caps late in the 4-3 win by the Caps, Stamkos worked his way into position among a triangle of Caps who seemed to lose track of him. He is the wrong guy on that team to lose track of. But with all that, the Caps are still the third best penalty killing group at home in the league.

Paying the Price: 98 hits/54 blocked shots (season rank:15th/14th)

Maybe it was scoring quirks, or maybe it was the opponents, but 98 hits? Against the Penguins (an arch rival) and the Lightning (a divisional opponent), the Caps were credited with a total of 72 hits. Fifteen of 18 skaters were credited with at least one hit in each of the games against the Penguins and the Lightning. Troy Brouwer (didn’t he have a busy week?) had a fourth of them – 18 of the 72 hits in those two games. On the other end, the other guy you would expect to have benefitted from the hit meter going haywire – Alex Ovechkin – had a total of only four in those two games. We wonder about that hit meter since the two opponents in those games – Pittsburgh (40) and Tampa Bay (25) registered a total of 65 hits themselves in the two games.

Faceoffs: 97-for-196/49.5 percent (season: 51.1 percent/rank:8th)

Again, not a bad week, not a great week. The Caps lost the week narrowly and lost two of the three games (winning the faceoff duel against the Penguins, 25-20). What is under the surface of the numbers, though, is this one – 38.6. That was the Caps’ winning percentage in the offensive zone for the week. None of the big three who took a majority of the draws for the Caps – Jeff Halpern (1-4), Brooks Laich (8-17), and Marcus Johansson (7-25) – were over 50 percent in the offensive zone. At the defensive end of the ice it was somewhat better. The Caps were 25-for-45 (55.6 percent), and two of the three of those same players were above 50 percent (Halpern: 57.1 percent; Laich: 53.6 percent).

Turnovers: minus-15

The Caps found themselves on the short side of the turnover battle in each of the three games. It was not that they were especially charitable with the puck (The Caps had a total of 52 turnovers in three games, their own giveaways and opponents’ takeaways), but they generated so few turnovers from opponents – only 37 in three games.

Impressions:

It’s not how, it’s how many. That’s the way the story goes. But at some point one has to be concerned about the “how.” The Caps did just enough to win two games this week and had their lunches eaten in front of them in Los Angeles. They have lost their last four and eight of their last nine road games to teams currently in the top-eight of their respective conferences. The road record in general – and their making a fight of it against good teams in their rinks – has to improve. If it does not, the Caps are going to be hanging around the edges of the playoffs for their last 40 games. And it will not take much for them to find themselves on the wrong side of that divide.

The Peerless Prognosticator is ON THE AIR!!! -- Game 43: Hurricanes at Capitals, January 15th

2012-01-15T09:10:00.000-05:00

The Peerless Prognosticator is ON THE AIR!!!

By the time the clock tolls midnight tonight, the Washington Capitals could be in first place in the Southeast Division. It would be the first time the Caps held the top spot in the Southeast since November 18th. But to do that, the Caps have to get past the Carolina Hurricanes this afternoon. The Caps have accomplished that feat twice already this season – a 4-3 overtime win in the season opener at Verizon Center and a 5-1 decision in Carolina on November 4th.

The loss to Washington on November 4th dropped Carolina to .500 at 5-5-3. It is the last time so far this season that the Hurricanes were at .500. Since then they are 11-18-4. Worse, they are 3-9-2 on the road. But here is the odd quirk in the Hurricanes’ record. Of the seven games they have won since December 15th, five of them have come against teams in their respective conference playoff-eligible group, including wins against Vancouver and Boston. Carolina can, from time to time, scare up a big effort against the big teams, even if their overall numbers do not look especially fear-inducing:

(click on pic for larger image)

The numbers paint a picture something other than pretty for Carolina. In no general category do they rank higher than 20th save for scoring, and even there they hang on to the last spot in the top half of the rankings. They are being outscored on the road by more than a goal per game for the season.

1. The first 20 minutes matter for the Hurricanes. Thirteen times the Hurricanes have trailed after one period; twelve times they lost in regulation time. Only two teams have a worse record (Anaheim and Phoenix).

2. Carolina has the worst record in the league when being outshot by their opponent (6-15-4), although they have won their last two games when allowing more shots than they take (Tampa Bay, Boston).

3. Only one goalie in the league has played more than 2,000 minutes, has a goals against average over 3.00, and has a save percentage under .905: Cam Ward (2,250, 3.09, .902).

4. Eric Staal is 2-1-3 in the two games against the Caps so far this season. He also has been on the ice for five of the nine goals Washington scored in the two games (four of the six even strength goals). Perhaps he can take solace in the fact that Jamie McBain was on the ice for four of the five goals scored by Washington in the 5-1 Caps win in November. But there is this, too. Only seven of 813 skaters having dressed so far this season have a worse plus-minus on the road than Staal (minus-12), and he is last overall (minus-21).

5. Carolina has allowed more third period goals than any team in the league – 65. Their allowing 1.41 goals per game in the third period is not too far off Tuukka Rask’s league leading 1.59 goals against per 60 minutes for Boston.

1. Only two teams in the league have allowed fewer goals on the power play at home than the seven allowed by the Caps (Pittsburgh, New Jersey).

2. The Caps have played only two games against the Hurricanes so far this season, but they have points from 15 different skaters in the two wins. And, the nine goals they have in the two games come from nine different players.

3. You probably would not be surprised to know that Nicklas Backstrom is tied for the team lead with 14 even strength assists. You might be surprised to know that the player with whom he is tied is John Carlson.

4. The Caps have done a pretty good job of spreading around penalty killing responsibilities. Through 42 games, the Caps are averaging 5:38 in shorthanded ice time per game. No Cap is averaging more than half that amount (Karl Alzner leads with 2:39), only four Caps average more than two minutes, and 14 different players (including six defensemen) are averaging at least 45 seconds.

5. Troy Brouwer was displaying a certain efficiency in shooting before his hat trick against Tampa Bay on Friday. He was 11-for-66 (16.7 percent) going into that game. Three goals on three shots later, and he is the only Caps with a shooting percentage over 20 percent for the season (20.3 percent on 14-for-69 shooting). He ranks seventh in the league in shooting efficiency.

The Peerless’ Players to Ponder

Carolina: Justin Faulk

Carolina defenseman Joni Pitkanen had knee surgery on Janaury 3rd and was expected to take four weeks to recuperate. In the meantime, the ice time leader on the blue line for the Hurricanes is Justin Faulk (22:03 per game for the season). A lot of responsibility for a youngster who will not celebrate his 20th birthday until March 20th. He had been struggling on the defensive side of the ledger, putting up a combined minus-4 in seven games from December 27th through January 10th. But in his last two games he has a goal and an assist, and is a plus-4 in two Carolina wins. He is tied for the team lead among defensemen in power play points (2-4-6, with Jamie McBain).

Washington: Alexander Semin

Caps fans have seen “Good Sasha” lately in an important respect. He has drawn only one minor penalty in more than 137 minutes of ice time covering eight games. Add to that the fact that Semin is 3-5-8, plus-4 in those games, and that is a good thing indeed. But the important thing here might be that penalty number. The Hurricanes are a poor team at 5-on-5 (27th in the league) but somewhat better with the man advantage (20th overall, 16th on the road). Stay out of the box.

Keys:

1. Get a lead. In a league where it is tough to win when you trail in games, Carolina is an especially poor team at coming from behind – 26th when allowing the first goal, 28th when trailing at the first intermission. Add to that, Carolina is playing their second game in less than 24 hours, and the Caps need to jump on these guys early.

2. Play it clean. Carolina has only 16 power play opportunities in their last nine games. They have converted seven of them (43.8 percent). The lack of opportunities has had an effect, in spite of the efficiency. Carolina has killed off only 22 of 30 shorthanded situations in those nine games (73.3 percent), leaving them a minus-1 on special teams in those nine games.

3. Shoot smart. Carolina goalie Cam Ward (should he get the call in the second half of a back-to-back) seems to thrive on in-game work. When facing 34 or more shots per game he has a 2.89 goals against average and a .921 save percentage (compared to 3.09, .902 overall). Only three times in 15 such games does he have a save percentage lower than .910. Pounding shots is not necessarily the path to winning against Ward. Don’t be cute, be smart.

In the end, the pressure on the Caps in this one is the kind of pressure that manifests itself as a product of underperforming for much of the season. They face an opponent they not only should beat, but must beat given their tenuous hold on eighth place in the East (they own tie breakers over Pittsburgh). Carolina, for two games at least, is playing as well as they have since beating Boston twice and Buffalo for their only three-game winning streak of the season in October. This is one game in which the Caps need to get off to a good start so that Carolina might remember they are playing that second game in less than 24 hours. Given each of Carolina’s last two road losses have come by the same score, why not a third time?

Capitals 5 – Hurricanes 2

Six of one, half a dozen of another

2012-01-14T10:11:00.000-05:00

The Washington Capitals play six more games before the break for the All Star Game in Ottawa. These games present an opportunity for the Caps to jump several place in the Eastern Conference standings, for their opponents are not among the most formidable they could face (with current records):

Team shaded in green are below the Caps in the standings. Four of them lie at the bottom of their respective divisions (Carolina counted twice), and the other – Pittsburgh – is struggling with injuries that have contributed to what is at the moment a stretch of six losses in their last seven games. Even mighty Boston, a club that has only 11 losses in regulation this season, has suffered four of those at the hands of teams in the Southeast Division, against which they are only 4-4-0.

You could argue that here on the schedule is where the Caps must make their stand. And you would be half right. Because on the other side of the All Star Game break, the Caps will have a six-game stretch that resembles the one leading them into the break:

The difference here is essentially that the two games against Carolina leading into the break are replaced with two against the team immediately ahead of them in the Southeast Division standings – the Florida Panthers. The Panthers are struggling. They have not won consecutive games in regulation in more than a month and are 5-6-4 in their last 15 contests.

For the Caps to match their standings points mark after 54 games last season (68 points on a record of 29-15-10), they would need 20 points in these 12 games. That is a very tall order, but given the opposition, not impossible for this team (at least this team “on paper”). Boiled down, whether they make the playoffs or not is likely to be a product of what they do in these 12 games straddling the All Star Game break – six of one, half a dozen of another.

A TWO-point night -- Game 42: Capitals 4 - Lightning 3

2012-01-14T09:12:00.001-05:00

When you see someone limping, you know they are in pain, but it can pain you to watch them, too.

Last night, the Washington Capitals limped to a 4-3 win over a Tampa Bay Lightning team that is in the midst of enduring the biggest challenges ever placed before a hockey team, a team that performed valiantly in the face of unimaginable obstacles…or perhaps “imagined” ones, but we will get to that.

