Washington Capitals: A TWO-point Night -- Game 65: Capitals 3 - Coyotes 2

That was nice.

It was nice to see the other team blow a two-goal lead.

It was nice to see the other team take an offensive zone penalty.

It was nice to see the other team wilt on a penalty kill late.

And it all happened in barely five minutes to the Phoenix Coyotes as the Washington Capitals came from down, 0-2, to catch and pass the Coyotes in the third period and win a game they seemed hell bent on losing, coming out on top by a 3-2 margin in the end.

For almost 50 minutes it looked as if the Caps would go meekly to their fourth straight loss.  Phoenix played a solid road game, keeping things simple and taking advantage of opportunities when they presented themselves. 

One of those opportunities came late in the first period when the Coyotes took advantage of a sluggish line change for the Caps.  As the Caps were swapping out old for new players, Keith Yandle fed the puck past Nicklas Backstrom and up to Brandon McMillan just outside the Caps’ blue line.  McMillan beat Mike Green into the zone, skated in, and snapped a shot from the edge of the left wing circle past goalie Jaroslav Halak at 18:58 to give the Coyotes a lead going into the first intermission.

Phoenix added to their lead in the fourth minute of the second period on a power play.  With Jack Hillen off for tripping, Yandle started the play again, laying the puck out at the top of the Caps’ zone for Michael Stone to take a whack at.  Stone fired, and Halak made the initial save.  He did not field it cleanly, though, and the puck trickled toward the goal line.  Radim Vrbata got to the loose puck before Dmitry Orlov could tie him up, and Vrbata bunted the biscuit into the back of the net.

At that point, and for the next 25 minutes, the Caps looked listless and on their way to another loss.  From the 3:20 mark of the second period to the 9:15 mark of the third period, Phoenix out-shot the Caps, 19-14.  Then, something strange and wonderful happened.

Karl Alzner scored.

It was innocent enough.  Jay Beagle and Keith Yandle were fighting for a loose puck in the left wing corner to goalie Mike Smith’s right.  As they were dueling, Eric Fehr swooped in and gathered up the puck, sliding it out to Alzner at the left point.  With Mike Ribeiro in the shooting lane, Alzner stepped to his left and down the wall to get an opening, then flipped a soft shot toward the goal (kids, take note...a right-handed defenseman on that side cannot make that play; sometimes the "handed" thing works).  As Alzner was snapping his shot at the net, Jay Beagle backed across Smith’s line of sight dragging Yandle with him on the coverage, and the commotion might have provided a distraction.  It was enough to allow the puck to sail untouched into the back of the net, and the Caps were within a goal.

Just 32 seconds later, the game was tied.  Brooks Laich got the goal, but it was Jason Chimera doing the work.  Chimera was behind the Coyote net when Laich chipped him the puck from the right wing corner.  Chimera walked the puck out from behind the net and out to the left wing corner, maintaining control.  Then, with Oliver Ekman-Larsson trying to pin him in the corner against the wall, Chimera flipped a fade-away pass to the goal mouth where Laich was camped all alone.  Laich redirected the puck behind Smith, and Caps fans were happy once more…

(image: CSN)

Phoenix took only two penalties in the game, but they picked a bad time for the second one.  David Moss hauled Dmitry Orlov down as Orlov was circling from around the Caps’ net, and the Caps had a power play. Nicklas Backstrom walked the puck from the right wing wall into the faceoff circle and wristed a shot toward the goal.  Smith got a pad on it and steered it to the weak side of the play. However, it happened to be just where Troy Brouwer was standing, and Brouwer wasted no time in stuffing the loose puck past Smith to give the Caps the lead and their final margin, 3-2.

Other stuff…

-- Say what you will about the two-goal lead being the most dangerous in hockey, but that was the first time the Caps came from behind to win a game in which they faced a two-goal deficit since Game 33, when they came back from a 4-1 third period deficit to beat the Philadelphia Flyers, 5-4, in a Gimmick on December 15^th.  It broke a string of ten straight losses when the Caps faced a two-goal deficit.

-- It might have been for naught if the Caps went down 3-0.  That might have happened had a call gone differently in the first period.  Brandon McMillan, who would score a goal later, might have thought he had one mid-way through the frame when he pushed the puck through goalie Jaroslav Halak’s pads and watched it trickle over the goal line.  However, the referee ruled that McMillan pushed not only the puck, but Halak’s pad over the goal line.  Thus, the goal was disallowed on what was not a decision subject to video review.  Yeah, it was iffy, but after seeing so many video reviews of questionable high-stick deflections go against the Caps this season, there seems hardly any reason to apologize.

-- For Karl Alzner it was his second goal of the season, his first since netting the game-winner in a 5-2 win over Nashville on December 7^th.  Alzner has seven career goals, and the Caps are 4-2-1 in those games, winners in the last three games in which Alzner scored.

-- Mike Green skated 20:35 in this game.  But what is noteworthy about his ice time is that he did not skate on the power play at all.  John Carlson took all 3:10 of power play ice time for the Caps in this contest.

-- Is there something to this whole shots-from-the-outside thing?  Of the Coyotes’ 33 shots on goal, 20 of them came from defensemen.  By way of comparison, only seven of the Caps’ 33 shots came from defensemen.

-- In former Caps news, the trio of former Caps for the Coyotes – Mike Ribeiro, Jeff Halpern, and Martin Erat – combined for a grand total of no shots on goal, none, nada.  Not only that, they finished with no shot attempts among them.

-- The Caps have had their troubles in the faceoff circle lately, and they found themselves on the short end tonight, especially in the offensive end where they won just eight of 22 draws.

-- The win put the Caps over the .500 mark against Western Conference teams as measured in standings points.  The Caps are now 9-8-2 against the West.

-- Troy Brouwer continued his hot run of late.  His goal, the game-winner, was his 18^th of the season and his eighth in his last ten games on a total of 29 shots on goal (27.6 percent shooting).

-- Brooks Laich has goals in consecutive games and in three of his last five contests.  The last time he had goals in consecutive games came back on March 10/11, 2012, both of them game winners, one against Boston in a 4-3 win, the other against Toronto in a 2-0 win.

-- When the Caps allowed a power play goal to Phoenix in the second period, it made it five times in six games that the Caps allowed opponents at least one power play goal.  In the game they did not, against Boston, they did not face a shorthanded situation.  The Caps are 14-for-20 (70.0 percent) killing penalties over their last six games.

In the end…

It was nice to see the other team not quite play 60 minutes.  If Phoenix did not dominate the Caps, they played a solid road game… for about 55 minutes.  But there was that five-minute stretch in the third period when it all came apart, suddenly and emphatically.  And they got contributions from up and down the roster in making the comeback.  Getting goals from Karl Alzner and Brooks Laich was unexpected, but refreshing. Assists from Eric Fehr, Jay Beagle, and Jason Chimera was much the same. 

Add in a power play, and it made for a welcome win that brought the Caps back from, if not the abyss, then a dark place in the standings.  There they still lurk, one point behind Detroit and two behind the New York Rangers as the embark on a big week with a pair of games against Pittsburgh and a home contest against Vancouver.  It looks a lot better than it might have had the Caps lost this game.

The Peerless Prognosticator is ON THE AIR!!! -- Game 65: Coyotes at Capitals, March 8th

The Peerless Prognosticator is ON THE AIR!!!

