A Three Game, TWO-point night: National Semifinals and Caps 4 - Lightning 2

If hockey was sugar, The Peerless would be in a diabetic coma this morning. After watching two national semifinal college championship games last evening, then catching the recorded version of the Caps/Lightning game later, it has been a “hockeypalooza” start to the weekend. And it isn’t over.

But first things first…

It was a bad week for schools who claim green and white as their athletic colors. On Monday, Michigan State was stomped by the University of North Carolina in the NCAA men’s basketball championship game. Last night, both teams sporting green and white – the Bemidji State Beavers and the Vermont Catamounts (Vermont also sporting gold in their uniforms) dropped decisions in the national semifinals of collegiate men’s hockey, Bemidji State falling to Miami (Ohio), 4-1, and Vermont losing on a late goal in a 5-4 Boston University win.

In the first game, it looked like a case of Bemidji State finally running out of gas against a team that could skate with them as no other opponents seemed to be able to do in the tournament, and not having an answer to Miami’s size advantage. What Bemidji State didn’t lack for was support. It looked as if the whole school showed up to support the Beavers. Even though they fell short, it was the sort of thing that make the college version of the sport so appealing.

In the second game, which one might look at as the “upper half” of the draw (Bemidji State and Miami both being four-seeds in their respective regions), Vermont showed no fear in facing the top-ranked Terriers. Despite falling behind 2-0 in the first period, Vermont roared back with three goals in the second in a span of six minutes to take a 3-2 lead. BU scored late in the second to tie the game, which set the table for a great third period. Vermont scored on a power play mid-way through the third and looked in complete control at that point. But the Catamounts took a penalty about a minute after taking the lead, and the momentum turned. BU failed to convert the power play, but Chris Higgins tied the game just after the penalty expired. All that was left was to see who would find the smallest crack in the other’s armor. It came with just under six minutes left as Higgins sent a shot at the Vermont net directly off a clean face off win that was kicked aside by goalie Rob Madore. But Madore couldn’t control the direction of the deflection, and the puck ended up right on the tape of Colin Wilson’s stick. A Hobey Baker finalist is not likely to miss on the sort of opportunity presented to him in that situation, and Wilson didn’t. He stuffed the rebound short side past Madore, and BU was off to fight for its first championship since 1995.

Meanwhile, in Tampa…

The Caps clinched the two-seed in the East with what might be described as a “workmanlike” effort in defeating the Tampa Bay Lightning, 4-2. In a perverse way, this win was encouraging. Setting aside for the moment that Tampa is: a) a bad team, and b) has nothing to play for, the Caps pounded out a win in lunch-pail fashion. It was the kid who, despite hating Brussels sprouts, manages to down each and every one of the little suckers.

Other stuff…

- You ever go to a ball game, and the big bopper in the lineup goes 0-for-5, hitting screaming line drives into everyone’s glove? That was Alex Ovechkin last night. 11 shots on goal (five in the third period), 22 attempts…no goals, no points.

- It was another somewhat troubling night for Sergei Fedorov, who took two minor penalties (to go with the three he took on Tuesday). Of the five minors he has in the last two games, three were for hooking (two of them last night), and one for holding. As much as the putting the Caps a man down, his taking those penalties deprives the Caps of a heady penalty killer and all around force. We’ll call it a mental slump.

- Another encouraging sign. The character actors in this movie took top billing again. David Steckel had a goal (on his only shot) a hit, a blocked shot, and won nine of 12 faceoffs (including seven of eight in the defensive zone). Brooks Laich had a pair of goals. Matt Bradley and Keith Aucoin chipped in assists. It overshadowed Mike Green’s three-point night (1-2-3).

- OK, it was a great diving poke of a pass from Zenon Konopka to Steven Stamkos for the first goal of the game in the first minute. But we weren’t in much of a happy mood the way Tomas Fleischmann more or less waved at Stamkos as he blew by to receive the pass.

- Laich’s two goals were scored from almost in the paint. But they weren’t the only two instances in which he could tell what kind of gum goalie Karri Ramo was chewing. He was in Ramo’s face on a number of other chances that, had Ramo not been quick to cover the puck, would have ended up behind him.

- Jose Theodore was a winner in his 500th career game. He can tie his career high for a season in wins (33) with a win over Florida tomorrow night.

