The Peerless Prognosticator is ON THE AIR!!! -- Eastern Conference Quarterfinals Game 7: Caps vs. Rangers

The Peerless Prognosticator is ON THE AIR!!!

It’s Game 7 for all the marbles, the whole enchildada, the whole shootin’ match, there is no tomorrow, it’s do or die, fish or cut bait, live or die, and for these teams, it might be all about pressure and who can handle it best. If you’re New York Rangers coach John Tortorella, you’re planting the seed today that all of the pressure is now on the Capitals, they being the favorite in this series to begin with. According to Torto—

“Ah, vutt duss he know about pressure?”

Professor?

“Dat guy, hiss name zounds like zum kind of zalad I get mitt my dinner – weinerschnitzel mitt die Tortorella on ze side.”

Still, about the pressure on these teams.

“Ja, ja…pressure. Let me tell you about pressure. Ze scientific pr-r-r-roperties of pressure are qvite zimple, really. Let me zhow you…"

“Zee? Pressure ee-qvalls vutt ve call ze ‘normal force’ divided by ze area. Now, here iss vere tings get a little more complicated for ze Rangers. Ze normal force does not apply here. Vy?”

I don’t know, Professor.

“Ach! Und you call yourzelf a pr-r-r-rognosticator! It is ze AB-normal force zat izz important here.”

And zat…I mean, that would be?

“You tell me, schmarty pents.”

Ovechkin?

“Zee? You do heff a brain!”

Well, we try.

“Don’t get carried avay…Now, you zee, ze ab-normal force applied to ze area of ze hockey rink can heff ver-r-r-r-ry interestink effects of ze outcome of the egg-shperiment.”

You mean the hockey game.

“Ja, vutt-ever…anyvay, ze ab-normal force in ziss instance is apr-r-r-roaching a constant.”

You mean the fact that he has a goal in each of his last three games.

“Ja! Ver-r-r-r-ry goot! You sure you aren’t a vizziks schtudent?”

Not since college, Prof.

“OK, now…vee contr-r-r-ol for ze Ovechkin factor, but vee heff not accounted for all ze variables on pressure. Vutt are vee missink?”

Tell us, Professor…

“Ah, you remember zat for every action, zere iss a reaction, ja?”

I seem to remember that…

“Vell, here, for vun Alex, vee heff a corresponding Alex egg-zerting force on ze hockey rink.”

You mean Semin.

“Egg-sackly!”

And he has more goals than Ovechkin in this series.

“Ja, but mit Semin, ze force is a bit more variable. He had vunn goal in Game Vun, no goals in Game Two, two goals in Game Three, did not heff vun in Game Four, had vun in Game Five, and vuss mitout vun in Game Six.”

So…

“Ze mass-a-matical function predicts he vill heff at least vun goal tonight.”

Can’t argue with that. But what about the other side of the rink? The Rangers haven’t ever lost a series in which they led three games to one. Is there any pressure on that side of the rink?

“Ah, you betcha!”

And there is, I suppose, some mathematical formula to show that?

“Nein…zey play in New York. Iff zey lose, zey vill never hear ze end of it until next Zeptember.”

What about Henrik Lundqvist? He was dominating early in the series, but he has been somewhat less than that in Games Five and Six. What sort of pressure is on him?

“More pressure zenn Don Koharski leaning up against a donut case.”

Good one, Prof.

“I’ve been zaving zat vun.”

But seriously, we hear that Lundqvist won’t have three bad games in a row. Anything to that?

“Vell, it’s not eggscakly unheard of. Earlier ziss year, he had three conzeckutiff games in which he allowed four or more goals.”

That would be December 23rd to December 29th, against the Caps, Devils, and Islanders, in which he allowed four, four, and five goals.

“Ja, and zeen zere iss zat real schinker of a run he had in early Dezember…”

Six, three, and eight goals allowed in consecutive games to Montreal, Calgary, and the Devils. He’s never done it in a playoff series, though.

“Ja, und until he allowed nine goals in two games against the Caps in 80 minutes, he hedd not allowed more than three goals in conzeckutiff games in ze playoffs, either.”

And, he’s allowed 14 goals in his last four games, covering 199:52 of play…that’s a 4.20 GAA.

“You’re pr-r-r-retty goot mit de mass-a-matiks your zelf.”