When the Washington Capitals host the Phoenix Coyotes tonight at Verizon Center, the Caps will be looking to rekindle their playoff hopes and end a three-game losing streak.  For the Coyotes it will be the first of what will be a four-game road trip through the Eastern time zone, with stops in Tampa, Florida, and Boston yet to come. Phoenix has not been an especially productive road team. Going into Friday’s games they were 26th of 30 teams in points earned on the road.

This will be the third and final eastern swing for the Coyotes in the regular season. They completed their first trip, a four-game journey, in October, going 3-1-0 with wins over the Detroit Red Wings, Philadelphia Flyers, and Carolina Hurricanes after opening the trip with a loss to the New York Islanders.

Phoenix’ second trip east was in mid-December and did not go nearly as well. After dropping a decision to the Montreal Canadiens, the Coyotes wrapped up their trip with three extra time decisions, losses to the Toronto Maple Leafs and Buffalo Sabres wrapped around a win in Ottawa against the Senators.

Of more recent vintage on their schedule, Phoenix stumbled out of the gate to start the post-Olympics portion of the season, losing three straight. Two of those losses came to powerhouses Colorado and St. Louis, though, and the Coyotes come into Verizon Center looking as they have righted themselves with wins in their last two games over Vancouver and Montreal.

Offense has been hard to come by for the Coyotes since the break, Phoenix recording only 12 goals over the five games coming into this weekend.  Shane Doan has three of those goals for the Coyotes and helpers on two others.  For him, the Olympic break appears to have been refreshing.  He said as much as the NHL was about to shut down for a couple of weeks.  He had a six game streak without a point heading into the pause in the NHL schedule.  Doan is 5-7-12 in 21 career games played against Washington.

Oliver Ekman-Larsson is not likely to be a player with whom a lot of Caps fans are familiar, but he has been among the most productive defensemen in the NHL this season.  “OEL” is 2-3-5 for the Coyotes in five games since the Olympic break, including the game-winning goal in Phoenix’ 5-2 win over Montreal on Thursday.  It is not just a short-run fling for Ekman-Larsson, who is among the top-ten in goal scoring for defensemen in the league (10) and top-20 in points (34).  He is 0-1-1 in two career games against the Capitals.

Mike Smith has had the lion’s share of the work in goal for the Coyotes this season, appearing in 53 of 63 games this season and four of five since the Olympic break.  In those four games he is 2-1-1, 1.97, .926, with a shutout over Vancouver last Tuesday.  It is part of a longer run of fine performances for Smith, a 1.62 goals-against average and a .944 save percentage with two shutouts over his last eight appearances.  He is 4-3-1 in those eight appearances.  He has had little success against the Caps, though.  In eight career appearances he is 1-6-0, 4.66, .852.

1.  There is a glass half full, glass half empty quality to the Coyote offense lately.  Over their past seven games Phoenix is 8-for-28 on the power play (28.6 percent), but they have only 15 goals overall.  Only once in those seven games have the Coyotes scored more than two goals, their 5-2 win over Montreal on Thursday.

2.  In five of those same seven games Phoenix allowed two or fewer goals five times, the only times they allowed more coming in losses to Colorado and St. Louis, four goals to each.

3.  Phoenix is a middle-of-the-road offensive team overall (2.71 G/Gm, 15^th in scoring offense), but where they have struggled all year is at the start of games. Only six teams have fewer first period goals.

4.  Keeping games close is what Phoenix does, and they are reasonably successful doing it.  Of their 63 games to date, 28 of them have been decided by one-goal, and the Coyotes are 13-4-11 in those decisions.  In games decided by more than one goal the Coyotes are 16-19.

5.  The Coyotes are not an especially effective possession team.  They rank 17^th in Corsi-for percentage in 5-on-5 close score situations (49.4 percent) and 18^th in Fenwick-for percentage (49.6 percent).

1.  Until the Caps were shut out by Boston on Thursday, the Caps had scored four or more goals in four straight games and in five of six contests.  Offense has not been all that much of a problem for the team.  In their last 13 games, including the shutout at the hands of Boston, the Caps scored four or more goals eight times.  But when they don’t… they have been shut out twice in their last eight games.

2.  The power play has been an all or nothing affair lately.  In their last nine games the Caps have had multiple power play goal games four times and been shut out on the power play five times.

3.  For a while there, it looked as if the Caps penalty killers were improving.  In a three game stretch from February 4-8 they were a perfect 9-for-9 killing penalties.  Over their last five games, though, they are 12-for-17 (70.6 percent) and were perhaps saved from allowing one to Boston on Thursday by not having to endure any shorthanded situations.

4.  The Caps are a “skill” team, it is said.  They play a more wide-open style, many say.  However, of the 64 games played so far the Caps have 34 one-goal decisions.  They are 16-8-10 in those decisions.  When the games are less close?  The Caps are 13-17 when the games are settled by two or more goals.

5.  53.5, 45.8, 48.1, 33.3, 27.1.  That is the progression of Corsi-for percentages in 5-on-5 close score situations over the Caps’ last five games.  The Fenwick-for percentage isn’t any better.  Small wonder the Caps are 2-2-1 since the Olympic break and losers of their last three games.  They don’t have the puck.

The Peerless’ Players to Ponder

Phoenix: Keith Yandle

Four teams in the NHL have two defensemen with at least 34 points: Chicago, Montreal, St. Louis, and the Coyotes.  Oliver Ekman-Larsson we spoke of above.  The other is Keith Yandle.  The Massachusetts native is known primarily as an offensive defenseman. He has topped 30 points in each of the last six seasons, including this one (7-34-41).  He is one of only four defensemen over those six seasons with a combined total of at least 50 goals and at least 240 points (Yandle has 55 and 244).  The others are Shea Weber, Dan Boyle, and the Caps’ Mike Green.  Lately it has been a matter of helpers for Yandle.  He has just one goal over his last 24 games, but he has 13 assists over that same span, including five in his last seven contests.  He is 0-4-4 in five career games against Washington.

Washington: Mike Green

Speaking of helpers, Mike Green has six in his last eight games for the Caps.  He also has three multiple-point games in his last seven contests (3-5-8 overall).  He remains one of the top defensemen in the game on special teams (tied for 17^th place in points), but one wonders if there is, if not a changing of the guard, then more a sharing of responsibilities from the blue line on the power play.  John Carlson leads the Caps in average ice time on the power play among defensemen (3:09 to 2:56 for Green) and has 13 power play points of his own.  Except for the 2:43 he averaged on the power play in 2011-2012 (perhaps due to equal parts Dennis Wideman and Dale Hunter), his 2:56 in average power play ice time this season is well over a minute less than the average ice time marks he had since 2007-2008.  Green is 0-1-1 in four career games against Phoenix.

Keys:

1.  5-on-5. Only eight teams in the NHL have allowed fewer goals at 5-on-5 than the Coyotes.  However, the Coyotes are something of a crap-shoot in 5-on-5 close score situations.  They rank just 15^th overall in goals allowed in such situations and their 66 goals scored and 68 goals allowed ranks them 16^th in goals scored/allowed ratio.  The Caps need to keep Phoenix under that 50 percent mark here.

2.  Chin Up.  The Caps have lost three in a row and have looked progressively worse doing so. Worse, their body English suggests they are starting to look beaten.  Except for a flurry against the Flyers (after the Flyers took a 4-0 lead), the Caps have looked sluggish and indifferent.  The attitude has to change…quickly.

3.  Theft in Plain Sight.  When was the last time a Caps goalie stole a game?  The answer to that question – and the time you take to answer it – might be why Jaroslav Halak is a Capital today and will get the start against Phoenix tonight.  There will be games, especially in this rough stretch on the schedule, in which a goalie is going to have to steal a win or two (or three) in the face of a barrage of shots and relentless pressure.  Phoenix is not among the top offenses that the Caps will see this month, but they still could use a top-notch performance from a goalie if goaltending is the difference in the decision.