- Each team had five penalties, but the Caps arguably put themselves in greater danger of losing in doing so than did Tampa. Of the five penalties taken by Tampa Bay, two were taken by Matt Smaby, two by Evgeni Artyukhin, and one by David Koci. Combined, Koci and Artykhin had 15:40 in ice time, and Smaby – a defenseman – doesn’t contribute a lot at the offensive end (he had 20-plus minutes of ice time). Meanwhile, of the five penalties the Caps took, two were by Fedorov and one by Ovechkin. The Caps can’t afford those guys being off the ice much for penalties.

- Think coach Bruce Boudreau is evaluating guys? John Erskine had almost seven minutes of ice time in the third period.

- Viktor Kozlov…one shot attempt. One can appreciate the role Kozlov often plays in the offensive zone, lugging the puck into territory to get plays started, but getting something of a threat from his stick might free up other guys, too. Maybe that’s why he got only 11 minutes of ice time.

- And what is it about Sergei Fedorov, “Man of Action.” In his first 11 shifts of the game, play stopped six times either with a penalty or a goal. Of course, the same could be said of linemate Alex Ovechkin, as in his first 11 shifts play stopped seven times for a penalty or a goal.

- We were a little surprised to see Mike Green (28:09) and Alex Ovechkin (23:15) get so much ice time. We thought things might be dialed back a little on those two getting ready for next week. We’ll see what it looks like tomorrow, now that the Caps know where they’ll finish.

- Steven Stamkos, who has put together quite a rookie year after a slow start burdened by unrealistic expectations, set a Tampa Bay rookie record for goals with 22. The record had been held by Brad Richards.

- The win by Washington ties a franchise high (50), and the two points earned in the win gives this edition of the Caps the franchise record for standings points (108). Does that make this the greatest team in Caps history? The Peerless ranks this team – for the moment – third, behind the 1985-1986 team (which held the wins and points records) that was deeper offensively and better defensively, and the 1997-1998 team that finished with a rush and used that momentum to go to the Stanley Cup final.

- Speaking of that 1997-1998 Cup Finals team. That team went 8-2-1 in their last 11 games. If the Caps win tomorrow night in Florida, they could finish their last 11 games, 8-1-2…hmmm.

Only one more to go, then the fun can start. Florida was eliminated from playoff contention last night, so the Caps might either blow the doors off a team that suddenly has nothing to play for but the pride of finishing well, or they can go through the motions looking ahead to next week. We have no clue which scenario will unfold. Isn’t that what makes following this team so, uh…interesting?

The Peerless Prognosticator is ON THE AIR!!! -- Caps vs. Lightning, April 9th

The Peerless Prognosticator is ON THE AIR!!!

It’s the last trip to Florida of the year – probably – as the Caps head to Tampa to take on the Lightning tonight in game 81 of the schedule…

"Three to ze fourth powah…"

Professor?

"Three to ze fourth powah…eighty-vun ist three to ze fourth powah."

And this means…what?

"Ze powah of three…for eggzample, ze Caps haff won three games in April. "

So?

"Und Tampa Bay haff lozt three games in April."

OK…is that all?

"Alex Ovechkin hass three hat trrrrricks ziss year."

You’re reaching, Prof.

"Ja, vell…it’s schtill early. "

You keep vehrking…uh, working on that, Professor. As for the game, the Caps have made Tampa their personal scrimmage partner this year. Washington has won all five games played to date by a combined score of 26-12. Perhaps surprisingly, the Caps have not built that margin on the strength of their special teams. Washington is 5-for-23 on the power play against the Lightning this year (21.7 percent – and three of those goals came in the last game, in which the Caps were 3-for-9), while they have killed off 15 of 18 shorthanded situations (83.3 percent).

The overall numbers look like this…

It does not paint a pretty picture for the Lightning, as they rank in the bottom third in the league in every measure except their power play. And, the Lightning have been playing even worse of late. Since March 1st, they have earned only 14 of a possible 36 standings points available to them and have only four wins in the 18 games played since March 1st.