The Caps have been accused from time to time...to time…of not getting enough “secondary” scoring support – goal scoring from players not named “Alex” or “Nicklas” or “Mike.” Well, they got it in a big way last night. “Nicklas” (Backstrom) and “Mike” (Green) were out with injuries. The “Alexes” (Ovechkin and Semin) combined for a goal and an assist.

Troy Brouwer played in 279 NHL regular season games and 43 playoff games before last night. In those 322 games he scored a total of 64 goals; he had multi-goal games five times. Goal-scoring was not his game. His job description might have been a word – “havoc.” Banging bodies, creting traffic in front of goalies, getting under the skin of opponents. But last night, he became Wayne Gretzky. Or maybe Brett Hull. Brouwer recorded the first hat trick of his career, scoring his goals three different ways – power play, even strength, and even strength/empty net. He scored them in different ways.

-- There was Brouwer being Brouwer, planting himself in front of Tampa Bay goalie Dwayne Roloson on the power play while Dennis Wideman and Alex Ovechkin played catch with the puck at the top of the offensive zone. When the puck finally came to Alexander Semin at the left wing wall, Brouwer slid out along the goal line to Roloson’s right to give Semin a passing option. Semin sent a pass to Brouwer, and as he did, Marcus Johansson jumped toward the net on the other side of the play. Perhaps Roloson caught a peek of Johansson, because he left just enough room at the post for Brouwer to flick the puck behind him to give the Caps a 2-0 lead, building on an Alex Ovechkin goal to start the game.

-- There was Brouwer the opportunist. Mike Knuble was fighting with Eric Brewer for puck possession behind the Lightning net. The puck squirted out from behind the net where Brooks Laich gloved it down. With two Lightning players converging on Laich, and Brewer still tied up with Knuble to Roloson’s right, Laich found Brouwer all alone in the low slot. Brouwer had only to flick the puck into the open net…Caps 3 – Lightning 0.

-- Tampa Bay managed to close the gap to 3-2 on a late second period goal by Taylor Pyatt and a third period goal by Steven Stamkos with less than four minutes left, there was Brouwer the thankful. With just over a minute to play, the Lightning won a faceoff in the offensive zone. They could not capitalize, though, as Brooks Laich stripped the puck from Martin St. Louis at the boards and sent it out into space in the neutral zone where Brouwer was headed. Before Steven Stamkos could close on Brouwer, the winger fired from just outside the Tampa blue line and found the middle of the back of the net to complete the trick.

Other stuff…

-- This “woe is us” nonsense from Tampa Bay coach Guy “Dr. Joyce Brothers” Boucher really has gotten old. Anybody buy this schtick anymore? Even on the team? Some choice quotes…

"Two penalties for absolutely nothing calls that are never called the entire year, so right away they give (the Caps) a break, and they capitalize right away, and we're behind the eight ball the rest of the way."

Coach, you were down 2-0 with almost 55 minutes of hockey left and Steven Stamkos, Martin St. Louis, and Vincent Lecavalier on your team against an opponent that was giving up almost three goals a game. This was not the 300 Spartans at Thermopylae.

"Our players have played hard in ridiculous situations where the other team waits for you at home while you go to bed at 4 o'clock and you played the last night."

Coach, you pretty much fly first class, get to stay at nice hotels, and it is not as if the Lightning are the only team in the NHL to have to play the back end of a back to back on the road against a team that had the previous night off. As the line goes in the movie, “Too Big to Fail," “you’re not getting out of a Higgins boat on Omaha Beach!”

"We played enough to win tonight. I'm sorry...we’re not getting the breaks…it’s been like that for a long time; it’s the story of our season. We’ve got injuries over injuries and adversity on adversity, and the breaks are just not coming at all."

Coach…you want to trade your injury situation with Pittsburgh? Or the Caps, for that matter? Your “big three” of Stamkos, Lecavalier, and St. Louis have missed a total of five man-games (all by St. Louis, all in early December). And the only thing injured between your goaltenders is their talent.

-- At the other end, the Caps were out-shot (31-20), out attempted (64-38), outworked in the faceoff circle (32-for-68), and had more turnovers (15-14). Almost half of the Tampa Bay shots on goal (15) came in the last 20 minutes. The Caps played a good first 20 minutes, a middling middle 20 minutes, and a last 20 minutes they are not going to like watching on video…against that team playing the back half of a back-to-back.

-- The Troy Brouwer Hat Trick.. Three goals (on three shots), two minor penalties, and seven hits.

-- In being outshot 31-20 in this game the Caps have been outshot in nine of their last ten games and 14 of 20 since Dale Hunter took over behind the bench. In 12 of 20 games they have allowed at least 30 shots, including five of their last six. Five times the have allowed ten or more shots more than the number they took.

-- The three goals allowed was the first time since a 5-1 loss to Philadelphia that the Caps allowed more than one goal to an opponent on home ice. In five previous games, the Caps outscored the opponents by a combined 15-4, with one shutout.

-- The goal by Ovechkin broke a three-game streak without a point and left him with ten goals in 20 games since the coaching change (10-7-17).

-- On September 22, 2007, Karl Alzner fought J.D. Watt of the Red Deer Rebels. It was the last of three fights Alzner had in junior hockey and the last fight he had in an organized hockey game. Until last night. And you can’t say he picked a softie to test his skills. Steve Downie had a fight card of 29 fights in 236 NHL regular season games before last night. The decision had to go to Downie, but Alzner did get some licks in and kept chirping at him when the two repaired to their respective sentencing bins.

-- Hey, coach…just checking here, but your guys had five power plays in the game. The Caps had four.

-- Jason Chimera came into the game as the Caps’ second leading goal scorer (14). He skated only 9:53, his lowest ice time since he skated 9:13 in a 7-4 loss in Vancouver on October 29th. Only Cody Eakin and Jay Beagle had less even-strength ice time than his 7:02.

In the end, the Caps started strong an limped to the finish. It was not a smooth 60 minutes of hockey. If not for the heroics of Troy Brouwer, this could have been ugly, in fact. But then again, even people suffering a limp are making progress down the road.

The Peerless Prognosticator is ON THE AIR!!! -- Game 42: Lightning at Capitals, January 13th

2012-01-13T07:01:00.006-05:00

The Peerless Prognosticator is ON THE AIR!!!

The Washington Capitals play Game 2 of their four-game home stand on Friday, hosting the Tampa Bay Lightning. And we here at Peerless Central want to take a moment and put to rest, for once and for all, one of those things that took place in a game between these teams that might have been interpreted the wrong way by some people.

Let us go back to March 19, 2009. The Caps visited the Lightning that night, and it was a case of two teams going in quite different directions. The Caps were 44-22-6, on their way to a Southeast Division title and a three-seed in the playoffs. The Lightning were 23-32-15, good – if that is the word – for last place in the Southeast and 14th place in the Eastern Conference.

It was a potential milestone night for one Capital. Alex Ovechkin was on the brink of recording his third 50-goal season, having put up 49 markers going into this contest. And with 12:17 gone in the game, Ovechkin scored the game’s first goal, his 50th of the season. What he did next, though, aggravated many in the Tampa Bay Lightning community. After scoring the goal, he set his stick on the ice and pantomimed warming himself by the heat of his flaming stick.

There are those who think Ovechkin was hot-dogging it or rubbing it in to the Lightning and their fans. Well, we can tell you that this is patently untrue. In fact, Ovechkin was paying homage to the city in which he realized this achievement. For you see, “Tampa” is thought by some to mean “sticks of fire” in the language of the Calusa Native American tribe that once lived in the vicinity. And here was Alex Ovechkin, being respectful of his hosts, showing the Lightning and their fans that he had a deep and abiding respect for the history of the city he was visiting.

And that, as they say, is the rest of the story.

As far as this game is concerned, the Lightning find themselves in much the same situation they found themselves on the night in March 2009 – buried in the Eastern Conference standings. The Lightning have not yet won a game in 2012, losing all four of the contests they played to date (0-4-1). It looked as if the Lightning might have been turning a corner by winning their last three games of 2011. But the Lightning have had much in the way of experience with streaks this season – three winning streaks of at least three games, three losing streaks of at least four games, including the one on which they currently find themselves (which reached five games on Thursday night). Here is how the Lightning find themselves compare to the Caps, numbers-wise (before Tampa Bay's game against Carolina on Thursday):

1. As Steven Stamkos goes, so go the Lightning. Stamkos has had a hand in 42.5 percent of the Lightning scoring so far this season (29 goals and 19 assists among the total of 113 goals scored). And, he has scored almost a third of all Tampa Bay goals over the last 13 games by himself (13 of 40).

2. The Lightning have not scored a power play goal on the road in more than a month (December 10th, in a 5-2 loss at Philadelphia). Since then, they are 0-for-20 in six road games.

3. In their last nine road games the Lightning have allowed power play goals in seven of them. They have allowed two power play goals in four of them. In those games, the Lightning penalty killers are 27-for-38 (71.1 percent).

4. Only one team in the league has a worse record than Tampa Bay when being outshot by their opponent (Carolina). Only one team in the league has a worse record when leading at the first intermission than Tampa Bay…that’s right, when leading at the first intermission (they are 4-3-1…it doesn’t happen often).

5. Vincent Levcavalier has provided, if unspectacular, at least consistent offense over the last five weeks. He has not had consecutive games without a point since December 8th. In his last 14 games he is 6-6-12.

1. The Caps have not allowed a power play goal at home under Dale Hunter. The last time the Caps allowed a power play goal at Verizon Center was in a 6-3 loss to the New York Rangers on November 25th. Since then, they are 26-for-26 in ten games.

2. Over that same span of ten games at Verizon Center the Caps are 8-for-27 on the power play (29.6 percent), eight for their last 20 opportunities dating back to a four-power play-goal performance against Toronto on December 9th.

3. Alex Ovechkin has 26 goals in 43 games against Tampa Bay, but none (at least in the regular season) since a 1-3-4 performance against the Lightning last February 4th. OK, it’s only two games.

4. Washington is one of only five teams in the league with a perfect record this season when leading after two periods (13-0-0). They have not lost a game in regulation time when leading after two periods since the 2008-2009 season. Over the last two-plus seasons the Caps are 74-0-7 when leading after 40 minutes.

5. Washington has scored only 77 of their 118 goals this season at 5-on-5. The 65.2 percent 5-on-5 goals is the ninth lowest as a share of total goals scored. Of the eight teams in front of them, seven are currently among the playoff-eligibles in their respective conferences. Good teams have to get goals in different situations.