In the end…

There really is not a lot left to say about urgency or must-win games or the calendar.  There are games the Caps need to win, and there are games they have to win.  Given what looms on the schedule – a home-and-home, back-to-back set against Pittsburgh next week – this game is both for the Caps.  The Coyotes will be annoying in their style, a diligent, “system” team.  It is not one against which the Caps have a lot of recent success, alternating wins and losses over their five meetings.  The Caps having lost their only decision to Phoenix so far this season (a 4-3 Gimmick loss on November 9^th), it is the Caps’ turn.

Capitals 3 – Coyotes 2

Washington Capitals: A ONE point night -- Game 17: Coyotes 4 - Capitals 3 (OT/Gimmick)

Things caught up with the Washington Capitals on Saturday night in Phoenix.  The Caps had a 3-1 lead with less than five minutes to play, but they gave up two goals late in regulation to tie the game, then allowed two more in the bonus round to drop a 4-3 decision to the Coyotes.

The Caps dutifully built a 3-1 lead through 40 minutes after allowing the game’s first goal to Shane Doan of the Coyotes.  After Doan put the Coyotes ahead mid-way through the first period, the Caps put up three goals in the second period.  Troy Brouwer evened the game in the first minute of the second period on a power play when he took a long lead pass from Mike Green and blasted a slap shot from the right wing faceoff dot past goalie Mike Smith to tie the game.

Just over three minutes later, John Carlson gave the Caps the lead on another power play, but it was Marcus Johansson who set things up by circling with the puck in the right wing circle, then slipping the puck past David Moss onto the stick of Carlson for the one-timer that put the Caps ahead.

Late in the period Joel Ward gave the Caps a two-goal lead on an odd play that started with Ward feeding Karl Alzner in the neutral zone.  Alzner carried the puck to the Coyotes’ blue line, then left the puck for Jason Chimera at the left point.  Chimera threw the puck toward the net, but it pinballed off Michael Latta onto the stick of Ward. From the bottom of the left wing circle, Ward wristed the puck past goalie Mike Smith, and the Caps had a two-goal lead they would take to the second intermission.

For 16 minutes in the third period, it looked as if the Caps would leave with two points in their back pockets.  Unfortunately, hockey periods are 20 minutes, and in the last four minutes the Caps undid all the good work of the previous 56 minutes. 

Lauri Korpikoski scored only his second goal of the season when he laid out and backhanded a rebound between Michal Neuvirth’s pads as he was falling to the ice to halve the Caps’ lead.   Then, with the clock ticking under two minutes to play and the Coyotes on a power play, Troy Brouwer dove in an attempt to flick a loose puck out of the Caps’ zone.  He managed to get it to the blue line but not over it.  Oliver Ekman-Larsson settled the puck and fed it to Shane Doan, who slipped into the space vacated by Brouwer.  Doan turned and snapped a wrist shot over Neuvirth’s blocker to tie the game with just 1:46 left to play.

After a scoreless overtime, it came down to Bettman’s folly.  Anotine Vermette and Mikkel Boedker sandwiched goals low to the glove side of Neuvirth around a miss by Mikhail Grabovski.  That brought it down to Alex Ovechkin to keep hope alive for the Caps.  When the puck rolled off his stick and went wide of the goal, it was representative of the Caps’ night, one in which they had the game on their sticks and let it slip away, 4-3.

Other stuff…

-- After seven straight wins in the bonus round, this was the first shootout loss for the Caps under Adam Oates.  They had been 15-for-23 in shooting until last night’s 0-for-2 performance.

-- The odd part about the freestyle competition was that the two shooters selected by Adam Oates were, to that point, the only two shooters who had recorded misses for the Caps.  Grabovski was 2-for-4 before his miss, and Ovechkin was 1-for-3.  Nicklas Backstrom, Brooks Laich, Martin Erat, and Troy Brouwer were/are a combined 7-for-7.

-- The Capitals allowed two power play goals for the first time this season.  Through 17 games last season the Caps had allowed two of more power play goals in a game five times.  It was bound to bite them sooner or later.  This was the fifth time in six games the Caps allowed five or more power plays.  Over the previous five games the Caps allowed only two power play goals in 25 shorthanded situations.

-- On the other side, the two power play goals by the Caps made it seven games in which they recorded two or more power play goals.  Last season, through 17 games, the Caps accomplished the feat four times.

-- At least the Caps spread things around.  Nine different players recorded the nine available points, including Michal Neuvirth, who had the second assist of his career on Brouwer’s goal.

-- As much as the how many on penalties, it was the “what for.”  A delay-of-game on a faceoff violation (aqn incorrect call, by the way), an ensuing unsportsmanlike conduct (which was correct, under the circumstances), too many men on the ice, a puck over the glass call (the one that ultimately undid the Caps at the end of regulation).  Those are penalties that betray a lack of focus and discipline, not penalties taken in the heat of the moment.

-- That Boedker would get the game-clinching goal in the trick shot competition was odd karma.  He might have been the goat for the Coyotes (the conflicting livestock imagery notwithstanding).  Boedker took three penalties – hooking, tripping, goalie interference – one of which resulted in a Caps power play goal (Brouwer).

-- The Caps were shelled, 13-4, in shots at even strength in the third period and lost that battle for the game, 27-21.

-- It was Mike Smith’s first career win against the Caps after six losses. 

-- In former Capitals news… Jeff Halpern (0-0-0) and Mike Ribeiro (0-0-0) were held off the scoreboard, but Ribeiro tied for the team lead in shots on goal (six, with Ekman-Larsson), and Halpern won six of 11 faceoffs in eight minutes of work.

In the end… the Caps let a point get away.  It was disappointing on its own terms – another third period lead wasted – but the additional point could have put the Caps within striking distance of Pittsburgh at the top of the Metropolitan Division.  The silver lining…a thin lining… is that the Caps have a five-game streak with standings points earned.  They will be hard pressed to extend that streak to six as they head to Colorado to face the Avalanche tonight, a team that the Caps might have been peeking ahead to in the third period of this game.

The Peerless Prognosticator is ON THE AIR!!! -- Game 17: Capitals at Coyotes, November 9th

The Peerless Prognosticator is ON THE AIR!!!

It might seem as if the Caps just got back into town after a western swing, but less than two weeks after they wrapped up a trip through western Canada, they are off to the scenic southwest to meet the Phoenix Coyotes.

The Coyotes (“Canis latrans,” for those of you scoring at home) is a relative of the domestic dog but this franchise seems to have the nine lives of a cat.  It seems almost as though since moving from Winnipeg in 2006-2007 it has been one issue after another conspiring to doom the existence of hockey in the Arizona desert.

First it was the arena in which they played.  Fine for the Phoenix Suns of the NBA, America West Arena was not large enough to accommodate the larger dimensions of a hockey rink comfortably.  It was reengineered to fit the playing surface, but the fixes meant that as much as a third of the ice surface was obscured in some sections by a balcony that hung over that same playing surface.  The Coyotes were left with the second smallest rink in the league. 