What is especially noteworthy about their record since March 1st is having played in eight extra time games. Not surprisingly, the Lightning have lost six of those eight games. No team has played more extra time games this season than Tampa Bay (23), and no team has a worse winning percentage in those games (.217 on a 5-18 record). Conversely, the Lightning don’t get blown out as much as you might think. They are tied for having the 15th fewest number of three-or-more goal losses. Their 12 such losses are only one more than Pittsburgh and one fewer than…gulp…the Caps.

Individually, Tampa Bay is a team that struggles offensively, especially after you get past the top five scorers. The Lightning have five players with 40 or more points – Martin St. Louis, Vincent Lecavalier, Ryan Malone, Vaclav Prospal, and Steven Stamkos. After that, you drop all the way to 19 points to find the sixth leading scorer – defenseman Lukas Krajicek.

And, if the Lightning struggle on offense, they are having health issues as well. Lecavalier and Malone will be out for this one, depriving the Lightning of two of those top-five scorers. Add to that the fact that defensemen Paul Ranger, Andrej Meszaros, Marek Malik, Josef Melichar, Cory Murphy, and Richard Petiot are either out or questionable, and this is a team that is more likely to resemble their AHL affiliate Norfolk Admirals than a real life NHL team.

Looking at the three top scorers for the Lightning who should play this evening, you can’t say Martin St. Louis or Stven Stamkos have bailed on the season. St. Louis is 10-10-20 in 18 games since March 1st, while Stamkos is 9-8-17 in the same number of games (a 77-point pace, not bad for an 19-year old rookie). On the other hand, Vaclav Prospal has been largely absent while still wearing a sweater. In his 18 games since the beginning of March, he is 4-3-7 and has only two points (both goals) in his last 11 games. He is also dead last on the team in plus-minus (-18).

In goal, Tampa Bay has alternated Karri Ramo and Mike McKenna faithfully over the past 11 games. That would mean that McKenna gets the start against the Caps tonight. This would be good news for Caps fans. Since March 1st, McKenna is 2-4-0, 3.85, .884. He’s lost all three of his appearances against the Caps this year with a 5.20 goals against average and a .820 save percentage.

The Peerless’ Players to Ponder

Tampa Bay: Matt Pettinger

If Vaclav Prospal has the worst plus-minus on the team, Pettinger’s is worse on a per-game basis. He is -15 in only 57 games. He is, though, 4-2-6 in 18 games since the beginning of March, which passes for secondary scoring on this club. He is the 11th leading scorer for the Lightning overall at 6-7-13 (the 11th leading scorer for the Caps is David Steckel at 7-11-18, although Steckel has played in 74 games). Pettinger might be remembered by history in the same way guys are remembered in a photo showing a Julius Erving dunk as they cringe under the basket. It was Pettinger who blocked the original shot from Mike Green just before Green deposited the rebound into the Tampa net to set the new record for consecutive games with a goal by a defenseman. He has only one assist in four career games against the Caps.

Washington: Sergei Fedorov

Fedorov did not have a particularly good game last time out against the Atlanta Thrashers. But he’s had his way over the years against the Lightning – 15-22-37, +7, in 27 career games. He has not, however, registered any of those points against the Lightning this year in the three games he’s played. Nevertheless, he does have points in three of his last four games (3-1-4) and has been over 60 percent wins on faceoffs in an astonishing seven of his last 11 games. It would be nice if he kept that points producing run going, but his contributions are as likely to come in other areas of the score sheet.

The Caps have dominated the Lightning this season largely on the basis of production from the “Young Guns.” Alex Ovechkin, Nicklas Backstrom, Mike Green, and Alexander Semin are a combined 14-20-34, +24 in the five games played thus far. The 14 goals scored by this quartet amounts to 54 percent of the total goals scored against Tampa Bay this year by the Caps. Ovechkin, Backstrom, and Green have points in each of the five games they have played against the Lightning this year. Semin was held off the scoresheet once in three games.

Prof?...You have any other information on “the power of three” you’d like to share?

"Oh, ja. Ze Caps vill give up three goals tonight, but zey vill score three more… "


Caps 6 – Lightning 3

A TWO-point night: Caps 4 - Thrashers 2

The Caps beat the Atlanta Thrashers tonight, 4-2, in a game that a lot of fans will say was not a great game for the Caps. Well, we’re beyond that. Here is the important takeaway – since losing three in a row at home, ending with a 2-1 loss to Toronto, the Caps are 9-2-3. That’s 21 of 28 standings points in a stretch where folks might have said on a lot of occasions, “yeah, but they didn’t play well.”