The Peerless’ Players to Ponder

Tampa Bay: Dwayne Roloson

Dwayne Roloson came in relief of Mathieu Garon last night when Garon gave up three goals on eight shots in 15 minutes. The Lightning are playing the second of a back-to-back set, and Roloson is at an age where back-to-backs are not necessarily the best thing for his statistics. Not only that, he has been flat out awful for almost two months now. Since he stopped 33 of 34 shots against Pittsburgh in a 4-1 Lightning win on November 17th, Roloson is 0-5-1, 4.53, .854 in ten appearances. The Lightning don’t seem to trust Garon all that much lately, since Garon has been pulled three times his last seven appearances in favor of Roloson. Goaltending is a mess for the Lightning, and whether Roloson can find the magic he had last year grows more and more doubtful.

Washington: Brooks Laich

Offensively, Brooks Laich is in a funk. He is without a point and is minus-5 in his last eight games. More disturbing, some of that has come with Laich taking over in the middle on the top line with Nicklas Backstrom out. If the Caps are going to cash in on the iffy Tampa Bay defense, Laich is going to have to put up some crooked numbers in this one.

Keys:

1. For heaven’s sake, SHOOT already. Between Tampa Bay’s poor record when being outshot and the goaltending problems they are having, the Capitals have to take advantage by putting pucks on net. From anywhere, guys. Just get the puck to the net. Write… it… down.

2. No Marty Party. Martin St. Louis has been a thorn in the Caps’ sides ever since he showed up in Florida. But he has no goals in his last nine games. He is helping out, though, with ten assists in those nine games. Make him pay by making him play defense. He is minus-4 in those nine games, despite the ten points.

3. Press the D. The Lightning do not have the most fleet of foot defensemen – Pavel Kubina and Eric Brewer are more the hulking, crease-clearing types from another era, and Marc-Andre Bergeron, despite leading the team in plus-minus, is not generally thought of as being the most adept defender in his own end. Make these guys skate; pressure them when they have the puck.

In the end, there is knowing what to do (applying persistent pressure in the offensive zone on a team weak in defense and goaltending), and there is doing it. The Caps have scored more than four goals only once since Dale Hunter took over behind the bench. Only six times in 19 games have the Caps scored more than three goals in regulation time. This opponent is tailor-made to reverse that trend.

Capitals 5 – Lightning 2

A TWO-point night -- Game 41: Capitals 1 - Penguins 0

2012-01-12T06:59:00.000-05:00

Sometimes, one is all you need.

For the second time in a month, the Washington Capitals got the one they needed and won a 1-0 decision. Last night’s occurrence came at the expense of the Pittsburgh Penguins, who lost their sixth straight game and dropped out of the top-eight in the Eastern Conference.

The Penguins’ place in the standings was taken by the Caps, who now sit in that eighth place spot and who are now four points behind Southeast Division leading Florida with a game in hand.

The one goal came abruptly of a turnover in what was an otherwise cleanly played game. Evgeni Malkin skated into a group of Capitals at the Capitals’ blue line, and Joel Ward poked the puck of the Penguin’s stick. Jeff Halpern picked up the puck and took off the other way with Jason Chimera in tow and Ward trailing. With only Zbynek Michalek back (his defensive partner, Pal Martin, was caught up ice as part of the original Malkin rush), Halpern and Chimera created a two-on-one. When charged at Halpern along the right wing boards to try to prevent entry to the Penguins’ zone, Halpern slid the puck across to Chimera in alone on Fluery. The Penguin goaltender appeared to be cheating to defend a puck coming to his glove side, but Chimera snapped a shot over Fleury’s right pad to record the game’s only goal.

Other stuff…

-- When we say “cleanly played,” here is an example. There were only two power plays granted in the game, both for Washington. It was only the second time this season the Penguins failed to receive a power play opportunity and the first time this season that the Caps did not face a shorthanded situation.

-- There were more hits in this game than a Casey Kasem “American Top 40” show. In fact, there were 79 hits. Troy Brouwer had 11 by himself for the Caps (who had 39). Craig Adams – that is “Craig Adams, Harvard, Class of ’99” – had eight in barely ten minutes of ice time (and who added a fighting major for good measure). Fifteen skaters had at least one for the Caps; 12 skaters for the Penguins.

-- Caps fans of a certain age will remember the Jeff Halpern was something of a Penguin killer in his first incarnation as a Cap in the blue, bronze, and white days. His performance last night harkened back to those days – setting up the only goal, a hit, two blocked shots, and 10 faceoff wins in 12 tries.

-- The Penguins did manage to tilt the ice toward the Caps’ end – 30 shots, 60 attempts (versus 21 and 37 for the Caps). And they got their shots from the guys they want taking them. A third of the Penguins’ shots on goal came from Malkin (six) and James Neal (four). But the Caps did a fairly good job of limiting the Penguins’ to one-and-done. There were not many chances for follow-ups.

-- At the other end, the Caps had only 12 shots on goal and only 22 shot attempts in the first 40 minutes.

-- The Caps came up big late on defense. Despite playing the last 1:19 against six skaters, the Caps did not allow a shot on goal. Jeff Halpern blocked two shot attempts (and won two key defensive zone draws in the last 21 seconds), and two other shot attempts were missed by Pittsburgh.

-- Alex Ovechkin had more shots on goal in the third period (four) than he had attempts in the first 40 minutes (three, none of which made it on goal).

-- One way to keep a struggling team on offense from getting any momentum – the Caps won 13 of 19 defensive zone draws. They were 8-0 against Evgeni Malkin in their own end.

-- Tomas Vokoun likes home cooking. With the shutout, he is 12-3-0, 2.03, .925 with two shutouts at home, 5-7-0, 3.20, .906 on the road. He also raised his record on Wednesdays to 4-0-0, 1.74, .942, and one shutout (no, it is not his best day of the week – Friday is: 3-0-0, 1.33, .954).

-- It is the second 1-0 win of the year for the Caps, Michal Neuvith pitching the shutout against the Winnipeg Jets on December 15th.

In the end, it was one team trying to find its way after a bad road trip against a team struggling to find a way to win a game, any game. These are not the Capitals and Penguins that were must-see TV for the last four years. They are two flawed and damaged teams hanging around the edges of the playoff mix. But there is never a bad feeling when one finds the Caps on the winning side of the score, even if this game lacked fireworks. Because sometimes, one is all you need.

The Peerless Prognosticator is ON THE AIR!!! -- Game 41: Penguins at Capitals, January 11th

2012-01-11T06:50:00.001-05:00

The Peerless Prognosticator is ON THE AIR!!!

The Washington Capitals return home to the comfortable confines of Verizon Center on Wednesday to host the Pittsburgh Penguins. Looking at the Penguins these days, one half expects that in addition to Dan Bylsma behind the Penguin bench, there would be Drs. Benjamin Franklin “Hawkeye” Pierce, B.J. Hunnicutt, and Charles Emerson Winchester performing triage in the runway to the locker room.

The Penguin locker room is less a place to dress and prepare for games than it is a M*A*S*H unit these days. Of course there are the well-chronicled injury problems of Sidney Crosby, but there is quite a line of wounded behind him. With Crosby, James Neal, Kris Letang, and Jordan Staal out or with the potential to be out (the recuperative powers of Neal concerning a foot injury suggesting he took an unreported trip to Lourdes for the healing waters), there are 41 goals on the bench, more than a third of the Penguins’ output through Monday’s action (120 goals). With Monday’s action yet to start as we start writing this, only six Penguins have played in all 40 games to date, and two of those players – Neal and Craig Adams -- could see those streaks come to an end either Monday against Ottawa or Wednesday against the Capitals.

Although the Penguins have become accustomed to dealing with adversity – the continuing absence of Crosby and the intermittent absences of other players – Paul Martin, Evgeni Malkin, Brooks Orpik, Zbynek Michalek, Tyler Kennedy (all of whom have missed at least five games this season so far) – the burden appears finally to be having its effects on the Penguins.

Going into Monday’s play, Pittsburgh was in the midst of a four game losing streak – three of them at home – scoring only five goals in the process. It is part of a longer slide that has the Penguins skating to a 5-8-0 record in their last 13 games. As a result, Pittsburgh had dropped to fourth in the Atlantic Division and eighth in the Eastern Conference. With all of that, here is how the Penguins and Caps compare so far this season…

(click pic for larger image)

1. A potential top line of Evgeni Malkin, Chris Kunitz, and Pascal Dupuis would still be, if not formidable, balanced. All have more than ten goals (unless Nicklas Backstrom returns to the lineup, the Caps would ice no line with ten or more goals across). More to the point, these three have ten of the 18 game-winning goals for the Penguins through Monday’s games.

2. Marc-Andre Fleury has taken the decision in each of the four losses in the current Penguin streak. He has a goals-against average of 2.81 in those games and a save percentage of .878. What has been remarkable in those four games is that the Penguins allowed more than 25 shots only once (an average of 22.5 shots per game faced by Fleury).

3. Evgeni Malkin has certainly borne his share of the offensive burden. In his last dozen games he is 7-13-20 (2-4-6 on the power play). Here is the kicker. Those 12 games correspond to those missed by Sidney Crosby since his last appearance on December 5th against Boston.

4. Pittsburgh has found itself shorthanded 86 times on the road versus 54 times at home. Only Vancouver has a larger difference, road-less-home shorthanded situations, than the 32 held by the Penguins. And, they have allowed at least one power play goal in five of their last six road games.

5. Since the first of December the Penguins have been out-shot by their opponent only twice in 15 games. In that span, the Penguins are outshooting their opponents by an average of more than ten shots per game (10.3).

1. Only Phoenix and Tampa Bay have spent less time on the power play at home than the Capitals (105:50 in 20 games). Only four teams have had fewer opportunities at home than the Caps (69 in 20 games). On the other hand, only three teams have found themselves shorthanded fewer times at home than the Caps (61). Only once in the last nine games have the Caps enjoyed more man advantage situations than their opponents.

2. With an assist against Los Angeles, Alexander Semin has points in five consecutive games and eight of his last nine, during which he is 5-6-11. Of his ten goals for the season, four have come with the Caps trailing by a goal, two have come with the Caps ties, and three have come with the Caps leading by a goal. None of them, though, have been game-winning goals.

3. Wednesday is the only day of the week so far on which Alex Ovechkin averages more than a point a game. He is 1-3-4 in three games so far.

4. Dennis Wideman is tied for third among all NHL defensemen in even-strength points. He is tied for ninth in power play points. He is second among all defensemen in points recorded against opponents outside his division.

5. Watch turnovers. Some of this is a matter of scoring and what the official scorer sees, but the Caps are eighth in the league in home takeaways, and the Penguins have the eighth highest number of road giveaways.