Then there were the changes in ownership.  The original ownership group – Jerry Colangelo, Steven Gluckenstern, and Richard Burke – brought the club to Phoenix in 1995 to start play in the 1996-1997 season, but Gluckenstern was bought out by Burke in 1998.  Then, the Coyotes found it difficult bringing in additional investors.  After three years of frustration, Burke sold the club to a pair of new owners in 2001.  Steve Ellman, a Phoenix-area developer, is not a name that would resonate in the hockey community.  The other one would – Wayne Gretzky, who also assumed the responsibilities of director of hockey operations.

It sounded good.  Hockey legend takes the reins and leads the Coyotes to the promised land.  It sounded better still when the Coyotes moved to Glendale Arena in 2003.  The move was followed by a makeover in the wardrobe, discarding the Native American rendering of the coyote logo on a green background in favor of the howling coyote on a Sedona red background.  It sounded – and looked – good, but it did not work out that way.  There was the little matter of actually being able to win hockey games.  They didn’t. 

Over the 2002-2003 and 2003-2004 seasons, the Coyotes won only 53 of 164 games and failed to make the playoffs in both years.  At that point, Ellman got out, selling his interest in the club, plus that in the local lacrosse franchise, and the lease to what was now the renamed Jobing.com Arena to Jerry Moyes, owner of a trucking firm and part owner of the Arizona Diamondbacks in Major League Baseball.

What happened next?  The owner went behind the bench.  No, not Moyes… Gretzky.  The greatest player in the history of the game leading players on the ice?  What could go wrong?  Well, there was the little matter of Gretzky never having coached at any level of hockey. 

The Coyotes won only 69 of 164 games the next two years.  The solution?  Clean house.  The general manager and senior executive vice president were fired.  And, for good measure, they pink-slipped the general manager of the San Antonio farm club, who also happened to be the assistant GM for the big club.

In 2007-2008 the Coyotes actually finished over .500, the first time since the 2001-2002 season they did so, albeit by one point (83 points on a 38-37-7 record).  It was not nearly enough to stem the tide of financial problems that were about to overwhelm the team.  The NHL was paying the team’s bills, and in 2009 the club declared bankruptcy.  Even that ended up tangled in events.  The league was angling to have the club bought by Chicago Bulls and White Sox owner Jerry Reinsdorf, but Moyes was pursuing a deal with Research in Motion founder Jim Balsillie.

The solution?  It was the NHL versus an owner (how novel).  Who do you think won?  Moyes was stripped of his ownership authority.  There were indications two ownership groups would emerge to bid for the club, Reinsdorf being one of them, but neither pulled the trigger.  That left Balsillie, who already attempted to buy two other teams – the Pittsburgh Penguins and the Nashville Predators – but was unsuccessful.  That was an unpalatable option for the league, so it put in a rival bid and moved to nullify a Moyes-Balsillie deal.  That deal would be voided by a bankruptcy court, but the league didn’t win, either, its bid for the club deemed insufficient.

Now what?  Well, there are a lot of parties still around – the NHL and the two prospective bidders that followed Moyes’ departure, Jerry Reinsdorf and a group called Ice Edge Holdings.  Three parties, one of which was nominal owner but wanted out (the NHL), two investors (Reinsdorf and Ice Edge), and one asset (the Coyotes).  What could go wrong?

The NHL had a deal with Ice Edge, but Reinsdorf had approval for a deal with the city of Glendale.  What a mess.  And it got messier (as opposed to “Messier”…maybe he could buy the team) when Reinsdorf’s bid collapsed.  Now it was a matter of whether the team would even stay in Arizona.  That’s where things got desperate.  And when things get desperate, who do you turn to?  John Q. Public.

The bids were conditional on municipal taxpayers covering operating losses.  If the club turns a profit, the owners win.  If it doesn’t, taxpayers lose.  Hey, it’s America.  Then the Ice Edge bid fell apart on the failure to meet Glendale’s financial conditions.  In 2011 another prospective bidder – a group led by a Chicago investor – came and went, that episode punctuated by threatened lawsuits that crippled the ability to sell bonds to finance payments.  It looked as if there were no options left.  This being America, though, there is always another option…public financing.  The City of Glendale ponied up $25 million (on top of a payment to satisfy a guarantee against the team’s losses the previous season) to keep the club in town for the 2011-2012 season.

Finally, in the summer of 2013, Glendale, owners of Jobing.com Arena, signed a 15-year deal with Renaissance Sports and Entertainment that has the city paying $15 million a year in upkeep for the arena.  That deal was a precondition for RSE completing a deal to assume ownership of the club.

The odd part is that as things got worse on the ownership front, the hockey team actually got better – a 50-win season in 2009-2010, followed by a pair of 40-plus win seasons.  They slipped some last season, failing to make the playoffs, but they come into Saturday’s game against the Caps tied for the third-highest number of standings points in the league.

Here is how the teams compare in their stats so far (through Thursday’s games)…

1.  The Coyotes were on a five-game winning streak before the lost at Anaheim, 5-2, on Wednesday night.  Over those six games the Coyotes and their opponents split 36 goals evenly, 18 apiece. 

2.  Shane Doan is experiencing something of a renaissance in the autumn of his career.  He got off to a bit of a slow start with four points in his first ten games (2-2-4).  In the Coyotes’ 5-1-0 run, though, he is 4-2-6, one of the goals a game-winner against the Los Angeles Kings in a 3-1 win on October 29^th.  His six points is tied for the team lead in the 5-1-0 stretch, defensemen Keith Yandle (1-5-6) and Oliver Ekman-Larsson (1-5-6) chipping in.

3.  Mike Smith has been a rock lately, or perhaps a stone wall.  Despite facing a barrage of almost 36 shots per 60 minutes in this 5-1-0 stretch, Smith has a 2.52 goals against average on a .929 save percentage.  The Caps, though, have been a tough lock for him to pick.  In seven career appearances against Washington he is 0-6-0, 5.03, .843.  He has not faced the Caps since he tended goal for the Tampa Bay Lightning back on November 26, 2010.  He lasted only 28:56 and allowed four goals on 18 shots in a 6-0 Caps win.  He has had better memories recently, such as this one against Detroit on October 19^th...

4.  Phoenix struggles with first periods on offense almost as much as the Capitals.  In 17 games the Coyotes have only eight goals scored in the first 20 minutes.  Even in their 5-1-0 run coming into this game they have only two first period goals.  On the other hand, no team has more third period goals scored than do the Coyotes (21).

5.  Phoenix has yet to lose a one-goal game in regulation this season (5-0-2).  They have yet to lose a two-goal decision (4-0).  When they lose, they make a stink about it.  They are 2-4 in games decided by three or more goals.  Two of those losses came to the Los Angeles Kings, and only one came to an Eastern Conference team, a 6-1 loss to the New York Islanders on October 8^th.

1.  The Capitals have an opportunity in this game to extend an odd streak.  With a win, it will mark the seventh straight year in which the Caps had a winning streak of five games or longer.

2.  The last time the Caps played in the desert, they lost to the Coyotes, 3-2, on Valentines Day, 2011.  If Braden Holtby starts in goal, there will be only seven players from that game who will dress for the Caps: Alex Ovechkin, Nicklas Backstrom, Brooks Laich, Jason Chimera, Karl Alzner, John Carlson, and Marcus Johansson.

3.  The other goalie, Michal Neuvirth, has two appearances in his career against the Coyotes.  He has a 1-1-0 record, dropping that 3-2 game in the desert in February 2011 and beating Phoenix, 4-3, at Verizon Center on November 21, 2011.

4.  The Caps are tied for the league lead in wins via shootout (four, with Los Angeles) and lead in total goals scored (10, two ahead of Phoenix).