Thanks, Prof. I take it then, that there is more pressure on Lundqvist in this game?

“Oh, ab-zo-lutely. Zere iss a mooltiplier effect here. Iff you take ze lack of offense on ze part of ze Rangers…”

You mean six goals in their last five games…

“Ja, zat compunds ze problem for Lundqvist. Not only has he allowed zo many goals, but now, the Rangers heff to be sinking zat Lundqvist hess to…how do you say it?”

Pitch a shutout?

“Eggsackly! Pitch a shutout to vinn.”

And with the opposing forces of the constant of Ovechkin and the variable of Semin that would argue for some production in this game.

“It schpells ‘doom’ for ze Rangers.”

Nothing is guaranteed. All the Capitals have done in forcing a Game 7 is give themselves a chance to win a series they should, in fact, win. But the whole notion of pressure is, to our way of thinking, a product of sportwriters, fans, and Tony Kornheiser.

Players have dreamt about such moments since they were kids – Canadian boys on a pond dreaming it was Game 7 of a playoff game, and the puck is on their stick. European kids dreaming of perhaps making the big save to win an Olympic gold medal or World Championship. A youngster in New England with thoughts of stuffing home a rebound in the last second of a championship game.

Frankly, we’re thinking that fans are feeling more pressure than the players are.

For the players, it’s just a matter of going out to, as the late Herb Brooks put it, “play your game.” If both teams do that, the talent and the momentum are tilted steeply to the Capitals’ end of the ice. In a one-game playoff, a goalie – either goalie – could be an outsized factor. But the Capitals are deeper, more talented, on a roll. And the other goalie has had his struggles lately.

Tonight is the Capitals’ “final exam” of sorts, the product of lessons learned in last year’s Game 7 overtime loss to the Philadelphia Flyers. They’ve spent a year studying. Think they’ll pass, Professor?

“Oh, ja…based on ziss zimple arizzmetic, mit flying colors…”

Caps 4 – Rangers 1

Eastern Conference Quarterfinals Game 6: Caps 5 - Rangers 3

.735

If you’re a hitter in major league baseball, that’s a helluva slugging percentage. If you’re an NBA basketball player, it’s a passable free throw shooting percentage. If you’re an NFL quarterback, it’s a fantastic completion percentage.

If you’re an NHL goalie, and that’s your save percentage, you suck.

And yet, that is Henrik Lundqvist’s save percentage (nine goals allowed on 34 shots) in the last two games, the latter being a 5-3 win by the Caps to force a Game 7 on Tuesday night at Verizon Center. He was pulled in both contests, the first time in his career he was pulled in consecutive games.

One could say that the Caps have found that hole they’ve been looking for on Lundqvist – high glove (gee, as if there isn’t a goaltender who can’t be beaten there), but that would be simplistic. What the Caps have done is create space for shooters to get shots off before Lundqvist can get square to the shot. And, the Caps have crowded Lundqvist’s crease to manage getting opportunities from in tight.

Of the former, nothing illustrated that more than the first two Capitals goals of the game. Milan Jurcina scored the first of them when he collected a pass and without a Ranger impeding the path launched a shot past Lundqvist on the glove side. But that was merely the end of a process. It started with Brooks Laich harassing Nikolai Zherdev along the far wall, enough that Zherdev coughed up the puck, whereupon Matt Bradley took control of it, sidestepping Zherdev and nudging the biscuit down the wall to David Steckel. With his back to the play, Steckel flicked the puck to Laich, who had circled back into the play. Laich slid it across to Jurcina, and before defenseman Paul Mara could recover to get into the shooting lane, Jurcina let fly for the goal. It started with pressure in the Ranger zone and kept the defense from establishing their shot blocking stance that has been so important to the Rangers in nullifying the Caps offense for much of the series.

The second goal – off the stick of Mike Green – involved the sort of random chance that occurs on power plays. Tom Poti backpedalled with the puck from the left wing point to the top of the Ranger zone, then fed Alexander Semin in the left win g faceoff circle. Semin hitched, then fired, the puck deflecting out to Green on the other side of the play. No Ranger was in a position to challenge Green, and without that sort of challenge, Green launched a shot that beat Lundqvist…on the glove side.

