The Morning After -- Caps vs. Rangers

No points tonight, Caps fans.

“Frustration”

That’s the word that comes to mind thinking about the Caps’ 5-2 loss to the Rangers last night. And there was a lot to be frustrated about . . . a basketball game earlier that day left the ice resembling a gravel parking lot more than a smooth sheet of ice with the pucks bouncing all over the place . . . there was the now-required damage to a pane of glass . . . there was the return to the 90’s refereeing (what was that about obstruction calls being, well, called?) . . . there was the sick feeling as Alex Ovechkin skated in alone on Henrik Lundqvist on a breakaway that there was no way he was going to score (he didn’t, as the puck rolled up the blade of his stick as he attempted a backhand) . . . there was Sean Avery . . . and there was the sinking feeling that this was it, that with the Caps being 8 points out of a playoff spot with 25 games to go and five teams to climb over, that this was the last meaningful game fans would see at Verizon Center this year.

The Caps now go on the road to play a Lightning team desperately hanging onto the eighth-place spot, a streaking Penguins team (14-2-3), and a solid Montreal club. The word coming to mind with respect to the Caps’ chances is, “bleak.”

Frankly, there was no excuse for this one. The Rangers came into Washington on the heels of a 5-0 whitewash of the Lightning, but they did play the previous night and had to travel. Still, the Caps ended up outshot in the first period 6-0 to start the game, 11-1 by the time the Rangers scored the first goal of the game 11:18 in, and 16-6 for the period. The Caps allowed the Rangers to set the tone and dictate the terms of competition pretty much the entire game.

Outwardly, this had the whiff of a “playoff” game for the Caps. Glen Hanlon shortened his bench drastically – four forwards (including Brian Sutherby) had less than ten minutes of playing time. Eric Fehr had one shift in the last 30 minutes. Matt Bradley – two shifts in the last 26 minutes . . . Donald Brashear – one shift in the last 28 minutes (although he did spend five of that in the box for pummeling Colton Orr) . . . Sutherby – two shifts in the last 23 minutes. Both teams trapped more than Jeremiah Johnson.

What this game came down to was experience and passing ability, the Rangers being on the long end of both. The Rangers arguably lost the stat sheet in many respects (hits, faceoffs, takeaways, blocked shots), but they won in one important respect – shots. Much of that was a product of having a club with accomplished passers – Michael Nylander, Jaromir Jagr, Martin Straka – able to find lanes in the trapping Caps defense to get an open shot. By comparison, the Caps once more had a difficult time getting the puck out of their own end, and even when they did could not find open teammates for shots. There was a lot of empty cycling behind the Rangers’ net. Both Caps goals, it should be pointed out, were the product the mysterious "notch" . . . perhaps the result of the afternoon basketball game – odd bounces off boards assembled under time pressure . . . or perhaps the product of an elaborate fix perpetrated by the Caps (Larry Brooks saves some of the best whining in recent history for this problem, not to mention coach Tom Renney, who sounded like the coach of the losing team in the post-game) that resulted in goals by Alexander Ovechkin and Chris Clark. Neither goal was the result of an actual pass to a player.

The Caps did play a decent game on defense, the final score serving to obscure that point. The Rangers had only one 5-on-5 goal (Straka’s second of the night 6:09 into the third period). But the Caps gave the Rangers a bit too much time and space to make plays, and ultimately it broke them down. There is a fine line between giving a skilled opponent enough respect and giving them too much. That Nylander, Jagr, and Straka had a total of six points among them tonight suggests the Caps were on the wrong side of that line, and that is a problem only experience will solve. So fans . . .

The Peerless Prognosticator is ON THE AIR!!! -- Caps vs. Rangers, February 10th

The Peerless Prognosticator is ON THE AIR!!!

Tonight, the opponent is the New York Rangers, or as Larry Brooks might say, “the only hockey club worthy of the name.” Well, it looks as if they’re worthy enough to draw what could be, if not a sellout, then the biggest crowd of the year at Verizon Center.

If you were to look at the Blueshirts over the year, you might be humming something like this. The Rangers have had three winning streaks of three games or more, two losing streaks of three games or more, and even a three game overtime/shootout loss streak.

At the moment, they are lost in a 4-7-1 stretch that has seen their shaky playoff hopes fall to the other side of the top-eight divide. They currently reside in 11^th place in the East, three points ahead of the Caps with a game in hand.

The Rangers have been something of an “all-or-nothing” club over their last dozen games. Their four wins have been by a combined 16-3 margin. They’ve also had a “just short” kind of performance. Including the shootout loss, they have five one-goal losses among the eight they registered.

Offense has been a problem. Explosive on occasion – witnessed by 5-0 and 6-1 wins -- they scored a total of 21 goals in the other ten games. The power play is a particular culprit, as much for the chances they’ve managed to generate as of productivity. 47 chances in 12 games is not an especially large number of chances (3.9-per-game, lower than their 5.0 chances-per-game for the year, which is already only 19^th in the league), and converting only seven of those (14.9 percent) hasn’t made up for it. Fortunately for the Rangers, their penalty killing has been excellent – 41 of 46 (89.1 percent) over the last 12 games.

Another problem has been holding leads. The Rangers scored first in six of their past seven games. It hardly seems to have mattered; they’re 3-3 in those six games scoring first.

As one might expect, the offense begins with Jaromir Jagr. But that is not saying as much this year as last. His assist totals are on a pace with last year’s (67 versus last year’s total of 69), but his goal scoring is down (a pace for 31 versus 54 last year), an obvious product of the shoulder injury he sustained in the playoffs last spring. Over his last 12 games he leads the club in scoring (5-12-7, -1), but he seems not to be the dynamic presence hockey fans are used to seeing. Michael Nylander has picked up some of the slack (4-8-12, -5 in the last 12 games), but the real curiosity on this club is Brendan Shanahan. The left winger is 4-4-8, -3 in his last 12 games, but the odd statistic he will bring to the game tonight is that he has two even strength goals scored in the last two months. The Rangers are 11-14-1 over that span.

Henrik Lundqvist recorded the 5-0 shoutout win over Tampa Bay last night (thanks…I think), and given the Rangers’ growing sense of urgency with respect to the playoffs, he seems likely to get the call tonight as well. Why not? He’s played every one of the last dozen games, and done so very well – certainly better than the win-loss record. Over that span, he has the 4-7-1 record, but also has a 2.01 GAA and .926 save percentage.

For the Caps, the object of the exercise is to close strong on the homestand. So far, they have five of six possible points, and they face a beatable team tonight. These are teams in similar circumstances (the Caps also are 4-7-1 in their last dozen games). Both clubs have shown signs of emerging from their respective funks – the Caps have that 2-0-1 record on this home stand, the Rangers are 1-1-1 with a shutout of the Lightning, a shootout loss in New Jersey, and a one-goal loss to the Red Wings.

It would be nice to get Alexander Ovechkin restarted on his goal scoring march, but that is a matter somewhat overblown (the four-game goal draught comes on the heels of having scored goals in five of six games – these things happen with goal scorers). The bigger issue is the power play, which is 2-for-February (24 chances) and 7-for-56 (12.5 percent) since scoring a late power play goal in a 3-1 loss to Florida on January 13^th. And, as for the Rangers, the fortunate aspect of this is that the Caps’ penalty kill has been very good (54 kills in the last 62 situations – 87.1 percent).

So that’s what this might come down to . . . the limp forces (the teams’ power play) versus the immovable objects (the teams’ penalty kill). If either club gets any power play production, it is likely to be the difference.

It says here that the difference is Ovechkin getting back on track with power play success . . .

Caps 3 – Rangers 2.