5.  Washington is one of two teams in the league with two players in the top ten in points.  The Caps’ Nicklas Backstrom (20/5^th place) and Alex Ovechkin (19/tied for 7^th) join Anaheim’s Ryan Getzlaf (22/tied for 2^nd) and Corey Perry (19/tied for 7^th).

The Peerless Players to Ponder

Phoenix: Mike Ribeiro

The former Capital, one season removed, had a pretty good start with his new club, going 5-4-9, plus-2, in his first ten games.  However, in his last seven games he is 0-2-2, minus-3.  It seems to have affected other parts of his game as well.  For instance, in his first ten games he recorded faceoff winning percentages over 50 percent seven times.In his last seven games he was over 50 percent only once. 

Ribeiro has not had extraordinary success against the Caps in his career.  He is 1-8-9, plus-2, in 18 career games against Washington.  The last time he skated against the Caps was November 11, 2011, when he skated for the Dallas Stars. He was held without a point and won only five of 17 faceoffs in a 5-2 Stars win that gave the Caps their first home loss of the 2011-2012 season.

Washington:  Tom Wilson

All of a sudden, you can’t stop Tom Wilson, you can only hope to contain him.  With the primary assist on Marcus Johansson’s game-tying goal in the Caps’ 3-2 trick shot win over Minnesota on Thursday, Wilson now has points in consecutive games for the first time in his young career.  It is not uncommon for the Caps.  In four of the last five seasons – including this one – a Capital first-year player put together a three-game points streak.  It was John Carlson in 2010, Marcus Johansson in 2011, Dmitry Orlov in 2012, and this year, Nate Schmidt.  The odd part of the streaks is that the first three players all had theirs in March of their first playing seasons.  Schmidt had his over a three-game stretch from October 26 through November 1^st.  Despite the slow start – no points in his first 14 games, Wilson is now tied for 33^rd in points among 102 rookies having dressed for games this season.

Keys:

1.  Get out of the gate.  In eight home games this season the Coyotes have been outscored, 6-3, in the first period.  The Caps have not had the best of times holding leads, but better to play from in front than behind.

2.  Shoot smart.  Only three teams have allowed more shots on goal per game than the Coyotes.  It is, as a group, a hideous possession team.  Only seven of 26 skaters have positive 5-on-5 Corsi values, only four of 17 skaters who have played in at least ten games.  This result to date is misaligned with their respective PDO values where larger shares of players have values over 1000.

3.  Today’s Special.  Only three teams have faced more shorthanded situations than the Coyotes.  The Caps have the league’s best power play.  Advantage: Washington.

In the end…

Phoenix has that fine 11-4-2 record.  But one might wonder, with all the shots Mike Smith has had to face, with the iffy possession numbers, what is going to happen first?  Will the Coyotes’ fundamental issues be laid bare, or will they turn those possession and shot numbers around and keep on going?  The hint is in the losses for this team.  When they lose in regulation, they get pounded.  Teams that can take advantage of a weak penalty kill (23^rd) and depending on their goalie so much to turn away high shot volumes, coupled with the fact that this goalie (if he gets the call) has had a hard time with the Caps, it is a formula for a good start to the road trip.

Capitals 4 – Coyotes 3

A TWO-point night -- Game 19: Caps 4 - Coyotes 3

Whew…

The Washington Capitals and Bruce Boudreau shook the gorillas off their backs last night in taking a 4-3 decision from the Phoenix Coyotes. The Caps ended a four-game losing streak, and Bruce Boudreau won his 200th game behind an NHL bench on his fifth try. It did not come easy.

It looked for all the world as if this would be another one of “those” games, one in which the Caps get their chances by the bushel, but find a way to make the other goalie look like Ken Dryden, then manage to give the other guys goals on the few chances they get.

And so it was – the Caps recorded the first three shots of the game, all on a power play courtesy of Lauri Korpikoski’s tripping penalty drawn by Mathieu Perreault. But the Caps gave the Coyotes a break when John Carlson’s lazy cross-ice pass attempt at the top of the offensive zone was swiped by Radim Vrbata, who sped off down the ice. Tomas Vokoun looked entirely unprepared for what came next as Vrbata skated in, bent to his right, and flipped a forehand around Vokoun, who never seemed to move from the center of his crease. Caps fans everywhere might have been thinking, “here we go again,” especially after the Caps outshot the Coyotes 13-5 in the first period, yet found themselves down by that 1-0 score.

Caps fans then might have been found smacking their DVRs thinking they were stuck in a loop when the Coyotes’ Boyd Gordon and the Caps’ Brooks Laich both went after a loose puck near the Phoenix blue line. Gordon won the race, poking the puck out of the zone and to Korpikoski, who got behind defenseman Dennis Wideman. Korpikoski had a step of an advantage all the way down the ice, Wideman trying to hook his elbow, his arm, his knee, swipe his wallet, pull his hat over his eyes, anything to slow Korpikoski up.

All it did was give the referee a chance to call for a penalty shot when Korpikoski’s weak shot was snuffed after all the abuse. Korpikoski scored on the ensuing freebee, and Caps fans might have been tempted to tune in on the debut of “The Sidney Crosby Show.” Given that Phoenix came into the game with a record of 9-0-3 when scoring first and a record of 10-0-0 when leading after two periods, it did not look good.

But then something strange happened. Phoenix made a mistake. Defenseman Oliver Ekman-Larsson tried to send the puck up the left wing boards from his own goal line, but Joel Ward annoyed him enough in doing it that the attempt was weak. The puck settled on John Carlson’s stick, and the defenseman had time and space to tee one up. He did, the puck pinballing past goalie Jason LaBarbera to halve the lead.

Enter “Rally Balloon.” A red balloon drifted down over the Verizon Center ice as the clock was winding down under nine minutes left in the period. It was hovering there like an angel sent to offer comfort to the boys in the red jerseys – or give them a kick in the ass. Whatever, “Rally Balloon” was there to see Cody Eakin tie the game on another drive from outside that nicked defenseman Keith Yandle on the way in, the puck bouncing under the stick of LaBarbera to tie the game. All of a sudden, the astute Caps fan would realize, “maybe there’s a chance.” For you see, Phoenix had not won a game this season when tied after two periods (okay, it was only two games, and both were lost in extra time anyway).

(photo: Ann Heisenfelt/Associated Press)

It made for an interesting third period, thanks to Nicklas Backstrrom. The centerman scored his sixth goal of the season as the end product of good work by the Caps to prevent Phoenix from clearing the puck out of the zone. The relentless pressure resulted in the puck finding its way to Backstrom’s stick at the doorstep to Labarbera’s left, where he roofed a backhand over the goalie to give the Caps their first lead. He then started a play by winning a power play faceoff – a basic play, but one the Caps have had trouble executing lately. Unable to get possession of the puck, the Coyotes were left to defend a wide-open Brooks Laich for a slap shot that found its way through a maze and past LaBarbera to put the Caps up by two.

The Caps would need that fourth goal, because Phoenix would have a breath of life left, Korpikoski getting his second of the night mid-way through the third period. But the Caps had enough grit left to keep Phoenix from any more mischief, and the losing streak was over.

Other stuff…

-- The 4:02 sequence in the second period following the Coyotes’ second goal might be just another few minutes of a long season, or it might be the turning point of this one. Given the circumstances – the Caps on a losing streak, having fallen behind by two goals, playing a team that knows how to play with a lead – the competitive part of the game might have been thought to be over. But John Carlson scored 53 seconds after that second Phoenix goal, and Cody Eakin scored 3:09 later. In between, however, there was Tomas Vokoun foiling a breakaway by Radim Vrbata – the player who scored on a penalty shot earlier in the game. It might have been Vokoun’s biggest save of the season.