We’re at the point of the season where it doesn’t matter. The Caps could look as scruffy as a playoff beard at this point, but as long as their number is bigger than the other guy’s number at the end of 60 minutes, or 65 minutes, or early in the next morning, all is good.

Bruce Boudreau noted after the game that he didn’t think it was an exciting game. He was right. The Caps sleepwalked through long stretches in this one, and the Thrashers couldn’t take advantage of the plethora of chances bestowed upon them (yes, we’re paid up on our correspondence course on good writin’). Why?...because Semyon Varlamov was pretty much lights out in goal for the Caps. 29 saves on 31 shots might not seem especially extraordinary (.934 save percentage) – it probably won’t get him a star of the night at NHL.com, for example. But it was how he did it that was borderline amazing.

Ilya Kovalchuk is going to be muttering to himself all the while on his drive home, asking himself, “how did he stop those shots?” Kovalchuk had four shots on goal, and it seemed that all of them required a SportsCenter highlight save by Varlamov to keep the puck out of the net. When not stuffing Kovalchuk (think Kovalchuk wants to tap the kid on the mask to say, “nice save” now?), he was swallowing shots in his equipment to prevent rebounds that Thrashers were in a position to pounce upon, or he was directing shots into the corners and out of harm’s way. That he didn’t get a star for the game seemed almost sinful.

Other stuff…

- Nothing reflected the apparent disinterest the Caps had in this game more than their performance in the circle. 23 up and 30 down. David Steckel was the only Cap on the good side.

- Need another example? Five blocked shots among three players (two for David Steckel and Mike Green, one for Brian Pothier).

- Need another? 31 Thrasher takeaways.

- Need another? Nine hits.

- Another? One penalty drawn. The league’s number two power play got one chance, and that one lasted a mere 47 seconds when Sergei Fedorov took an ill-advised boarding penalty. The Caps are 20th in the league in total power play opportunities on the road.

- Fedorov had a rather brutal night – three minor penalties taken, 4-for-13 in the circle, and not much on the good side. He wouldn’t have been credited with a goal absent the miracle of instant replay (when it was ruled that Zach Bogosian swatted the puck out of the air after it had crossed the goal line). One might say that it was a player playing as if his next real game would be on April 15th. To us, he looked kind of old.

- In the second period, I was watching what was passing for hockey by the Caps, and I was thinking to myself, “Bruce is going to sit Ovechkin pretty soon…” He didn’t, but it wouldn’t have surprised me if he did. Everyone has an off night, and despite a couple of assists, this looked like it was Ovechkin’s turn to have one.

- One of the problems the Caps have had for long stretches of the franchise’s history is a total inability to complete the simplest of passes. That’s what makes the sort of passing that resulted in the Caps’ second goal such a smile to watch. To see Nicklas Backstrom and Tomas Fleischmann stick-handle and pass in such tight spaces, leaving the puck where only Viktor Kozlov could do something with it…well, we’re scratching our head trying to figure out what combination of forwards in Caps history could make that play so smoothly.

- If there was one thing the Caps did well, when they still seemed interested, was head to the net. The four goals were scored from a combined distance of less than 50 feet from the net.

- Then in the second period, when they didn’t appear especially interested, they mustered a total of five shots. None of them were from inside 25 feet, and the Caps went almost ten minutes (from 5:43 of the period to 15:00) without getting a shot on goal against a goalie who wasn’t having a very good night.

- The penalty killing was good – six-for-six – but that’s probably more a function of Varlamov’s play than the skaters in front of him. Once again, clearing the puck out of the defensive zone was a problem.

- If you knew Michael Nylander would be centering Brooks Laich and Eric Fehr, would you also have figured out that it would be Nylander who would have four of the five shots on goal the trio would get? Would you have figured out that Nylander would have five of the six shot attempts? Not bad, considering Nylander got barely ten minutes of ice time and barely half of that in the last two periods, combined.