After that, it was the Capitals’ transition game that was on display. First, Marc Staal was pinned along the left wing boards with nowhere to go and no puck in his possession. It left Dan Girardi alone to defend a 3-on-1 breaking the other way, Tom Poti leading David Steckel and Boyd Gordon the other way. Poti fed Gordon in the middle, who pushed the puck off to Steckel, who threaded a pass to Poti at the near post, and it was all over before Lundqvist could step back across to keep the puck out of the net.

The second instance was much more basic. Tom Poti collected the puck in the far corner of the defensive zone and pushed it ahead to Viktor Kozlov at the Capitals’ line. Kozlov skated out of the zone, pushing Marc Staal off as he sped (or at least as much as Kozlov “speeds”) toward the Ranger end. At the Ranger line, Kozlov pulled the puck inside, and Staal got his feet scrambled, allowing Kozlov to cut for the net. Just before crashing into Lundqvist, Kozlov lifted the puck over the sprawled goalie, and the rout was on.

All that was left was a pretty deflection by Alex Ovechkin of a Tom Poti drive, and some window dressing stat padding for the Rangers. And all of a sudden, from a 3-1 hole, the Caps have a chance – a chance, mind you – to win a game 7 for only the second time in franchise history after being down 3-1.

Other stuff…

- Nikolai Zherdev was, to be charitable, awful. Between his shying away from a Brooks Laich hit that led directly to the Jurcina goal to missing an open net on a backhand when the score was still only 3-1 nine minutes into the second period, Zherdev had a difficult time. For the series he has no points and is a minus-3.

- Scott Gomez had a nice deflection off a Wade Redden shot from the point for a Ranger goal and assisted on a goal by Ryan Callahan, but he continued his own difficulties, finishing the afternoon having been on the ice for two goals – going minus-2 – and losing 11 of 19 draws.

- Much was made at the start of this series about Marc Staal and Dan Girardi getting the assignment of defending the Caps’ big guns. That defensive pair was on the ice for goals three, four, and five for the Caps.

- Let’s face it though…eight power plays allowed (including two 5-on-3 situations) is a recipe for disaster against most teams, even the Rangers in a Game 7. The Caps took a whopping 11 minor penalties and spent a total of 12:29 shorthanded.

- OK, so… a Shaone Morrisonn hat trick is what… a hit, a penalty, and a chomp?

- Simeon Varlamov has been very good. He hasn’t been called upon to be great, at least not very often, and today was another case in point. In the five games in which Varlamov has played, he has faced only 130 shots. Today he faced 32, but only allowed one goal on the first 24 shots he faced, when the game was still in doubt, and only 23 shots came at even strength. The Caps have been playing pretty well in front of him. But his stop on Brandon Dubinsky on a 2-on-1 after Dubinsky screwed John Erskine into the ice at the blue line with a move was huge. The Caps scored the first goal of the game immediately after the ensuing TV time out.

- The Rangers have a total of six goals on those 130 shots, half of them coming in this game, and two of those long after the competitive portion of the afternoon had been completed.

- In the past two games Alex Ovechkin has played “only” 20:21 and 20:50 of ice time. As if he needs more energy.

- At the other end, John Erskine passed the 20 minute ice time mark for the first time in the series. It was the most ice time he’s had since getting 21:21 against Pittsburgh on January 14th and is the second highest ice time mark he’s had this year.

- The Rangers were 5-for-18 on defensive zone draws. Wrong way to stop a team that has found its offensive stroke.

- This was the first four-point game for Tom Poti since February 19, 2004, when he registered four assists as his Rangers beat the Islanders, 6-2. Surprisingly, Poti was not one of the three stars of that game (Jaromir Jagr, Matthew Barnaby, Mike Dunham).

- Picking up on a theme we noted in the pregame, Henrik Lundqvist is now 1-5, 3.99, .870 in playoff games past Game Four of a series for his career.

- We’ll be very surprised if Donald Brashear dresses for Game 7. The hit on Blair Betts was suspension-worthy. There just isn’t any way to sugar coat it or explain it away. Betts was vulnerable in open ice, did not have the puck, and got blindsided by Brashear. It was an ugly footnote to an otherwise excellent Capitals performance on the road.

- It’s worth noting that Brashear’s day ended, not on the Betts hit, but upon his taking a hooking penalty 3:53 into the second period. He served his time, skated back across to the Caps bench upon its expiration, and did not see the ice again.