-- On the Caps’ fourth goal, Nicklas Backstrom made something out of the tools he had available. In this case, his foot. On the face-off starting the play, Backstrom had his stick tied up by Martin Hanzal, but he managed to kick the puck back to the point to get things started and from where Brooks Laich would finish them with a goal. If the Redskins had that foot on Sunday in overtime, they might have beaten the Cowboys.

-- Alex Ovechkin recorded an assist on Backstrom’s goal, ending a four-game streak without a point. Thus, he avoided setting a career high for consecutive games without a point.

-- Dmitry Orlov finished his NHL debut with a decent performance. He skated just under 12 minutes (with Karl Alzner as his chaperone), had three hits and a blocked shot. But he got lost in front of his own net on the Korpikoski goal to get the Coyotes back within one, and he did not see the ice again.

-- The Caps knuckled down on defense after that third goal. They allowed Phoenix only two shots on goal in the last 8:32 of the game.

-- If the Caps have stopped the slide for the moment, we still wonder about Ovechkin. One shot on goal in 18 minutes of ice time, none in the last 34 minutes of the game. It’s one thing to add defense to become a better two-way forward, but at the moment he is more of a “no-way” forward. It’s like watching a hitter in baseball or a golfer whose swings are a mess. Right now, Ovechkin’s offensive game is a mess.

-- Troy Brouwer didn’t have a point, but he did what he’s out there to do. Six hits, and he set an effective screen on the Laich goal.

-- Matt Hendricks…ten minutes, three hits, two shots on goal, and a fight. No one on the team pays a bigger price to earn his pay check.

-- What goes up…stays up? Cody Eakin’s goal gives him points in four of his nine games, andhe is a plus-5, despite playing more than a dozen minutes in only two of them.  Getting hard to send him back down to Hershey.

-- Strictly speaking, the Caps allowed two shorthanded goals. And no, it is not a record. The Caps have allowed three shorties in a game three times, but none since allowing three to Los Angeles in a 7-4 win over the Kings on January 10, 1992.

-- Paul Bissonnette…seven shifts, five minutes, one hit. Not much to tweet about.

-- Boyd Gordon being Boyd Gordon…he won six of eight draws in the defensive zone. But he was on the bench, having already skated the first 1:06 of a penalty kill, when Martin Hanzal lost a draw to Nicklas Backstrom that ended up being the Caps’ fourth goal.

-- Once upon a time, the Caps had “Rally Pigeon.” Well, now they have “Rally Balloon.”

In the end, it is one game, and that having been drowned out by other events taking place around the league. But when all is said and done, this could have been a game that the Caps mailed in after falling behind after giving up a shorthanded goal and a penalty shot. They didn’t. They demonstrated a character they have displayed often in the past – an ability to come back after falling behind in games.

It doesn’t instantly make the Caps the 7-0-0 juggernaut that they were to start the season. They allowed Phoenix too many chances, and the big guns still aren’t firing true on a reliable basis (and that’s hard for one of them – Alexander Semin – to do from the press box). But it is another step on the road – the 19th of 82, in fact – on the way to preparing for the playoffs. It was a good start to the week.

The Peerless Prognosticator is ON THE AIR!!! -- Game 19: Coyotes at Capitals, November 21st

The Peerless Prognosticator is ON THE AIR!!!

Thanksgiving week is upon us, and it is time for all of us to give thanks that we have hockey here in Washington. Even though the Caps have hit a rough patch, it is not like being a Redskins fan or a Nationals fan or a Wizards fan. The Caps are still above .500, still in the playoff mix, and still with more than 60 games to figure out what ails them. The three-game home stand that is Thanksgiving week opens with a visit from the Phoenix Coyotes.

The Coyotes have been something of “The Little Engine that Could” this season, not putting together much in the way of winning streaks (three is their longest) or enduring long stretches of adversity (they have not lost more than two in a row so far this season). They just keep on plugging, puttering along with a 10-5-3 mark so far. Here is how they stack up with the Caps so far this season:

(click pic for larger image)
(note: The Caps dropped to ninth place in the East after we first published this)

What the Coyotes do bring is a dedicated adherence to a system approach to the game, allowing little in terms of scoring by opponents and playing conservatively on offense. The result is that they are 7-2-1 in their last ten games and have allowed more than two goals in regulation only twice in those ten games.

1. Since Dave Tippett took over behind the Phoenix bench the Coyotes are 103-56-23. This without a player with as many as 25 goals (Radim Vrbata had 24 in 2009-2010), more than 60 points (Shane Doan had 60 points last season), or as much as a plus-20 (Adrian Aucoin was plus-18 last season). If there is a team that is more a product of “system” hockey, it would be hard to find.

2. Former Capital Boyd Gordon has already matched his point total of last season. Through 18 games Gordon is 3-6-9. What’s more, his plus-7 is on pace to leave him with his a career best total in that number (he was plus-10 with Washington in 2006-2007). He remains one of the best faceoff men in the league, currently ranking 11th with a 55.7 percent winning percentage.

3. Phoenix has the third lowest shooting percentage allowed of any team in the league. Opponents are converting only 7.1 percent of their shots on goal so far. They have allowed more than 30 shots on goal in 10 of their last 11 games, yet have allowed only 26 goals (on 385 shots – 6.8 percent shooting).

4. The Caps have had a thing for balancing ice time this year, but they have nothing on the Coyotes. Only one skater is averaging more than 20 minutes a game – defenseman Keith Yandle (22:14). On the other hand, 13 skaters are averaging more than 15 minutes per game.

5. Phoenix knows how to milk a lead. No team has more wins when leading after two periods than the Coyotes (10). No team has more wins when scoring first (nine). Of course, the flip side of that is that the Coyotes are 0-5-1 when trailing after 40 minutes, and only one team has fewer wins when allowing the first goal (the Coyotes have one win in six such games).

1. On the matter of ice time, the top five Caps in that category are all defensemen in terms of average ice time per game. No Cap forward averages more than the 18:46 of Alex Ovechkin (that is not a misprint – 18:46). Ovechkin has only five games this season in which he has more than 20 minutes. His season high is 21:47, a number he exceeded 39 times last season.

2. So far, no “Young Gun” has a game-winning goal in regulation time. Nicklas Backstrom and Mike Green each have one, both coming in overtime. But they have dominated for the Caps on the power play. Of the 12 power play goals the Caps have, that quartet has seven.

3. Marcus Johansson is second on the team in goals (six), leads in game-winning goals (three), and is second on the team in shooting percentage (22.2 percent). He also has only four shots on goal in his last six games, not recording more than one shot on goal in any of them.

4. New guys… Joel Ward does not have a point in his last six games, Roman Hamrlik does not have one in his last 12, and Jeff Halpern does not have one in his last six. If not for Troy Brouwer (4-5-9 in his last 13 games), it would be quite a drought for the new guys.

5. Playing it close has been best for the Caps so far. They are 1-2 in games decided by two goals, 4-4 in games decided by three or more goals. But in one-goal decisions, the Caps are 5-1-1, the third best record in such decisions in the league.

The Peerless’ Players to Ponder

Phoenix: Paul Bissonnette

“BizNasty2point0” has 173,937 followers on Twitter. He has fewer than 600 minutes played in the National Hockey League. He is the Lady Gaga of the NHL.