Just one more trip to Florida, and the Caps can get on with the playoffs. Frankly, even we’re sort of bored with the whole idea of games 81 and 82 at this point. But the Caps can set a franchise record for standings points with another win (or two extra time losses), and they can still tie the franchise record for road wins. Ovechkin can still catch Malkin, the Caps can still finish with six 20-goal scorers (Fleischmann needing one), and the Caps can finish with ten players with at least ten goals (Nylander needing one).

It could still be an interesting week.

The Peerless Prognosticator is ON THE AIR!!! -- Caps vs. Thrashers, April 7th

The Peerless Prognosticator is ON THE AIR!!!

We’re in the last week of the regular season, and the Caps open in with the back half of a home-and-home against the Atlanta Thrashers. Rather than just rewrite what we wrote in advance of the game on Sunday, we’ll just point you to what we wrote the first time.

As for these teams, this will be the 56th meeting in the storied history of the Capitals-Thrashers rivalry. Here is the tale of the Caps' record against the Thrashers…

As you can see, the difference between Sunday’s game and Tuesday’s game is pretty much what you’d expect – the venue. Philips Arena has not been hospitable to the Capitals, the Caps having a losing record there since the Thrashers opened the arena in 1999. In fact, that losing record is the result of having lost both games played there this year. In those two games, the Thrashers…

- outscored the Caps 12-5

- were 6-for-13 on the power play (46.2 percent)

- Killed nine of 11 shorthanded situations (81.8 percent)

- outscored the Caps 5-1 in the first period

- have gotten a pair of goals each from Slava Kozlov, Colby Armstrong, and Bryan Little

- have NOT gotten a goal from Ilya Kovalchuk

- have held Alex Ovechkin scoreless (0-0-0, -2) despite Ovechkin having 16 shots on goal in the two games.

So…we’ll ask the cousins, Cheerless and Fearless…what do the Caps need to do to break the schneid? Feerless?

"They need to avoid the slow start. Letting the Thrashers get off to a quick start as they did in the first two games – three goals in the first period of the first game, two goals in the first period of the second game – will kill them. It will give the Thrashers confidence and make the Caps gamble even more than usual, and they don’t have the defense or consistent goaltending to allow Atlanta odd-man rushes all night while their trying to crash the Thrasher net. If the Caps can get out of the first period scoreless or maybe up 1-0 – the kind of road game you draw up on the chalkboard – they should be fine."

Cheerless?

"Huh? I was checkin’ out the Red Rockers on the Caps’ web page."

Well, we encourage research, whatever the subject might be, so we’ll just go on to say that this game represents a chance for the Caps to win their 20th road game of the season. It would mark the seventh time in franchise history that the Caps won 20 road contests. And, it would keep the club in the hunt to tie the franchise record of 22 road wins, set in the 1983/1984 season. We think they’ll keep that goal in view…

Caps 5 – Thrashers 3

Y'know...we're not braggin', just sayin'...

About those 55 goals and 51 assists for Ovechkin...

Not too bad on Backstrom (currently 22-60-82, +13)...

We were way wrong on Semin's plus-minus...

We were pretty good on Fedorov (at least his 82 game pace)...

We are pleased to have been on the under on Brooks Laich's year...

Ditto on Tomas Fleischmann's...

And we thought Theodore would be a little better (or at least a little more consistently good).

You can judge the rest of our prognostications from last fall against the Caps skaters and goalies.

And, they're into the stretch...the Race for the Ross

Hockey is a team sport. Repeat, “hockey is a team sport.” OK, fine, but as fans we can indulge the “yeah, sez you” kind of bar stool arguments about who is a better player than whom and who will win such and such award. We’ll get to that in the coming days as far as the awards that are voted upon go, but some awards are purely a matter of arithmetic.

Like the Art Ross Trophy, awarded to the leading scorer in the league. Going into the final three games of the season, Evgeni Malkin of the Penguins and Alex Ovechkin of the Capitals are in a mano-a-mano, Russian-versus-Russian contest to see who will emerge with the hardware. Can Malkin hold off the hard charging Ovechkin? Can Ovechkin overtake Malkin to win his second consecutive Ross? If so, he would be the first repeat winner since the Penguins’ Jaromir Jagr turned the trick in 2001, only to be come a Cap weeks later.