The Peerless’ Players to Ponder

Pittsburgh: Tyler Kennedy

With as many injuries as the Penguins are facing these days, “role players” have to play bigger roles than perhaps their comfort levels would suggest. Tyler Kennedy is the kind of player that personifies the Penguins – he is a player of modest skill who plays hard in all three zones, can chip in some offense, and is a pain in the neck to play against. He also is without a point and minus-3 in his last four games after a stretch in which he was 2-5-7, plus-3 over five games. He might be the canary in the coal mine for the Penguins. If his streak without a point extends to five games, the Penguins have other guns, even with the injuries. But if he scores, chances are this is a good night for the visitors.

Washington: Jason Chimera

Has the coach turned into a pumpkin? Jason Chimera scored 11 goals in his first 26 games, a 35-goal pace for the season. In his last 14 games he has two goals (a 12-goal pace), none in his last seven. With so many pieces out, Pittsburgh is going to want to play things simple and tight, and a player like Chimera can make a difference in such games. He did have a goal in the last game these teams met, and he is a player who can use speed to take advantage of what could be a thin Penguin defense.

Keys:

1. SHOOT THE PUCK!!! Yeah, we harp on this, but the fact is, the Caps have the second best record in the league when outshooting their opponents; they are 22nd when getting outshot. Given how effective Pittsburgh is in outshooting their opponents, this is, well...key.

2. Did we say, “SHOOT THE PUCK?!?!?!” Pittsburgh has the widest margin, shots for per 60 minutes at 5-on-5, in the league. The Caps are 15th (numbers from behindthenet.ca). The Caps cannot let Pittsburgh dictate terms in this phase of the game.

3. Really…SHOOT THE PUCK!!! The Penguins and Capitals rank 14th and 15th in shots on goal per 60 minutes at 5-on-4 (numbers from behindthenet.ca). But in shots allowed at 4-on-5, the Penguins have allowed 4.8 fewer shots per 60 minutes than the Caps. Moral…on the power play, SHOOT THE PUCK!!!

In the end, the hallmark of Pittsburgh’s game is not so much offense, but their ability to keep opponents from spending much time in the Pittsburgh end of the ice. The Caps need to use a combination of advantageous line matchups and focus to try to tilt the ice in the other direction. They cannot be timid in this regard as they appeared to be in the 2-1 Penguin win on December 1st. Pittsburgh is banged up, the Caps are treading water. This game will be a matter of will. As in, “will the Caps show some ‘will’ tonight?” With no small degree of trepidation…

Caps 3 – Penguins 2

A NO-point night -- Game 40: Kings 5 - Capitals 2

2012-01-10T06:50:00.000-05:00

“A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines. With consistency a great soul has simply nothing to do. He may as well concern himself with his shadow on the wall.”

-- Ralph Waldo Emerson, “Self Reliance”

Well, the Washington Capitals have the “consistent” part down. Last night, the Caps lost their second consecutive game, their second consecutive game in California, and their second consecutive game in California by a 5-2 score. That was the margin of victory for the Los Angeles Kings, who skated around, over, and through the Caps often, giving neither Tomas Vokoun nor Michal Neuvirth much of a chance in goal to keep the Caps in the game.

It was another case of the ice being tilted too much to the Caps end for too much of the game. Not even scoring the first goal – the best indicator of who would win a game since Dale Hunter took over as Caps head coach – could save the Caps from another sorry night. Marcus Johansson got that goal 94 seconds into the game, and given the fact that the Kings came into the game with the worst offense in the league, scoring fewer than two goals per game at home, and scorers of only eight goals combined in their previous six games, one might have thought that it would be a good end to the California road trip for the Caps.

Fifty minutes later, the Kings had a 5-1 lead, had chased Vokoun, and were cruising to an easy win. Not even Johansson’s second goal – his first multi-goal game since March 15th last season – could fan the smell of this loss away.

Other stuff…

-- Let’s get it out of the way up front. There is nothing much to say about Jack Johnson’s “Tebow” celebration other than to wonder what a player who plays in a different city, who played collegiately at a different school, who plays a different sport, and who is not generally thought of as an overtly evangelical player of the sort Tim Tebow is would think this was a good idea. On the other hand, if there are any Caps taking offense at what he did, then DON’T LET HIM SCORE.

-- Allowing five goals is one thing, but to play as utterly meekly as the Caps did had to have the men in suits seething. There were guys who showed up, at least in part. Alex Ovechkin, Matt Hendricks, Roman Hamrlik, Marcus Johansson among them, at least for moments. And we will get to why shortly. But that great middle of the lineup was, to be charitable, not good. If this team is to have a prayer of making the playoffs, let alone going deep, the second and third lines, and the defense generally is going to have to show some more spine and contribute more – especially on the road – than they have done either under Bruce Boudreau or Dale Hunter.

-- We get that the Kings have a good penalty kill, but the Caps' power play looked as much as if they conceded the point as they tried to make a battle of it.

-- It was another one of those “shots vs. attempts” road game. The Caps had 37 shot attempts; the Kings had 35 shots on goal. Talk about chances all you want, but if that is going to be the road profile for the Caps, then with save percentages clumped where they are in this league, generally between .910 and .930, then the Caps goalies are simply going to face too many shots relative to what their teammates are effecting at the other end to win many road games.

-- It has now been a month since the Caps had as many as five power play opportunities in a game, almost two months since they had that many in a road game (November 19th, at Toronto). They had three last night, making it 10 games out of 12 that they have had three or fewer.

-- There were moments…Mike Knuble creating a distraction by charging the net as Marcus Johansson rifled a wrist shot past Kings’ goalie Jonathan Bernier for the first goal of the game…Alex Ovechkin playing a very energetic game early with hits and skating to try to set a tone…Roman Hamrlik blocking six shots and finishing even on a night when not many Caps did…Matt Hendricks trying to inject some life into the Caps late in the first period by taking on Colin Fraser (ill advised as it might have turned out)…Johansson eschewing the pass on the first goal when on too many other occasions a Cap would have tried something fancy.

-- And there were other moments…the brutal giveaway by Brooks Laich as he was trying to send the puck up ice (it was credited as a takeaway by Dustin Brown) that led to the second Kings goal that was the critical goal of the game coming only 24 seconds before the end of the first period and giving the Kings the lead they would not give up…the weak play down low generally, but especially on the Kings’ fifth goal when Justin Williams and Dustin Penner both got inside and below defensemen Karl Alzner and John Carlson allowing both to whack at the puck in front of Michal Neuvirth (it was an especially difficult game for the Alzner/Carlson pair, which was on the ice for three goals against).

In the end, the Kings looked like a team out of the mold of their head coach, Darryl Sutter – tough, rugged, willing to get their noses dirty down low. The Caps looked like anything but being cut from the mold of their head coach, Dale Hunter. They floated, let the Kings dictate play, failed to match the King’s hard play down low, and wilted in the wake of the Kings’ defense.

You have probably figured out that if this is the way the Caps are going to play, especially on the road, there will be no need to check calendars for schedule conflicts in April, May or June. The difference between teams like the Kings – who were hard to play against, opportunistic, and sturdy on defense – and teams like the Caps, who were none of those things, was on clear display. Teams such as the former play hockey in the spring. Teams such as the latter play golf.

It might behoove the Caps to think upon another quote by Emerson in the same essay…

“Power and speed be hands and feet.”

The Peerless Prognosticator is ON THE AIR!!! -- Game 40: Capitals at Kings, January 9th

2012-01-08T23:25:00.000-05:00

The Peerless Prognosticator is ON THE AIR!!!

The Washington Capitals will try to salvage a split of their two-game west coast trip on Monday when they visit the Los Angeles Kings at Staples Center. If San Jose is not a city in which the Caps have found much success over the years, Los Angeles is not much more hospitable. The Caps will bring a 15-29-6-0 record in games played in Los Angeles into this game.

Much was expected of the Kings this season. With the best goalie that no one knows about in Jonathan Quick and the best center that no one knows about in Anze Kopitar, the Kings were already a formidable team. But adding Mike Richards via trade and Simon Gagne as a free agent (he will miss this game to injury) added more forward depth to a team that could boast of a deep defense with Drew Doughty, Jack Johnson, Willie Mitchell, and Rob Scuderi. On paper, this was a team in position to challenge for a deep playoff run.

It even looked good early with the Kings running out to a 5-1-1 record in their first seven games. It looked better when in that seventh game goalie Jonathan Quick recorded his third consecutive shutout to go 5-0-1, .081, .972.

But the Kings flattened out, going 9-12-3 in their next 24 games and seeing coach Terry Murray relieved of his duties in the process in favor of Darryl Sutter. That slump led up to what might be their low point of the season thus far, an 8-2 drubbing at the hands of the Detroit Red Wings that dropped the Kings back to .500 at 14-14-4 on December 17th, settling into 11th place in the Western Conference. Quick lasted less than nine minutes in that game, allowing three goals on seven shots.

Since that low point the Kings have righted their ship, going 6-1-3 in their last ten games since the Detroit debacle. Here is how the teams stack up against one another so far:

(click pic for larger image)

These are the profiles of teams that have disappointed so far, the Caps struggling to find any momentum after a hot start, the Kings looking to find anything resembling an offensive game.

1. The Kings find themselves in 30th and last place in offense this season (2.02 goals/game) and are fourth in overall defense (2.12 goals allowed/game). It should be no surprise that the Kings have been involved in 11 shutouts in 42 games thus far (the most games involving shutouts in the league), winning six and losing five of them. Four of them have been 1-0 decisions (the Kings are 2-1-1), and two of those went to extra time, the Kings splitting those decisions.

2. The Kings have had an experience very much like that of the Caps in this respect. Since going 5-1-1 to start the season, ending with a four-game winning streak, the Kings have only one instance in which they won more than two games consecutively (a three-game streak, November 12-17). The Kings also have been involved in the most one-goal decisions (26), winning 12 of them (12-7-7).

3. The Kings have fewer 5-on-5 goals than any team in the league; only two teams have fewer 5-on-4 goals. They do not come by their low offensive ranking by accident. Since Darryl Sutter took over, the Kings might be 5-1-3, but only twice have the Kings scored more than two goals in those nine games. They come into this game having scored only two goals combined in their last three games, only one in regulation time.

4. Of the 85 goals scored by the Kings thus far, 21 have come from the defense. All eight defensemen having dressed for the Kings this season have scored at least one goal. Four of them have power play goals. By way of comparison, defensemen have scored 18 goals for the Caps, and three have at least one power play goal.

5. Three is the magic number for the Kings, and not entirely in a good way. They are 4-11-3 when allowing three or more goals, 16-4-4 when they allow fewer than three goals. On the other hand, Los Angeles is undefeated when they score three or more goals, not including trick shots (10-0-0).

1. The Capitals are one of only four teams in the league that have not been shutout so far this season. Pittsburgh, Columbus, and Ottawa are the others.

2. No Cap has scored more goals against Los Angeles than the six scored by Jason Chimera. However, none of those have come as a member of the Caps.