Washington: Jason Chimera

No Cap will go into this game with more career goals against Phoenix than Jason Chimera (six in 26 career games). He is 2-2-4 in his last five games. He has not had a run of points in five of six games since he opened the 2008-2009 season with five in six games as a member of the Columbus Blue Jackets. He is tied for second in points, tied for fourth in points, second in plus-minus, has both a shorthanded and a game-winning goal on his ledger this season for the Caps. On a roster with too many underachievers at the moment, Chimera is not among them.

Keys:

1. Win the 5-on-5. Phoenix and Washington are two of the least penalized teams in the NHL. The Coyotes have the fewest penalty minutes per game so far (8.3), and the Caps have the fourth fewest (9.9). The Caps have slumped considerably in five-on-five play since their seven-game winning streak to open the season, and they are currently ranked below the Coyotes in this category. The Caps need to get back to basics, and it doesn’t get any more basic than winning at 5-on-5.

2. Best players playing best. The Caps are 1-5-1 in their last seven games. Over that span, Mike Green has been sidelined, but his fellow travelers on the Young Guns roster – Alex Ovechkin, Nicklas Backstrom, and Alexander Semin – are a combined 4-4-8, minus-15. It isn’t the scoring as much as it is the indifference they seem to be showing in playing 200 feet of hockey. That minus-15 screams off the page.

3. Have fun, for cryin’ out loud. You’re getting paid to play a game. You are the best at your profession. You’ve been fantasizing about this sort of thing since you were kids on a pond or in a rink. Winning is fun, but fun is winning, too. If you’re not having fun, chances are you’re not going to be winning much. “Play” the game. Don’t make it look like 9-to-5 drudgery.

In the end, all streaks come to a close. Winning or losing, they all have a shelf life. This 1-5-1 nastiness will end, too. And then the matter will be what the Caps do from then on. They have shown a certain resiliency when enduring similar streaks in the past few years, finishing strong over the rest of the regular season. If they can put this behind them and perform in a similar fashion, then all this will be an unpleasant memory, leaving Caps fans with only the terror that is confronting the playoffs. But if the Caps continue to founder, then things will become very interesting over the next couple of weeks, and not in a good way.

Phoenix presents a difficult obstacle for the Caps to overcome in trying to right their ship. They are dedicated to a stifling style that will bore you to sleep and that adds another notch in your loss column more often than not. The Caps have to assert themselves and impose their will on the Coyotes to end this slide.

Caps 3 – Coyotes 2

The Peerless Prognosticator Brings You: Western Conference Round One Prognostos

We’ve done the prognostos for the Caps/Rangers series, and we’ve done them for the rest of the East. What about the rest? Well, here is the West …

Vancouver (1st seed, 54-19-9) vs. Chicago (8th seed, 44-29-9)

Theme: So, there I was on my way to the coronation…

Why Vancouver will win: The object of the game is still outscore your opponent (or conversely, prevent your opponent from outscoring you). Vancouver can score (1st in the league in goals-per-game), and they can prevent teams from scoring (1st in fewest goals allowed per game). They can beat you 5-on-5 (2nd in 5-on-5 scoring ratio); they can beat you on the power play (tops in the league); they can shut down your power play (tied for 2nd in penalty killing). They simply have too many ways to beat a team.

Why Vancouver won’t win: Demons. Since Vancouver reached their only Stanley Cup final in 1994, the Canucks have reached the playoffs ten times. They have a total of five series wins, and in none of those years did they make it past the second round. The thing they have going for them, if you can say that, is that coach Alain Vigneault is three for three in first round tries. That’s not a lot of consolation. And, they’re only playing .500 in April (ok, so it’s 2-2-0).

Canuck on the hot seat: Roberto Luongo. Since joining the Canucks in the 2006-2007 season, Roberto Luongo has not won fewer than 33 games in a season, has not posted a GAA higher than 2.57, has not had a save percentage below .913, and he has 28 shutouts. OK, now about the playoffs…1.77, .941… 2.52, .914… 3.22, .895. Those would be his GAA and save percentages in each of the last three years, each getting worse from one year to the next. And it probably escapes no one’s notice that a lot of that debacle last year came at the hands of the team he is facing in this round.

Why Chicago will win: Nothing beats experience. There is an intangible difference between a contender – even a favorite – that has not yet won a championship, and a club that might not measure up on paper, but who has those rings on their fingers. And there is nothing in Vancouver’s game that Chicago fears. They’ve seen this movie.

Why Chicago won’t win: Timing. The Blackhawks are not exactly coming into this series breathing fire. They actually sort of stumbled in. Dallas losing to Minnesota in a game that could have eliminated Chicago aside, the Blackhawks are 7-6-3 to close the regular season after rolling off an eight-game winning streak in lae February/early March. They’re best might be behind them.

Blackhawk on the hot seat: Corey Crawford. Chicago has a talented defense, but ultimately someone is going to have to stop pucks fired by the top offense in the league. It won’t be Crawford’s baptism in the NHL playoff wars, but it will be close to it. His NHL playoff experience is limited to 16 minutes of one game last spring. He’s had a really nice rookie season. This is a different animal.

A lot of folks are looking at maps of downtown Vancouver plotting where they will plunk down their lawn chairs for the parade. That’s quite a bit of expectation to live up to. And this draw is probably the worst one for the Canucks of the other seven teams in the West making the playoffs. If they get past this round, maybe those maps will come in handy. We’re thinking they won’t.

Chicago in six

San Jose (2nd seed/48-25-9) vs. Los Angeles (7th seed/46-30-6)

Theme: Hey! We’re still here!!

Why San Jose will win: With apologies to Canuck fans, the Sharks might be the hottest team in the West heading into the tournament. They finished 9-2-1 in their last 12 games, five of the wins coming by three or more goals. They were 10-for-30 on the power play (and had power play goals in eight of the 12 games, seven of the first eight of that stretch). Their offense is steamrolling opponents.

Why San Jose won’t win: In those 12 games to close the regular season the Sharks were only 29-for-39 in penalty killing (74.4 percent). Even if you take away the four goals in six tries they allowed in a 6-2 loss at Phoenix in the season’s penultimate game, the 81.8 percent success rate in penalty killing that results isn’t al that hot, either.

Shark on the hot seat: Joe Thornton. It is one thing to be a player whose team falters in the post-season, but a player who performed above and beyond his statistics in those disappointments (Caps fans, see: “Ovechkin, Alex”). Then there is Joe Thornton. He is “Mats Sundin-like” with his ability to put up almost metronomic points-a-game regular seasons (1,001 points in 995 career regular season games). But he has 65 points in 91 career playoff games, and he is a minus-14 in the last 21 playoff games in which he played. It’s not all on Thornton; the Sharks’ recent disappointments have been team efforts. But at 31, the clock is starting to tick loudly on Thornton’s career, and his teams have only five playoff series wins in his five seasons in San Jose.

Why Los Angeles will win: Strength beats strength. San Jose enters this tournament in a tie for the league’s second best power play (with Anaheim). But the Kings have the fourth best penalty kill (85.5 percent). Not only that, they don’t allow a lot of opportunities (tenth lowest number of shorthanded situations faced). The two factors combined so that no team in the NHL allowed fewer power play goals than did the Kings this season.

Why Los Angeles won’t win: The Kings seem to have a timing issue, too. From March 9th through March 29th the Kings went 8-1-1 and cemented their place in the top eight in the West. They did not finish well, however, going 2-4-0 in their last six, with one of the wins coming in a Gimmick against Phoenix. What is more, in what might now look like a statement game, San Jose pasted the Kings, 6-1, on April 4th. Los Angeles might have seen their peak, and it is in their rear view mirror.