Malkin enters the final week with three games to play and 108 points on 34 goals and 74 assists. Ovechkin, having played three fewer games, has 106 points on 55 goals and 51 assists. Both players have three games left. And in those three games, there is some relevant history to look at as perhaps a guide to the coming week.

The Penguins will face Tampa Bay, the Islanders, and Montreal. Malkin has had an extremely successful season against this trio of teams…

However, since the All-Star break, Malkin’s pace has fallen off a bit – 15-23-38 in 31 games (a 101 point pace for 82 games, compared to the 120 point pace he was on prior to the All-Star break).

On the other hand, the Caps will play against division rivals Atlanta, Tampa Bay, and Florida. Against those teams, Ovechkin has been extremely productive…

And, since the All Star break, Ovechkin is 24-23-47 in 30 games (a 128-point pace, compared to the 105-point pace he was on prior to the All Star break). And it is worth noting that for all the talk of Malkin being the superior set-up man (frankly, though, he is), Ovechkin has as many assists as the Penguin center since the All Star break.

Even looking at their last ten games, Ovechkin is the hotter of the two players. He is 7-12-19 in that span, while Malkin is 4-7-11. You’d have to think that Ovechkin is going to find a way to overtake Malkin in this last week, which should be the last impediment – given how voters seem to think out these things – to winning the Hart Trophy as league MVP. But let’s give credit where credit is due, too. Malkin has emerged into his own spotlight. He has become the top gun for the Penguins, which is no small feat on a team that employs Sidney Crosby in a productive capacity. And if Malkin should finish the week on top in the Ross Trophy race, he will certainly have earned it against the toughest competition imaginable.

It will be the game-within-a-game to follow this week.

Caps stink, have no defense, no goaltender, caused global warming

Well, maybe not that last part about global warming, but as for the first three, you would think the Caps were perusing the local golf course web sites for tee times based on the commentary from Keith Jones at TSN.ca on post-season awards...

"The only defenceman for the Washington Capitals is [Mike] Green and and he should win the Norris because he has no help on the blueline. Milan Jurcina is the second highest scoring defenceman on the Capitals with 14 points and the Bruins gave him away. Tom Poti is the third highest scoring defenceman with 13 points. Green is +24 on a team without a goaltender."

No other defensemen and no goaltender. Green shouldn't win the Vezina, he should win the Hart and maybe the Nobel Prize for Hockey (hey, create the award for him...he's that good, apparently) for good measure.

A TWO-point afternoon: Caps 6 - Thrashers 4

If you wanted a title for the movie that played at Verizon Center this afternoon, it might be “Revenge of the Stunt Men.” Or maybe, “The Incredibles.” The Caps got five goals from guys who might be deemed in other circumstances “role players” in scratching out a 6-4 win over the Atlanta Thrashers on Fan Appreciation Day at Verizon Center (we extended our streak to 11 consecutive season enders at the VC without winning any prizes).

Tomas Fleischmann, who last scored a goal when Millard Fillmore was in the White House, got one.

Keith Aucoin – the smallest player on the ice – was the one who seemed most inclined to stick his nose into the middle of things and got one.

Michael Nylander, last seen scoring a goal about the time Betty and Barney Rubble tied the knot, got one. Nylander celebrated in Ovechkinian fashion with a double arm-wind that was reported to have been replayed in the locker room after the game by Brooks Laich and that, according to Eric Fehr in the radio post game, had the guys hooting on the bench.

Fehr got one by jamming the crease and poking one home.

Brooks Laich added an empty netter to send the Caps fans home happy in the knowledge that wings will be on the menu tomorrow, thanks to a local restaurant franchise.

The other goal was scored by an Alex – Semin, not Ovechkin. However, Ovechkin inched ever closer to Evgeni Malkin in the dying days of the race for the Ross Trophy. He had a pair of assists to give him 106 points. Malkin was held off the score sheet in a 4-2 loss to Florida to narrow the Penguin center’s lead over Ovechkin to two points.

Other stuff…

- Ovechkin is going to give message boards all over North America fodder for discussion for this number – 24. No, not his favorite TV show, but the number of shot attempts he had this afternoon. 11 of them got through to Thrasher goalie Johan Hedberg, but none of them got past him. His shot total is now up to 507. With three games to play, he needs 44 shots on goal to get to 551 and pass Phil Esposito (1970-1971) for the most in a season in NHL history. What’s odd is that Ovechkin probably passed up four or five additional shot opportunities from what are for him high-value areas in favor of passing to a teammate.