Before the series started, Rangers coach John Tortorella said that “home ice only comes into effect in Game 7." Well, here we are. One game – in Washington’s arena – for the right to play in May. But this is, as we harped on early, first to four, not first to three. And that fourth one – as the Caps so painfully learned last year – is the hardest of all to win. We’re going to find out if that was a lesson learned well, because if the Caps play as well and with as much focus as they have shown in Games Five and Six, the ending should be much more to the liking of the boys and their fans than was the case last year.

The Peerless Prognosticator is ON THE AIR!!! -- Eastern Conference Quarterfinals, Game 6 -- Caps vs. Rangers

The Peerless Prognosticator is ON THE AIR!!!

It’s Game Six in this first round series between the New York Rangers and the Capitals, and with all the twists and turns it has taken, it seems as if this series began in November.

But today, we are thinking…”paper.”

That’s right, paper. In our never ending search for the horse that escaped the barn before the door was closed, we came across this site, and their award-winning design for a paper water bottle.

That’s right, a paper water bottle. If the Rangers had stumbled upon this idea, John Tortorella would have had a better chance of being behind the Ranger bench this afternoon. As it is, he will be sitting this one out, the victim, if you will, of a suspension from the league for heaving a water bottle into the stands at a fan who was suggesting that perhaps the Rangers needed to actually score a goal to win a hockey game. Tortorella, like just about everyone else on the Ranger bench, missed his target and conked a female season ticket holder in the noggin.

And here we thought “Propel” was a brand of water, not a how-to-use direction for the consumer.

“A quick temper will make a fool of you soon enough."

Cheerless?

"Hey cuz…"

Is that something you made up?

"Nope…Bruce Lee...'Men are like steel. When they lose their temper, they lose their worth.'”

Ben Franklin?

"Nope...Chuck Norris...'The one who cannot restrain their anger will wish undone, what their temper and irritation prompted them to do.'”

And who said that?

“Horace.”

Horace?

“Yeah, he didn’t give me his last name.”

OK, we’ll forgive our cousin for not knowing of the Roman poet Quintus Horatius Flaccus (even the Romans knew the value of teamwork – all their names seem to end in “us”). But there is a game to play here, and for all the side show pyrotechnics – Avery, Tortorella, yada yada, yada – it all comes down to one thing, and at this point one thing only.

Henrik Lundqvist.

If Lundqvist is not on this afternoon, the Rangers will not win. And now we’re getting into some pretty interesting territory for Lundqvist. And that territory is out in the deep blue, as it were, water of playoff series that go beyond four games. Including Friday’s meltdown against the Caps, Lundqvist has played in five such games in his career, and in them, he has been less “King Henrik,” and more “Hank”…

1-4, 3.51, .886.

And here is the ominous part for the Rangers. In a combined eight man games going past the Game Four mark, the Alexes – Ovechkin and Semin – have combined for six goals. In none of the games were both held without a goal. A small universe of games, to be sure, and Martin Biron -- against whom much of that record was compiled -- isn’t Henrik Lundqvist (although Lundqvist’s efforts in Games Five and Six look somewhat Bironesque), but the matchups will be in clear focus in this game.

For the Rangers at the other end of the ice, you have to hope – if you’re a Caps fan – that Scott Gomez does not revert to form for Game Six. In each of his four playoff years preceding this, Gomez was at least a point-per-game performer. He was on track for that after Game One, in which he went 1-2-3, but he hasn’t had a point since.

Chris Drury is a different problem. He came into this series with the reputation of being a clutch performer. But that is a reputation earned more for what he did before becoming a Ranger. In 114 playoff games before signing with New York, Drury scored 43 goals, 15 of them game-winners. In 14 games with the Rangers, he has four goals, two of them of the game-winning variety (including one in this series). If the Alexes are on at all, then Gomez and Drury have to answer if the Rangers are to stay in it.

Perhaps the wild card in all of this isn’t even a player. Jim Schoenfeld, who will assume the coaching duties for the Rangers on Sunday afternoon, has coached in nine playoff series in his own coaching career with three different teams, including the Capitals. Another ominous note for the Rangers – Schoenfeld has lost his last five series in the playoffs behind an NHL bench.