King on the hot seat: Drew Doughty. No one could say that defenseman Drew Doughty had a bad year this season, not with an 11-29-40, plus-13 scoring line in 76 games. But no one seems to be spreading his name around as an “inevitable” Norris Trophy winner. Not that his reputation needs much by way of rehabilitation, but he can force himself back into the mix in the discussion of elite defensemen with a good series here against a team that will put pressure on the Los Angeles defense and goaltenders.

If there is a certainty in any series in the first round in either conference, this might be the one. San Jose has too many weapons for the Kings to contend with.

San Jose in five

Detroit (3rd seed/47-25-10) vs. Phoenix (6th seed/43-26-13)

Theme: Ding! Round 2!!

Why Detroit will win: This makes 20 years in a row that the Red Wings have made the playoffs. Mike Babcock has been around as coach for the last five appearances before this season, and he hasn’t lost an opening round since he lost to Edmonton in his first try in 2006. In other words, this is what Detroit does these days – win early playoff rounds. And they have uncommon scoring balance. No player finished with more than 80 points (Henrik Zetterberg had 80), but twenty players finished the season with at least ten points. Detroit did not have a 30-goal scorer, but 13 players had at least ten goals. The Red Wings had three different players with at least ten power play goals; 14 had at least one man advantage marker. Sixteen different Red Wings had at least one game-winning goal. Someone on this team will beat you.

Why Detroit won’t win: You can almost see the chips and cracks in the armor. Nicklas Lidstrom finished in “minus” territory for the first time since Columbus discovered the New World. Henrik Zetterberg is day-to-day with a knee…oops, lower body injury. Pavel Datsyuk played in only 56 games this season. Brian Rafalski in only 63 games. Kris Draper in only 47. The Cup tournament is a grind, played seven games at a time, and one wonders if Detroit has the finish left to make a deep run of it.

Red Wing on the hot seat: Valteri Filppula. He might not get the ink that a Nicklas Lidstrom, a Pavel Datsyuk, or a Henrik Zetterberg gets, but he has been a valuable performer for the Red Wings, especially in the playoffs. He is 15-26-41 in 75 career post-season games, and before this is over he is going to have to perform at that level or better as one of the next generation of Wings to carry on this post-season tradition.

Why Phoenix will win: Familiarity. Last season was the Coyotes’ “happy to be here” moment, reaching the playoffs after a six-year absence from the post-season. And yet, they still took the mighty Red Wings to a seventh game in their opening round matchup. There isn’t the wide-eyed novelty associated with just “making it,” and the Coyotes know they can play with these guys. What is more, the Coyotes went 2-0-2 against the Red Wings in the season series. Taking this a step further, Phoenix can match Detroit in terms of scoring depth. Twenty Coyotes registered at least ten points this season.

Why Phoenix will not win: Phoenix has that point scoring depth, but they really lack a go-to, high-end talent that can turn a game by himself. Shane Doan is the Coyotes’ only 20-goal scorer. And for a team that plays such a system-based, close to the vest style (14th in goal scoring, 13th in fewest goals allowed), they do not have as good a record in one-goal games (21-8-13) as do the Wings (21-7-10).

Coyote on the hot seat: Keith Yandle. Among defensemen in the NHL the top three scorers all come from the Western Conference. Nicklas Lidstrom (second), you’ve no doubt heard of. Lubomir Visnovsky (first), you might have heard of lately as a potential Norris Trophy finalist. But third in scoring among defensemen is Keith Yandle. Oddly enough, he is only one of two defensemen in the top 11 in scoring that does not have a game-winning goal this season (Atlanta’s Tobias Enstrom is the other), and he is in a goal scoring drought over all, having potted only two in his last 30 games after recording nine in his first 52 contests. The ‘Yotes could use some contributions from Yandle, especially since his frequent partner, Derek Morris, will miss Game 1 with an upper body injury.

Detroit is the limousine of the NHL, riding to the playoffs in style, frequenting the exclusive playoff venues every season. Phoenix is the Camry… functional, reliable over the course of the season, will get where it needs to go. But do Camrys show up in the valet parking of the poshest clubs? Like the second, third, or finals round of the Stanley Cup tournament? Didn’t think so.

Detroit in six

Anaheim (4th seed/47-30-5) vs. Nashville (5th seed/44-27-11)

Theme: “Nashville” is just “Anaheim” spelled sideways.

Why Anaheim will win: The playoffs are about playing things close with little margin for error, and Anaheim has the best record in one-goal games in the league (29-10-5). Part of what gives them those one-goal wins is a lethal power play that ranked in a tie for second in the NHL. And part of what makes that power play so good is having the league’s top goal scorer for the regular season (Corey Perry) and the league’s top active career goal scorer (Teemu Selanne). Between them they have 81 total goals and 30 of those on the power play.

Why Anaheim won’t win: We are tempted to say “because they can’t kill penalties,” which is true but there are three playoff teams in the West below them in penalty killing efficiency (San Jose, Chicago, and Phoenix – all below 80 percent for the season), and Nashville has a poor power play. There is a question in goal, however. Jonas Hiller has suffered from vertigo symptoms that limited him to three games since the All Star break (only one of which he played 60 minutes), none since March 24th. That leaves it up to Dan Ellis, who hasn’t played in (or won) a playoff game since 2008 with Nashville, and Ray Emery, who hasn’t played in (or won) a playoff game since 2007 with Ottawa. They’ve done well in relief of Hiller (both with GAAs under 2.40 and save percentages above .915), but this is a different sort of season.

Duck on the hot seat: Cam Fowler. The rookie defenseman came straight to the NHL from last June’s draft and got some early Calder Trophy consideration for the offensive numbers he was putting up from the blue line. But while his offensive numbers shine (10-30-40, second in scoring among rookie defensemen), he is a minus-25 on the season (299th of 303 defensemen dressing in the NHL this season).

Why Nashville will win: You really have to ask yourself that, step back, scratch your chin, and then probably end up saying, “hell if I know.” They are 26th in winning percentage when leading after two periods, 22nd in winning percentage in one-goal games. They are 22nd in offense; their power play is poor (26th in the league; worst among playoff teams). It really comes down to two things – goalie Pekka Rinne, who might be the best goaltender in this tournament, even with Tim Thomas in it, and the fact that the Predators beat the Ducks in three of four meetings this year. Sometimes, a team just has the knack.

Why Nashville won’t win: See above. Even with Rinne, this will be a hard series that has to be played on Nashville’s terms – low scoring and tight checking. Give Rinne a chance to win games. That is a hard way to play when you need four wins, not just one.

Predator on the hot seat: Sergei Kostitsyn. Among players skating in at least 50 games this season, Sergei Kostitsyn has the best shooting percentage (23 goals on 24.7 percent shooting) by far in the NHL (Phoenix’ Lauri Korpikoski is second at 18.4 percent). The other side of that coin is that he takes only 1.2 shots per game. Would those percentage numbers drop if he shot more? Almost certainly. But given Anaheim’s iffy goaltending, it can’t hurt to try.

These teams aren’t altogether different. Anaheim has better scoring, and Nashville has better defense and goaltending, but both are as likely as not to grind out wins. We like Anaheim’s superior playoff pedigree (a number of players from the 2007 Cup team remain), but we really do not like their goaltending at all.

Nashville in seven

OK, there you have it, the Peerless Prognosticator's prognostos for your 2011 Stanley Cup first round series. And as we like to say, “if you’ve read this far…SEEK HELP!”