- Nicklas Backstrom, “Faceoff Warrior,” did it again. 12 of 16 in the circle. He’s crazed, I tell ya, crazed.

- Even with six goals, the Caps could have had more if they weren’t so gosh darn cute with the puck on the power play. If the Caps wanted a sponsor for the man advantage to replace Pepco, they could have Wes Johnson announce over public address system, “The Caps are on a ‘TOTES’ Power Play.” They spent insane amounts of time passing the puck at the top of the five man umbrella. In seven power plays, they had a total of six shots. Against a team that came into the game 29th in the league in penalty killing, that’s just nuts.

- Making things worse on the power play, the Caps allowed a shorthanded goal on which goalie Jose Theodore looked as if he guessed way wrong on which side of the net Jim Slater was going to end up shooting at. Theodore did make a fine save on Eric Perrin in a similar shorthanded situation earlier in the game, which begs the question – what were the Caps thinking, giving up better chances to the Thrashers on their own power play than they were getting at Hedberg? If they draw Philly in the first round and play like that, it’ll be a short series.

- On the other hand, fans were on Theodore where we were sitting on the goal scored by Ilya Kovalchuk. Hey, you know what? Kovalchuk has scored 296 goals in the NHL and won’t turn 26 for ten more days. He didn’t score that many at such a young age without knowing how to pick a far corner over the glove. We were more concerned how it was he got open enough to get that shot off as the Caps defense looked as if it backed off, leaving Nicklas Backstrom to try desperately to poke the puck off off Kovalchuk’s blade.

- Jeff Schultz didn’t make it out for the “jerseys off our backs” ceremony. He was back in the locker room getting stitched up. Add two hits, and Schultz is turning into “The Executioner” right before our eyes. OK…no.

- Atlanta had seven shots on goal in the second period. So did Ovechkin.

- This was Fleischmann’s firs multi-point game since February 11th. It was Fehr’s first since February 11th, too. It was Nylander’s first since February 3rd. It was Aucoin’s first since January 12th…2008, when he was playing for Carolina.

- The Caps out-attempted Atlanta 78-42. Until the third period, though, it seemed as though most of those attempts were coming from Adams-Morgan.

- How many times do you see not one, but two players have their sticks broken by opponents’ slap shots on the same penalty kill? The Caps had five on two guys with sticks and two without and didn’t get a shot through to Hedberg.

- We’re not exactly sure why, but Viktor Kozlov got two shifts of ice time after being on the ice for the Kovalchuk goal. That’s two shifts in the last 24 minutes and change for the game. Hey, he wasn’t alone…Kozlov was minus-2. His linemates – Sergei Fedorov and Alex Ovechkin (at least for the early stages of the game) – were a combined minus-3. We’re hoping that can be filed under, “get it out of your system now, boys.”

- In another episode of “Dumb Play Week” (Sergei Fedorov’s pass that resulted in the game-winner for Buffalo on Frida), Jose Theodore made a play that perhaps not even a mite would make – trying to clear the puck up the middle, perhaps thinking he could score into the empty Thrasher net with under a minute to go. He made a great pass as it turned out – to Slava Kozlov, who promptly deposited the puck into the empty net…the one Theodore abandoned to make his play.

- The Caps finished the home portion of the regular season with a 29-9-3 mark, good for 61 standings points…the same number the New York Islanders have in all their games.

Like we said in the pregame, this Atlanta team – here and now – is a team that has played well for a long stretch, with better results coming into this game, in fact, than the Caps had since February 1st. It is not a bad team, certainly not nearly as bad as their complete season record would suggest. The Caps didn’t have their “A” game, at least not for the first 40 minutes, but they showed what they can do when their opponent has their undivided attention. They outscored Atlanta 4-1 in the final 20 minutes (the one for Atlanta being a bonehead play by the goalie) and held the Thrashers to seven shots.

20 minutes of that sort of play won’t get it done after this week, but we suspect the guys know that. They need to marry a thought to an action, though. They need to play like they know it.