What comes to mind at this point is wrestling – a sport of strength and endurance, but also one of leverage. And the Caps have put themselves in position to exert and to take advantage of a certain amount of psychic leverage here. A franchise that has been victim, in the eyes of its fans, of misfortune over three decades, has seen the stars align to perhaps give them the advantage heading into Game Six. A player succumbs to the stupidity of selfish play… his coach chides him, sits him, then the coach goes off on his own adventure in temper… the impenetrable goaltender is found – and made – to be human after all…

If the Caps can get a lead in New York, it could be the last bit of leverage they need to wrestle control of the series away from the Rangers. It says here that they will…

Caps 4 – Rangers 2

The Peerless Prognosticator is ON THE AIR!!! -- Your First Round Prognostications: Caps vs. Rangers

The Peerless Prognosticator is ON THE AIR!!!

The Caps will face the New York Rangers in the first round of the 2008-2009 playoffs that starts this week. On paper, the Caps should dispose of the Rangers in short order. Now it’s time to look at why they will…or won’t.

As much as any series in the first round, this one’s theme will be the irresistible force meeting the immovable object. The Capitals are a top-third ranked team in the offensive statistics and have the fire power to spot a team a lead and come back to win as often as not. On the other hand, the Rangers are a top-third ranked team in the defensive statistics and boast the league’s top penalty killing group. The raw numbers look like this…


If one digs a little deeper into this goop, you can start to see things each team wants to take advantage of, and things they'd like to avoid...

What you find here is that the Caps are a team that starts fast and finishes that way, illustrated by their league's second best first and third period goal scoring. That third period scoring might be something to watch here, given that the chinks in the Rangers' defensive armor seem to appear later in games.

There is also the matter of the Caps being almost a third-of-a-goal a game better than the Rangers at five-on-five. This appears to be a reflection of the Rangers' overall lack of offensive depth and the Caps ability -- even willingness -- to trade haymakers with teams. The Caps have more weapons for that sort of a contest. How the Rangers deal with that -- or how the officials do (more on that in a bit) -- will be a significant factor in this series.

Now, if you read the collective hockey punditry, you will find a common theme, that being that you can throw these numbers out, that with the addition of Sean Avery, Nik Antropov, and Derek Morris – none of whom have played against the Caps this year while wearing a Ranger jersey – plus the fact that John Tortorella (not Tom Renney) coaches this team now, the Rangers are a different team. In a sense, they’d better be, since the Caps won seven of a possible eight standings points in the head to head competition, and the Rangers won no games in the “hockey” portion of the series (winning their only point by virtue of coming out on top in the Gimmick in the last meeting of the teams, on February 11th).

But are the Rangers a different team after all those changes? The dividing line we might look at to answer that question is the trading deadline, since it is at that point that the Rangers had all the new ingredients – coach and players – in place to effect this supposed phoenix-like transformation. Here is how the Rangers break down, before and after…

Clearly, the Rangers performed better after the additions, not so much on special teams, where their efficiency didn’t change appreciably, but in 5-on-5 play. They scored more and allowed fewer goals. But we have a suspicion that in an odd way, that will mean that this series will turn on special teams. Bear with us.

Even with the improvements, the Rangers are not an especially fearsome team at 5-on-5 play. So, for the Rangers, the object might be to “shorten” the game – play fewer minutes at 5-on-5, let the superior penalty killing unit frustrate the opponent, and/or score on the power play by virtue of getting more chances.

With that in mind, here is the single number you might keep in mind when watching this series…

Five.

Look at that second table above, the one that includes a reference to the teams' record when receiving five or more power plays/PK situations a game. When the Rangers received five or more power plays this year, they compiled a record of 24-8-1. Even when having to kill off five or more penalties, they had a .500-plus record (13-10-2). And when the Rangers were in a tightly-called game all around – five or more power plays for both teams – they were 9-3-0 (although three wins came via the Gimmick). If this series turns into a march to the penalty box, it will not be good news for the Caps, especially given that the Caps averaged just over five minor penalties taken per game for the season.

A tightly called series for both teams is a high risk proposition for the Rangers, given the effectiveness displayed by the Caps on the power play this year – at 25.2 percent, they were second in the league to Detroit. That means that for all the attention being paid to who is in the Capitals’ net, the Rangers’ only chance to win this series, it would seem, is for Henrik Lundqvist to keep the Caps at bay until the Rangers can generate just enough opportunities to scratch out a goal or two.