3. Will the Caps turn to Michal Neuvirth in this one? Consider that Tomas Vokoun is 4-11-2, 2.89, .904 in 19 career appearances, and it isn’t unreasonable. Neuvirth has one career appearance against Los Angeles (0-1-0, 2.03, .895)

4. Although the teams have played only 99 games against one another in their respective histories, 12 of the games featured hat tricks. Washington has three of the hat tricks, the Kings have ten (one game – St. Patrick’s Day, 1987 – featured hat tricks by each team, one by Greg Adams for the Caps and one by Bernie Nicholls by the Kings in a 5-4 Kings win in Washington).

5. After 39 games last season the Caps were 22-12-5 (49 points). At the 39-game mark this season they are 21-16-2 (44 points). The difference is largely the product of last year’s team to get games to extra time to earn an extra standings point (and of those five extra time losses by this time last season, three came via the Gimmick).

The Peerless’ Players to Ponder

Los Angeles: Jonathan Quick

Here is your Jonathan Quick number to take away – 18. The King’s netminder has not allowed a power play goal in 18 consecutive games after allowing at least one in 10 of his first 17 appearances. He also has allowed fewer than two goals in six of his last seven appearances (4-1-2, 0.98, .963, two shutouts). His six shutouts leads the league. It is not just that he is among the league leaders in just about every goaltending category, but he has significantly better numbers than his backup, Jonathan Bernier (2-4-1, 2.82, .893). Remember than when folks talk about Tim Thomas in Boston, who has Tuukka Rask to shoulder a good portion of the burden. He is 2-0-0, 2.50, .931 against the Caps in his career.

Washington: Brooks Laich

Laich was not particularly effective in manning the pivot on the top line against San Jose. In fact he has struggled lately, whatever line he has been playing. He is without a point in his last six games and is a minus-3. He is only 1-1-2, minus-2, in his last 11 games, his one goal coming on 29 shots on goal. He has had uneven career results against the Kings: 2-1-3, minus-3, in six career games. He has only one goal in 13 games against Western Conference teams so far this season. It was a game-winner against Phoenix on November 21st. He does not yet have a road point against a Western Conference team this season.

Keys:

1. Score first. It goes without saying that getting a lead is of paramount importance if teams want to be successful in the NHL. However, only six teams have a wider disparity in winning percentage between that when they score first and that when they allow the first goal than the Kings.

2. Shoot the #@$% puck! As talented as Quick is, he is only 3-2-3 in games in which he faced 35 or more shots this season.

3. Be irresistible. Special teams will be the irresistible force (the Caps power play, 7-for-18 over their last eight games) versus the impenetrable object (the Kings’ penalty kill, 33-for-33 over their last ten games). If the Caps are irresistible, they probably win this game.

In the end, the Kings have the ability to frustrate the Capitals. Whether the Capitals can be patient and trust their team and systems approach, avoiding the free-lancing that individuals trying to go too much one-on-one, will be what could decide this game. But while the Caps have their work cut out for them at one end, they cannot allow the Kings the easy goal. Given the Kings’ consistency in holding opponents to low goal totals, a fluke or a soft goal at the Caps' end could very well be fatal in this game. This contest is likely to be played on a very narrow margin. The Kings have not allowed three goals in a loss since that drubbing they suffered in Detroit three weeks ago. We think that will change.

Capitals 3 – Kings 2

That Was The Week That Was -- Week 13 (January 1 - 7)

2012-01-08T13:16:00.000-05:00

The first week of 2012 is in the books, and it was a light week of work for the men in red. Nice start, not so nice finish, one streak ended, one streak extended, and health problems coming to the front as the week ends.

Record: 1-1-0

It was a light week of game work for the Caps, splitting their only two contests of the week. In the first they extended their winning streak to four games at the expense of the Calgary Flames, the Caps’ longest winning streak since the seven-game streak to open the season. The 3-1 win improved the Caps’ record to 5-2-0 against Western Conference teams at home this season. Unfortunately, the Caps had to go on the road to play another Western Conference team – San Jose, where the Caps had not won since October 1993. The Caps lost, 5-2, to drop them to 0-11-1 in their last dozen visits to San Jose.

Offense: 2.50/game (season: 2.95 /rank: T-9th)

The Caps have not been a juggernaut under Dale Hunter, only six times scoring more than three goals in a game in the 17 played under Hunter through this week. But they have been consistent. Only six times had they been held to fewer than three goals in 15 games coming into the week, only one of the last six before this week. The Caps struggled a bit this week with only three goals in their win against Calgary and a pair in the loss to San Jose. But this might not be surprising given that Nicklas Backstrom missed all of the San Jose game and the last few minutes of the win over Calgary after the Flames’ Rene Bourque elbowed Backstrom in the head. It was a costly elbow for Bourque, who surrendered himself to a five-game suspension and five game checks totaling more than $200,000. It was costly for the Caps in that they were denied Backstrom’s services, and his absence pointed out the lack of depth the Caps have at center.

Defense: 3.00/game (season: 2.90/rank:T-21st)

Injury was the issue on the other side of the puck as well. The Caps held Calgary to one goal in the 3-1 win to open the week, the fourth time in the four-game winning streak that the Caps held their opponent to two or fewer goals and the sixth time in nine games in which the Caps held their opponents to fewer than 30 shots on goal. Mike Green returned to the lineup in the Calgary game after missing 23 games with a groin injury. It was only the second game (among 31 played by the Caps) he played since October 22nd. He played what for him were light minutes – 15:43 – and looked rusty in doing it. But his return did allow other Caps to play in situations more comfortable with their skill. However, Green lasted only nine shifts and 7:11 in the week’s second game, against the San Jose Sharks. San Jose scored four goals in a 5-2 win after Green’s departure. Green is not often on anyone’s short list of top defensive defensemen in the league, but he is underrated in that area. His ability to move the puck out of danger reduces the opportunities opponents have to pressure in the Caps’ end. And, given that he plays so many minutes, the hole in ice time left in his absence requires a lot of recombination of pairs, placing some defensemen in situations above their comfort level or, in the case of the game against San Jose, leaning heavily on the remaining top four defensemen, all of whom played more than 22 minutes.

Goaltending:2.51 /.912

Tomas Vokoun got the call in both games this week in an effort to extend a solid stretch of goaltending for the veteran. Coming into the week Vokoun had stopped 107 of 112 shots (.955 save percentage) dating back to his coming into the Buffalo game in relief of Michal Neuvirth on December 26th. Vokoun got light work in the first game of the week, facing only 19 shots on goal in the 3-1 win over the Flames. He got a lot more work against San Jose, facing 38 shots in the 5-2 loss to the Sharks. In allowing four goals it was less a case of Vokoun playing the position badly as much as it was his having to swim around in his crease because the skaters in front of him were not doing as good a job as they needed to do to prevent San Jose from making plays in tight.

Power Play: 3-for-4/75.0 percent (season: 19.7 percent/rank: 6th)

If there is one thing that went well, this week, the power play is it. The Caps spent only 3:21 on the power play for the week, took five shots, and three of them went in. In terms of sheer efficiency, it would be hard to match that performance. What’s more, they did it the way the Caps have done it with too little frequency over much of the year. There was Alex Ovechkin taking a feed from Marcus Johansson for a one timer that beat Calgary goaltender Miikka Kiprusoff cleanly on the short side. There was Troy Brouwer crowding Kiprusoff, screening the initial shot, collecting the rebound and sweeping it around Kiprusoff. There was Dennis Wideman jumping into a hole on the weak side of the San Jose defense, taking a feed from Alexander Semin from behind the goal line on the other side of the ice, and snapping it into the net before Sharks’ goalie Antti Niemi could get across the paint.

The week gave the Caps power play goals in six of their last eight games and made them 7-for-18 (38.9 percent) over those eight games, lifting them to sixth overall in the league. But the problem for the week is the “four” and for the last eight games the “18.” Fewer than three opportunities a game is not enough for the Caps to make teams pay, and the Caps are not a good enough 5-on-5 team at the moment (16th) to make up for the lack of man advantage opportunities.

Penalty Killing: 6-for-7/85.7 percent (season: 82.5%/rank:15th)

This is another area in which the Caps have played well of late. They did allow a power play goal to San Jose in the second game of the week, but that was the first one in which they allowed one since giving up a pair in a 4-2 loss to Buffalo on December 26th. In the four games following, including the first of this week (all wins), the Caps killed off all 11 shorthanded situations they faced. But, as is often the case, it was the one that got away that was critical. Brent Burns scored for San Jose with 8.2 seconds in the first period of the 5-2 loss to San Jose to give the Sharks the lead at the second intermission. If there was a dark side to the penalty kill this week, that goal against San Jose makes it three times in the last four road games that the Caps have allowed at least one power play goal.

Paying the Price: 46 hits/46 blocked shots (season rank: T-16th/16th)

Two more games with more than 20 blocked shots made it five in the last six games for Washington. The more impressive performance of the week in that regard was in the 3-1 win over Calgary. The Caps blocked 24 of 54 shot attempts (44.4 percent). Although the Caps blocked another 22 shots in the 5-2 loss to San Jose, they came on a total of 75 shot attempts (29.3 percent).

Hits tell another story, and that might be titled, “Matt Hendricks.” Hendricks has been engaging in fisticuffs with less regularity these days http://www.japersrink.com/2012/1/5/2684343/the-noon-number but this week, his hits came at a quite frequent pace. In only 15:22 of total ice time for the week, covering 20 shifts, Hendricks had eight hits to lead the Caps for the week.

Faceoffs: 69-for-128/53.9 percent (season: 51.2 percent/rank:T-8th)

The Caps split the games and won the week. But there was a disturbing set of numbers attached to this category. The Caps were spot on in taking draws in the offensive zone, winning 23 of 33 in the two games (69.7 percent). However, they were poor in their own end – 22-for -51 (43.1 percent) – and the 18 faceoff difference between those taken in the offensive zone and those taken in the defensive end is not the sort of difference one would like to see.

Turnovers: plus-1

It was a much better week in this regard than last week (minus-24). Twelve different Caps split 15 takeaways. They spread it around rather well, if the volume was not especially high.

Impressions:

As a fan, sometimes we get greedy, thinking that wins are expected and losses are unacceptable. The Caps won four games in a row, including one this week, renewing fans’ hopes that they had turned a corner. And then, they went west to a place they had not won in more than 18 years. Yes, the Caps have a long history of struggles on the left coast (25-47-9 against team in California, including the defunct California Seals). But the San Jose Sharks took the ice for their fourth game in six nights and yet won with a finishing kick of three goals in the third period. It was a game that the Caps very well could have won. But they were missing two essential ingredients to their success – Nicklas Backstrom and (for the last half of the game) Mike Green. If there was a takeaway from the San Jose game it is still that the Caps are not getting as much as they need from the undercard of roster to win games like this, even against a good team that might have been tired. Remember that when late February rolls around and teams are looking for those last pieces to make a run at a Stanley Cup.

A NO-point night -- Game 39: Sharks 5 - Capitals 2

2012-01-08T08:08:00.001-05:00

Well, the Washington Capitals will have to wait at least another year. For the 12th consecutive time since October 30, 1993, the Capitals skated onto the ice in San Jose search of a win, and for the 12th consecutive time skated off the ice without one, dropping a 5-2 decision to the Sharks. The Caps are now 0-11-1 in those last 12 visits. Quite a price to pay, one supposes, for winning in their first three visits to San Jose after the Sharks debuted in the NHL.

Speaking of “price to pay,” the Caps might have paid one in this loss, too. Mike Green skated nine shifts and seven minutes, departing the game after the 10:06 mark of the second period with what was described lateras “tightness” in his groin. Green has now played in three games since October 22nd, leaving two of them early with injury and skating (for him) light minutes in the third.

It had the appearance of affecting the Caps, who had to finish the last 29:54 with only five defensemen. The Caps would open the third period down by a 2-1 margin, their goal coming from Dennis Wideman, who jumped into a void on the weak side and converted a nice passing play that started from Troy Brouwer on the left side to Alexander Semin behind the Sharks’ net and back out to Wideman on the other side for the shot and the goal. Joel Ward scored his first goal in 26 games 44 seconds into the third period to tie the game as reward for his winning a battle with Michal Handzus for the puck in the left wing corner. Ward steered the puck out to Jason Chimera, who sent it out to Dennis Wideman at the far point. Wideman made a good play to keep the puck in the offensive zone, then sent it to the net where it found its way onto Ward’s stick. With goalie Antti Niemi out of position from defending the first shot, Ward stepped out and fired the puck past Niemi into what was now an open net.

However, San Jose regained the lead 16 seconds after the Ward goal on what was a bad play by Karl Alzner. First, his half-clearing attempt/half pass up the left wing wall was muffled enough by Joe Pavelski that Dan Boyle could keep the puck in at the blue line. Boyle sent the puck diagonally across the ice to Joe Thornton, who deftly backhanded the puck to Patrick Marleau, who beat Alzner to the front of the net. Marleau slipped the puck past goalie Tomas Vokoun, and the Sharks had the lead they would not surrender.

Marc-Edouard Vlasic, who took advantage of some questionable judgment from defenseman Dmitry Orlov, scored the insurance goal mid-way through the period. Orlov got caught chasing Ryan Clowe at the top of the right wing circle. Clowe backed off Orlov, pulling the puck out of Orlov’s reach, then sending it to Vlasic darting toward the Washington net. With only Dennis Wideman and Alexander Semin back, Vlasic was able to use his skate to control the puck, shoot, then snap in his own rebound before either Wideman or Semin could do anything.

And empty net goal from Torrey Mitchell closed the scoring and ended the Caps winning streak at four games, extending their winless streak in San Jose to 12 games.

Other stuff…

-- One of the keys was to “make it special.” That is, San Jose is an effective 5-on-5 team, so the Caps had to win the special teams battle. They did not. They did get one goal on the power play on their only opportunity of the night. But the Sharks matched the Caps with a power play goal by Brent Burns with only nine seconds left in the second period. With San Jose skating to form and winning the 5-on-5 portion of the game, 3-1 (one of those was an empty netter, and the Sharks scored a fourth even-strength goal at 4-on-4), it was not going to end well with so few power play opportunities. The lack of opportunity was especially unfortunate given San Jose’s league worst penalty kill at home.

-- Nice to see Joel Ward end that long streak without a goal. Better to see the way he did it – win a battle, go to the net, convert a loose puck. The Caps need a lot more of that, not just from Ward, but other guys whose living is made at the front of the net.

-- Maybe it’s a western thing. The 39 shots the Caps allowed was the most they allowed since giving up 43 to Vancouver on October 29th. The last four times the Caps have allowed more than 35 shots on goal, they did so to Western Conference teams (Vancouver, Dallas, Columbus, and San Jose).

-- Not a good night for the captain. Alex Ovechkin saw his points streak ended at seven games, he was held to three shots on goal (seven attempts), took a roughing penalty and was on ice for three Shark goals (including the empty-netter).

-- You could just chalk it up to almost a lost cause for the Young Guns in general. With Nicklas Backstrom out, Mike Green leaving early, and Alex Ovechkin getting shutout points-wise, Alexander Semin did record an assist (on the Wideman power play goal) but managed only one shot on goal and was one of the Caps (with Wideman) who got a good look at the Vlasic goal that put space between the Sharks and Caps at 4-2.

-- The Caps had to go with five defensemen to fill in the minutes left on the ice with Green off it, but the Sharks were playing their fourth game in six nights, too.

-- The Sharks have been playing clean hockey of late – one power play opportunity allowed in their last two games (including this one).

-- That whole allowing no third period goals streak ended with a thud. The Caps had outscored teams, 10-0, in third period over their last six games. Last night, they were outscored, 3-1, in the third period.

-- Caps fans were given a chilling look at life without Nicklas Backstrom and the lack of center depth behind him. Brooks Laich, Marcus Johansson, and Jeff Halpern combined for no points, six shots on goal, won only 25 of 60 draws (41.7 percent, each of the three falling under 50 percent), and had one takeaway (Johansson).

-- The Caps were out-attempted, 75-60, in shots and out-shot, 39-30. Only Douglas Murray for the Sharks did not record a shot on goal. It was by no means Tomas Vokoun’s best game in goal for the Caps – not even his best game this week. But San Jose was too successful in tilting the ice to the Capitals’ end.

-- Part of that tilt was the Caps’ inability to win draws in their own end. They were 10-for-29 on defensive zone draws (34.5 percent). That there were only 21 draws in the San Jose end is another indicator of the tilt in the ice.

In the end, one might think this was a game for the taking after Joel Ward tied the game in the first minute of the third period. But that was probably a mirage. San Jose dominated zone possession, and the Caps were skating with more or less four defensemen after Mike Green retired for the night (John Carlson, Karl Alzner, Dennis Wideman, and Roman Hamrlik all skated more than 22 minutes).

And it does not get much better. The Caps now go to Los Angeles, where at least they have won since the invention of the hockey stick (December 14, 2005), but will play a team in the Kings that has won the last four decisions between the teams by a combined score of 16-8.

Yippee.

The Peerless Prognosticator is ON THE AIR!!! -- Game 39: Capitals at Sharks, January 7th

2012-01-07T08:50:00.000-05:00

The Peerless Prognosticator is ON THE AIR!!!

Do they know how to play San Jose
They’ve been away so long
They may go wrong and lose their way
Do they know how to play San Jose
They’re goin’ back to find
A win of any kind in San Jose

LA is a great big ice rink
Only there will fans show up in mink
In a week, maybe two, they’ll take you to Pink’s
Weeks turn into years, how quick they pass
And all the stars that never were
Are ridin’ pine or kickin’ ass

You can really seethe in San Jose
They’ve had a lot of time
During the spring when they don’t play
The Caps have lost a lot in San Jose
They’re goin’ back to find
A win of any kind in San Jose

Goals and helpers are a magnet
It can pull you far from your D-zone
But a system means you’re never alone
Schemes turn into tools to find your way
And there you are to make a play
That’s sure to take your breath away

The Caps won’t have a friend in San Jose
Can they win a game in San Jose

LA is a great big ice rink
Only there will fans show up in mink
In a week, maybe two, they’ll take you to Pink’s
Weeks turn into years, how quick they pass
And all the stars that never were
Are ridin’ pine or kickin’ ass

The Caps won’t have a friend in San Jose, oh...oh...
Can they win a game in San Jose, mmm...mmm...
Victory tonight San Jose…

Well, we can hope. The Caps last won a hockey game in San Jose on October 30, 1993. That was 6,642 days ago. It would not surprise anyone to know that Peter Bondra scored a goal in that game. The Caps also had goals from Craig Berube, Keith Jones, and Mike Ridley. Brian Curran (we are not making this up) was plus-2 for the Caps. If you knew Brian Curran was once a Cap, you spend too much time watching hockey.

Among current Caps, Dmitry Orlov was two years, three months, and seven days old in Novokuznetsk, Russia. Marcus Johansson celebrated his fourth birthday just 24 days earlier in Landskrona, Sweden. John Carlson was a four-year old perhaps dreaming his first dreams of scoring a tournament-clinching goal. Mike Knuble was still at the University of Michigan, on his way to a 32-goal season for the Wolverines in the only year during his four years in Ann Arbor that his team would not reach the NCAA Frozen Four.

It’s been awhile.

But as for the current editions of the Capitals and Sharks, here is how they fallout, numbers-wise:

(click pic for larger image)

Both teams are coming in on streaks. San Jose has won three in a row, allowing only four goals in the process. On the other hand, they have scored only seven. Washington comes in on a four-game streak, having allowed only five goals in those games while scoring 14 of their own.

1. Although the Sharks are 4-1-1 in their last six games, they have done it while struggling on the power play. They are only 2-for-23 in those six games (8.7 percent).

2. No player having played in at least 30 games for the Sharks so far this season is playing to lower than a plus-1. Five Sharks are plus-10 or better (only one Capital – Karl Alzner – is in plus-double digits at plus-11).

3. The Sharks have won five games via the Gimmick; Ryan Clowe has three of the game-winners.

4. Only Boston (47) has allowed fewer 5-on-5 goals than San Jose (49). Oddly enough, only three teams have allowed more goals at 4-on-4 (Carolina, Ottawa, and Columbus). More from the goals-allowed department, only Ottawa has allowed more power play goals at home than the Sharks

5. San Jose can beat you close, and they can beat you big. The Sharks are one of only six teams that have a better than .500 record in one-goal, two-goal, and three-or-more goal decisions. Not even the Boston Bruins are in this group.

1. Alexander Semin has gone four games without taking a minor penalty. It might not sound like much, but it is his longest penalty-free streak of the season. He has not had a longer one since a seven-game streak from January 8th through February 20th of last season.

2. The Capitals like space. No team has more than the nine 4-on-4 goals scored by the Caps so far this season, and they have a sizable lead on the three teams tied for second, who have six goals apiece.

3. Shooting the puck seems to agree with them, too. Only two teams have better records than the Caps’ 12-5-0 record when outshooting the opponent.

4. You wonder where the offense will come from against San Jose. The Caps’ skaters have a combined 31 goals in 187 man-games against the Sharks. Twelve of them come from Mike Knuble (20 career games) and Jason Chimera (22 career games), who have six apiece.