And again, for all the pixels and ink being devoted to how inconsistent Capitals’ goalie Jose Theodore is, there is a curious history about Lundqvist in the playoffs. Namely, he hasn’t been that good, at least not as good as one might expect a three-time Vezina finalist to be. In 23 career playoff appearances, Lundqvist is 11-12, 2.57, .907, all numbers being significantly inferior to his career regular season record. Seven times in those 23 career playoff appearances he has allowed four or more goals, including three times in his last eight outings in last year’s playoffs.

If there is something in the Rangers’ season record that could cause concern among Caps fans, it is in their ability to frustrate offensively gifted teams. Of the top five goal-scoring teams in the NHL this season, the Rangers have a record of 9-6-2. They have a .500-or-better record (based on points earned) against four of those teams. The one team they do not have a .500 record against – the Caps (1-2-1).

How the Rangers will win

Stan Fischler’s faith in the Rangers’ offense delivering aside, the Rangers have to keep games from getting past six goals combined for the teams. If games get to seven, eight, nine goals, chances are the Rangers aren’t going to be on the long end of them. They don’t have enough weapons to consistently win high-scoring games.

The Rangers’ realm is the one-goal game. No team still playing in the East has played in more one-goal games than have the Rangers (43). Only New Jersey among playoff teams in the East has more one-goal wins in the regular season. On the other hand, no team in the East played fewer one-goal games in the regular season than the Caps (34), although the Caps’ winning percentage is virtually identical to that of the Rangers (.559 to .558). The Rangers need to win games 2-1 and 3-2. They won’t win games, 5-4 or 6-5.

You’d like to think Scott Gomez and Chris Drury are going to show up for the Rangers. Their respective playoff pedigrees suggest that they will. But that isn’t likely to be enough. The Rangers need Nikolai Zherdev and Nik Antropov to show up, too. The problem is, Antropov has a grand total of five points in 28 career playoff games, and Zherdev is making his first playoff appearance.

The wild card – literally – is Sean Avery. There is perhaps no player in the NHL who has such an outsized reputation as a game changer relative to his actual production. But that’s the problem, too. That reputation, which centers mostly on his antics directed toward opponents, disguises a resume that suggests a productive player. He had 22 points in 41 games this year, 12 in 18 games for the Rangers. That’s not a total that will impress folks who watch the Caps treat the scoreboard like a pinball machine, but 0.67 points/game for the Blueshirts is better than Markus Naslund or Brandon Dubinsky put up this year, too. Avery’s ability to contribute within the rules can’t be overlooked.

How the Caps will win

What the Caps are going to want to do is make this “Showtime” in the NHL sense. The Rangers had the worst winning percentage of any of the remaining 16 teams in games decided by three or more goals (8-14, .364). This is the fault line upon which this series will be decided – the ability of the Caps to impose a fast-break style on the Rangers, pounding them with their superior offensive depth, or the Rangers making this a war of attrition, shortening the game by virtue of their suffocating penalty kill and goaltending.

The constants for the Caps are Alex Ovechkin and Nicklas Backstrom. Ovechkin has had consecutive games without a point only twice this year, and none since early January. Backstrom endured a four-game streak without a point in late January, but since then has registered at least one point in 27 of 33 games. Then there is Mike Green, who in the last two years has gone 5-3-8, +6 in seven games against the Rangers.

The wild cards are Alexander Semin and Brooks Laich. While Semin has matured as a player, he is still given to bouts of inconsistency. But in his last 22 games to close the regular season, he was 13-16-29 with three game-winning goals. If that Alexander Semin shows up – the one of sublime talent who, when he is on, is the most gifted offensive talent on this team – this will be a short series. For Brooks Laich, it is not likely to be so much a matter of talent as will. When Laich is rooting around the crease for a puck like a pig after a truffle, he is the perfect complement to the other talent on this team. In his last 16 games, Laich was 8-9-17. Maybe for the duration, that should be our nickname for him – “Truffles.”

Like most playoff series, we think this will turn on goaltending. The hockey “market,” in a sense, has already factored in the alleged inconsistency of Jose Theodore and has tagged the Caps as the most vulnerable favorite in the first round. Our suspicions are about Lundqvist, who has had more problems in playoff settings than one might expect.

The Rangers won’t score enough to keep them alive into a second round, and Lundqvist doesn’t have four sub-three goal games in him.

Caps in five

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.