5. Do not expect to see Michal Neuvirth breaking Tomas Vokoun’s streak of appearances. Neuvirth has never beaten San Jose (three decisions) and has a 3.37 GAA and .897 save percentage to go with it.

The Peerless’ Players to Ponder

San Jose: Joe Thornton

Joe Thornton is the axle around which the wheels of the Sharks’ offense turn. Often accused of not shooting enough (he is seventh on his own team in shots on goal), he is among the most adept passers in the game (fourth among active players in career assists). But it is the power play that is of concern here. Thornton is 12-20-32 in 33 career games against Washington, 6-8-14 of that on the power play. If he is left unmolested to conjure his magic, it could be a long night for the visitors.

Washington: Joel Ward

Yes, there is the whole 25 games without a goal thing going on, but Joel Ward does have four goals in 11 career games against the Sharks, including a goal in his last visit to San Jose with Nashville last March. The Caps need to get some more frequent and more reliable scoring from him and his line to extend this recent run of success for the Caps. There is no better time or place to start than in San Jose tonight.

Keys:

1. If you can’t make it plain, make it special. Both teams have scored 73 goals at 5-on-5 this season, but while the Caps have allowed 79 goals at full and even strength, the Sharks have allowed only 49. On the other hand, the Caps are only 3-for-20 on the power play in road games under Dale Hunter (15.0 percent) and 21-for-27 on the penalty kill in road games (77.8 percent). The key here might be San Jose’s poor penalty killing record at home – dead last in the league.

2. Focus with a lead. Only four teams have more third period goals than the Caps. They might need some. Only two teams have more wins than San Jose when allowing the first goal of the game.

3. Key on Big Three, but beware the surprises. Three Sharks have more than ten goals – Joe Pavelski, Logan Couture, and Patrick Marleau (the Caps have five such players) and only seven with as many as five goals (the Caps have nine). But surprises lurk on the Shark roster – Jamie McGinn has five goals of his eight goals in home games, for instance. Ryan Clowe has six of eight on San Jose ice. The undercard can kill an opponent here.

In the end, all good things come to an end. That goes for all bad things, too. And this has gone on long enough. The Caps recent run of success has a more authentic feel to it, beating teams with solid play on both sides of the puck with all four wins being multi-goal decisions. San Jose’s three game streak includes one multi-goal decision and includes one in a Gimmick. Two of the wins came against two of the weaker teams in the West – Anaheim and Columbus. Of course, we like the Caps’ chances to end all this nonsense.

Capitals 3 - Sharks 2

Fighting...Does It Matter?

2012-01-06T13:04:00.003-05:00

Fighting is as much a part of hockey lore as the hat trick. You can debate whether it has a place in the game – that argument is as much a value judgment as anything else. But there is a parallel belief that fighting in the sport influences results. The latest exhibit comes from powerscouthockey.com, who engaged in some research “to seek out an answer to the only important issue about fighting in the NHL; does it matter?”

We have to give it to the folks who engaged themselves in the research, they certainly dove deep into the data, researching more than 1,500 fights going back to the start of the 2009 season. Their preliminary findings were two in number:

- A fight INCREASES momentum from one or both teams 76% of the time, but in only 34% of fights does one or both teams LOSE momentum.

- A fight INCREASES momentum from both teams about 1 out of every 4 fights (23% of fights), but rarely do both teams LOSE momentum (only 4% of fights) (emphasis the authors’).

To which we say…”so what?” Let’s go back to the original question the researchers asked, “does it matter?” This is essentially a question about outcomes. And in any competitive enterprise, the issue underlying the question “does it matter?” is not one of whether momentum is or is not influenced, but whether the outcome – which side wins – is influenced.

Wins, accumulated in sufficient number, will qualify a team for post-season play. So, do playoff-eligible teams rack up fights (if our hypothesis is that fights influence the outcome of wins and losses)? Well, we do not have to sift through reams of data to find an answer to that question. We need only look at how teams are ranked in fighting majors and identify those teams that were eligible for post-season play (the desired outcome).

We did just that for seasons starting with the 2007-2008 campaign (our decision criterion for which season to start with: laziness – we did not care to go back further). It is easy to display the results graphically. For the sake of general comparison, we broke the rankings into thirds – the top-ten fighting teams, the middle ten, and a lowest ten (playoff teams in yellow, eventual Stanley Cup winner in red).

In 2007-2008, we have the following:

Five teams in the uppermost third, six in the middle third, five in the lowest third, including the champion Detroit Red Wings finishing 30th in fights. In this instance, fighting did not appear to influence an “outcome,” if by the term you mean wins and losses. Detroit, Montreal, and Washington, among others, seemed to do fine without the fisticuffs.

In 2008-2009:

The numbers, by thirds, are: eight, three, and five (including, again, the eventual Cup winner). And, as was the case in the previous year, neither of the Cup finalists were ranked highly in fights over the course of the regular season.

In 2009-2010:

Seven of the 16 playoff-eligible teams were in the bottom third of fights, and 11 in the bottom half. True, Philadelphia (the Stanley Cup runner-up) finished second in the fight rankings, but fighting as a rule was not a path to wins in totals that would make teams playoff-eligible.

In 2010-2011:

Half of the playoff-eligible teams were ranked in the bottom third of the fight rankings, including one of the Stanley Cup finalists. Boston – the Stanley Cup winner – ranked second, and one might use this as an argument that fighting works. But fighting is not generally employed as a tactic (or even as a reaction) in the playoffs. Boston led the league’s playoff teams with five post-season fights, but that is perhaps as much a product of having played more games (25) than anyone else, except Vancouver (which finished second in fights with four and played 25 games). Two of Boston’s fights came in the first round, one each in the three rounds that followed. Vancouver had two of their fights in the first round, one in each of the last two rounds.

In the 2011-2012 season to date, here are the results:

The numbers by thirds break out into five, six, and five. While this does not provide any conclusive answer to the fundamental question, teams should by now have established a certain personality (with acknowledgment that personnel moves that might be made later might alter that personality somewhat). Fighting does not appear, at least so far this season, to have influenced outcomes in terms of whether it helps teams win and thus achieve playoff-eligible status.

This is the beef we have with the growing field of sports statistics. There is insufficient attention to the relationships between measures and outcomes. The measures are too often “output” related, and inadequately developed to demonstrate how those measures influences wins and losses. We believe this is a product of the relatively young state of the art, not a comment on the methodological aptitude of those trying to advance that art. And we do not want to lump those who have done much to improve the state of the art in with examples such as this.

But let us try to ask the right questions, too. If, in this instance, we are trying to ascertain if fighting influences a result, should the question be whether or not fighting influences (or is at least accompanied by) wins? Having read the preliminary research here and comparing it with win-loss outcomes, we are still left to ask, “does it matter?”

(thanks to a tweet from Neil Greenberg that pointed us to the research...although we do not get the feeling he endorses it...edit: OK, actually, the article by Jim Litke in the Washington Times that pointed us to the research)

A TWO-point night -- Game 38: Capitals 3 - Flames 1

2012-01-04T06:47:00.002-05:00

It is said that nothing beats live hockey. If only it had been played at Verizon Center on Tuesday night.

The Washington Capitals defeated the Calgary Flames, 3-1, to win their fourth game in a row and go 8-3-1 in their last 12 games. They did not do it flashy. It was a game that had few exciting moments, the Caps seemingly unable to pierce the Calgary defense at the Flames’ blue line, and the Flames unable to do anything in the offensive zone but swing the puck around the boards.

The game turned on the Caps’ ability to convert power plays. Alex Ovechkin converted a power play on a one-timer from a feed by Marcus Johansson with only 1:11 gone in the game to get the Caps off and running. Well…running is in the eye of the beholder. Troy Brouwer scored the other power play goal to put the Caps up 2-0 mid-way through the second when he converted an Ovechkin drive while standing at the doorstep.

The teams exchanged even-strength goals after that – one from Calgary’s Curtis Glencross at 13:51 of the second period, the other from Dennis Wideman 3:10 after that. After that it was in the hands of the defenses – the Caps keeping the Flames to the outside and preventing good looks, the Flames getting their sticks into passing lanes to foil Caps entries into the offensive zone. It made for boring hockey (especially when compared to what was going on in the second semi-final of the World Junior Championships between Canada and Russia), but it was ultimately winning hockey for the Caps. And that is the object of the exercise.

Other stuff:

-- Frustration? There was a lot of it. The Flames had more shots blocked (24) than shots on goal (19). The Caps had a total – a total! – of 32 shot attempts. They had as many hits (21) as shots on goal (21).

-- Alex Ovechkin recorded a goal and an assist for his seventh straight game with a point (7-4-11) and fourth consecutive multi-point game. The points streak is his longest since a seven-game streak from February 26th through March 11th last season (4-7-11). The multi-point streak is his longest since a four-game streak from February 4-10, 2010 (6-5-11).

-- Nicklas Backstrom recorded three assists to lift him into third place in the league in helpers. The big night extended his points streak to five games (1-7-8). Whether he will get a chance to extend that to six in San Jose on Saturday is unclear. More on that in a bit.

-- It was not a night for Tomas Vokoun to be breaking in a new set of pads, but he made three saves from point-blank range with the game in the balance that were among his best this season.

-- Jarome Iginla did everything but score his 500th goal in this one – an assist, four shots on goal, seven attempts (both shots and attempts led both teams for the night), a hit, a takeaway, 2-for-4 on faceoffs, and finished plus-1.

-- Rene Bourque, come on down and collect your “Mr. Idiot” prize. First, he wraps Dennis Wideman like a fur stole behind the Capitals’ net in the first minute of the game. Alex Ovechkin pounds home a one-timer on the ensuing power play 35 seconds later to get the Caps off and running. That would have been bad enough, but with 9:54 left and the players near their respective benches, Bourque thought it would be just grand to throw an elbow at Nicklas Backstrom’s head. Backstrom skated two more shifts, then was removed by coach Dale Hunter for precautionary reasons. Backstrom was to be evaluated further sometime today.

-- The 24 blocked shots by the Caps made it four games in a row with at least 20 blocked shots (a total of 89 over the four games). In this one, the duties were spread around. Fifteen different skaters had at least one blocked shot for the Caps, none with more than three (Troy Brouwer, Roman Hamrlik).

-- With the Caps going with 11 forwards and seven defensemen, Mike Knuble got a promotion, skating with Nicklas Backstrom and Marcus Johansson to start the game, although with the odd number of forwards there was a lot of line switching. The 18:35 in ice time he had was the most for him since skating 20:47 against Phoenix on November 21st. Alas, the two minors and four minutes in penalties he took was the most for each since doing the same on November 11th against New Jersey.

-- If fans were expected Mike Green to do more than scrape the rust off his skating, we wonder what it is they do for a living that they could miss almost two months and jump back in to perform at a world-class level. Green was what he was – rusty. He had his moments of moving the puck smartly up ice, but he also had his moments in which he did neither receive nor send a pass well. And there were his two minor penalties of the obstruction variety (holding, interference).

-- The teams combined for a total of 32 even-strength shots. No Cap had more than two even-strength shots for the night, and only Lee Stempniak had as many as three for the Flames.

-- We do not know who the official scorer was, but we had to wonder if he or she was looking at the same faceoffs we were watching. The Caps were credited with winning 34 of 54 draws (63.0 percent). No Cap taking more than one draws finished under 50 percent. We didn’t think the Caps won nearly that many.

-- John Erskine led the Caps in one area last night – shift length. His average shift was 1:12. Of course, he had only four of them. But he had two hits and two blocked shots in those shifts. He made good use of his time.

In the end, it was not an especially exciting game – even the crowd seemed subdued. There was what amounted to a delayed cheer for the Dennis Wideman goal, perhaps a product of fans thinking Marcus Johansson had been hauled down behind the play. Or maybe just a winter weeknight hockey game thing.

That is not to say the game was inconsequential. Of course, there is the win that puts Washington in seventh place in the Eastern Conference, only three points out of the top spot in the Southeast with a game in hand. But perhaps more important for the time being is the condition of Nicklas Backstrom. Caps fans will be waiting eagerly for news of his condition, because his absence from this team for any length of time, given the depth at center, would be crippling on the ice. More important, it is another case of a head shot that imperils a player for no comprehensible reason. The message just does not seem to be getting through. We suspect that Brendan Shanahan will be visiting some justice on Rene Bourque, but we would rather Backstrom just get better quickly.

The Peerless Prognosticator is ON THE AIR!!! -- Game 29: Flames at Capitals, January 3rd

2012-01-03T06:32:00.000-05:00

The Peerless Prognosticator is ON THE AIR!!!

It’s a new year, a chance for a new start, to start anew, to kindle a flame…hey, flame…Flames…that’s who the Caps are playing. The Caps start the 2012 portion of the season by hosting the Calgary Flames. The Flames are not a club the Caps get to face very often, but it is one of the Western Conference teams against which the Caps have had some success in recent years. Since the turn of the millennium, the Caps are 7-2-2 against Calgary, although they have lost two of the last three meetings against the Flames.

The last time these teams met, the Caps turned a 2-1 deficit at the first intermission into a 7-2 lead after 40 minutes with a six-goal second period that included three power play goals and a short-handed penalty shot goal from David Steckel that closed the scoring in a 7-2 win on October 30, 2010.

The last time the clubs met in Washington, it was Calgary skating off with the win, a 5-3 decision on March 28, 2010, in which the Flames raced off to a 5-1 lead in the second period and held on for the win despite Alex Ovechkin recording his 100th point of the 2009-2010 season.

This game finds two teams outside the playoff bubble looking in, although they do happen to be going in opposite directions. The Caps come into this game on a three-game winning streak, and the Flames having lost three in a row. Here is how the teams stack up against one another:

(click pic for larger image)

1. Calgary is adept at coming out on top in one-goal decisions. Seventeen times in 40 games the Flames have been involved in such decisions and have a 9-3-5 record. In games decided by two or more goals they are 9-14.

2. Few teams hit on the road like Calgary. Only three, in fact. Calgary is fourth in the league in hits recorded on the road. The Flames also happen to be second in blocked shots on the road.

3. Calgary does not play well with a lead. First, they do not get the first goal often – only 17 times in 40 games. They have a 10-6-1 record when scoring first, 21st in the league. They have led at the first intermission only 12 times in 40 games and have a 7-4-1 record, fourth-worst in the league.

4. The Flames are one of only three teams in the league not to have scored a 5-on-3 goal this season.

5. Goalie Miikka Kiprusoff is seventh in the league in minutes played among goaltenders, but he is on a pace for 3,911 minutes. If he finishes with fewer than 4,000 minutes played it will be the first time he has done so in any of his seven full seasons in Calgary. The last time he had fewer minutes was in 2002-2003, when he split the season between San Jose and the Flames (3,400 minutes).

1. The last time these teams met, Alex Ovechkin scored power play goals 12 seconds apart. He would go his next 41 games without a power play goal.

2. Intermissions are big for Washington. If they are leading at the first, they are 8-1-1 (12-14-1 when they are not). If they are leading at the second, they are 11-0-0 (9-15-2 when they are not). Now, if they could just be leading more often at the breaks. The Caps are tied for the ninth fewest leads at the first intermission; only two teams (Ottawa and Dallas) have fewer leads at the second break.

3. No team has a wider disparity between their home and road penalty kills than the Caps. With an 89.5 percent home penalty kill and a 76.7 percent road penalty kill, the plus-12.8 point difference is the widest in the league.

4. Similarly for the power play, the 9.8 point difference (22.7 percent at home, 12.9 percent on the road) is the third largest disparity in the league, behind only the Rangers and Tampa Bay.

5. No team has a larger difference of hits at home and on the road than the Caps – 230. Only San Jose has a lower percentage of road hits to home hits than the Caps (55.1 percent to 56.0 percent).

The Peerless’ Players to Ponder

Calgary: Jarome Iginla

Who else? The Calgary Captain’s next goal will be his 500th of his career. Only six of them have come against the Caps in 17 career games. His last one came in a 2-1 Flames win over the Caps on October 21, 2008 in Calgary. The last time he lit the lamp in Washington was in a 3-2 Capitals win on March 12, 2008. Iginla comes into this game with an odd pattern to his recent goal scoring. Starting with his scoring a goal in 5-4 overtime loss to Tampa Bay on December 15th, his pattern in games has been, “goal-no goal-no goal.” If the pattern holds, his having scored against Nashville in his last game means he will not get his 500th in this game, but rather at home against Minnesota on January 7th.

Washington: Jay Beagle

Beagle has been eased back into the lineup since missing more than two months to a concussion. In games against the Rangers and Buffalo, he skated a total of 13:30 (no points recorded), and he did not dress for the game against Columbus on Saturday. Including the four games he has played this year, he has gone 14 games without a point. It would be nice to break that string against his hometown team.
Keys:

1. Win the first period. The Caps have had a good run of third-period success lately, but winning games late is not something that many teams do often in the NHL. Calgary has one win all season when trailing at the first intermission.

2. More Power. The Caps are 13-5-0 when they score at least one power play goal, 7-10-2 when they do not. They have power play goals in each of their last two games (both wins), and four of their last six (3-1-0). Calgary is 5-10-3 when allowing at least one power play goal.

3. Grind for goals. The three members of what has been the “Meat and Potatoes” line did not have a goal last week in four games. Mike Knuble has not had one in his last 11 games. Mathieu Perreault – 18 games without a goal. Matt Hendricks – one in 33 games. It is nice to have the stars playing like stars, but the Caps are going to need something from the undercard among the forwards from time to time, too.

In the end, this is the beginning of the long, slow slog through the winter – a weeknight game against an opponent the Caps do not see often and one that fans might not have much interest in seeing (save for seeing Jarome Iginla). But if the Caps are going to jump into the playoff-eight, they have to win games like these, games against an opponent struggling to put wins together, tonight playing their sixth of a seven-game road trip and losers of their last three. That, and the Caps’ ability to win at home (most standing points per home game in the East), spells a Caps win.

Capitals 3 – Flames 2

The Peerless Prognosticator

The Peerless Prognosticator is ON THE AIR!!! -- Game 49: Capitals at Lightning, January 31st

What can one expect?

The Cousins of the Roundtable: Part V

The Cousins of the Roundtable, Part IV

That Was The Week That Was -- Week 16 (January 22-28)

The Cousins of the Roundtable, Part III

The Cousins of the Roundtable, Part II

The Cousins of the Roundtable, Part I

The Ovechkin Redemption

A TWO-point night -- Game 48: Capitals 5 - Bruins 3

The Transcript You Didn't Get to Read

We Are No-Go for "Launch"

The Peerless Prognosticator is ON THE AIR!!! -- Game 48: Bruins at Capitals: January 24th

A ONE-point night -- Game 47: Penguins 4 - Capitals 3 (OT)

That Was The Week That Was -- Week 15 (January 15-21)

The Peerless Prognosticator is ON THE AIR!!! -- Game 47: Capitals at Penguins: January 22nd

A NO-point night -- Game 46: Hurricanes 3 - Capitals 0

The Peerless Prognosticator is ON THE AIR!!! -- Game 46: Capitals at Hurricanes, January 20th

A Tale of an Opportunity

What's a Captain to Do?...shoot

Caps Throwback Jersey Record Update

A TWO-point night -- Game 45: Capitals 3 - Canadiens 0

The Peerless Prognosticator is ON THE AIR!!! -- Game 45: Capitals at Canadiens, January 18th

A NO-point night -- Game 44: Islanders 3 - Capitals 0

The Peerless Prognosticator is ON THE AIR!!! -- Game 44: Islanders at Capitals, January 17th

A TWO-point night -- Game 43: Capitals 2 - Hurricanes 1

That Was The Week That Was -- Week 14 (January 8 - 14)

The Peerless Prognosticator is ON THE AIR!!! -- Game 43: Hurricanes at Capitals, January 15th

Six of one, half a dozen of another

A TWO-point night -- Game 42: Capitals 4 - Lightning 3

Top Ten Stories of 2011 -- Number 1: "Same Story, Different Year"

The Peerless Prognosticator is ON THE AIR!!! -- Game 42: Lightning at Capitals, January 13th

A TWO-point night -- Game 41: Capitals 1 - Penguins 0

The Peerless Prognosticator is ON THE AIR!!! -- Game 41: Penguins at Capitals, January 11th

A NO-point night -- Game 40: Kings 5 - Capitals 2

Top Ten Stories of 2011 -- Number 2: "A Classic Classic"

Top Ten Stories of 2011 -- Number 3: "Whatever Happened to Alex Ovechkin?"

The Peerless Prognosticator is ON THE AIR!!! -- Game 40: Capitals at Kings, January 9th

That Was The Week That Was -- Week 13 (January 1 - 7)

A NO-point night -- Game 39: Sharks 5 - Capitals 2

The Peerless Prognosticator is ON THE AIR!!! -- Game 39: Capitals at Sharks, January 7th

Fighting...Does It Matter?

Top Ten Stories of 2011 -- Number 4: "Coaching Change"

Top Ten Stories of 2011 -- Number 5: "Goalie Decision"

A TWO-point night -- Game 38: Capitals 3 - Flames 1

Top Ten Stories of 2011 -- Number 6: "Free Agent Frenzy"

The Peerless Prognosticator is ON THE AIR!!! -- Game 29: Flames at Capitals, January 3rd