The Peerless Prognosticator is ON THE AIR!!! -- Caps vs. Thrashers, April 5th

The Peerless Prognosticator is ON THE AIR!!!

It seems like only last week when training camp opened and the latest crop of Capitals took the ice for the first time in the 2008-2009 season. And now, we’re here at the last home game of the regular season. And, it’s Fan Appreciation Day, which is the kickoff to Fan Appreciation Week. It all puts us in the mind to ask a question…what are other teams doing for fans in this last week of the regular season?

Well, in Tampa, according to the Lightning…

“On March 29 and April 9, all Lightning players will walk the red carpet on the Chrysler-Jeep Plaza from the circle drive in front of the St. Pete Times Forum to Shots at Channelside on the way to the locker room. Players are expected to start arriving approximately three hours prior to game time. Once the players have arrived, the fun will just be starting for fans on the Chrysler-Jeep Plaza. Live bands will rock the plaza pregame for the final three games, and enhanced activities will include a rock-climbing wall and several other interactive games, as well as a FanZone Tent where kids can make their own posters or have their faces painted. Fans will have the once-in-a-lifetime chance to win game-worn Lightning jerseys through a charity raffle in the arena during each game. Twenty lucky fans will be chosen randomly to step on the ice to receive the jerseys off the players’ backs following the game on April 9. There will be “Register to Win” locations on the Chrysler-Jeep Plaza prior to each game and five fans who enter will go on the ice during the second intermission on April 9, with one taking home ThunderBug’s all-terrain vehicle (ATV).

Nothing says “thanks” like a vehicle driven by a sweat-soaked insect mascot. We’re thinking Tampa fans would be thanked enough if the horror of this season would just end. Meanwhile, in Carolina…

"On Saturday, April 4, the Hurricanes will host the Pittsburgh Penguins at 7 p.m. at the RBC Center. Prior to the game, fans can enjoy live music, street hockey, a Hurricanes moon bounce, the slap shot booth, a Hurricanes obstacle course and food and beverage on the RBC Center’s front lawn. The first 15,000 fans inside the building will receive a player poster sponsored by Blackberry Bold featuring Matt Cullen, Joni Pitkanen, Tuomo Ruutu and Eric Staal, and six fans will also win Pepsi vending machines featuring Hurricanes players from the Pepsi can series."

Pepsi vending machines?...How long do you think it will take the winners to figure out that 12-ounce cans of beer will fit in there, too? While out in Phoenix…

“Fans in attendance will be treated to raffles offering a variety of prizes, including a grand prize of a custom Coyotes-painted Suzuki GSX650 motorcycle, compliments of RideNow PowerSports. ‘Fan Appreciation Night is always a special event for the Coyotes,’ said [Coyotes President Douglas] Moss. ‘It’s our chance to acknowledge and thank our loyal fans for their tremendous support throughout the season.’ There will also be a variety of ‘experience’ packages, including lunch with Coyotes General Manager Don Maloney, a pre-game dinner and press box tour with Assistant General Manager Brad Treliving, and ‘away trips’ to see the Coyotes play in Los Angeles and Anaheim next season that include airfare, hotel accommodations and game tickets. Game-used player equipment such as sticks, helmets and gloves and opportunities for post-game player meet-and-greets will also be featured as prizes. All fans in attendance will receive a scratcher card that will tell them if they have won a prize. In addition to the items listed above, some of the other prizes include a golf vacation package from The Markers/US Airways; a 32” Samsung LCD television from Heineken; two bicycles from Pepsi; US Airways gift cards; iPod Shuffles; and a coupon for $500 off a Custom Intralasik procedure at Schwartz Laser Eye Center."

Phoenix is pulling out all the stops there…but we don’t know about that Intralasik thing. Do they really want fans getting a clearer look at how good (or not) the Coyotes are?

We have some ideas for what some other teams might think about for gifts in appreciation of their fans’ devotion…

New York Rangers…five lucky fans will be selected to enjoy the services of Sean Avery to perform a juvenile prank on an unsuspecting friend.

Pittsburgh…every fan gets a free bottle of Visine Pure Tears Eye Drops with a picture of Sidney Crosby on the label.

Montreal…fans get a boxed set of DVDs with highlights from the centennial season for the Canadiens. Oops, the case is empty.

Minnesota…fans in attendance get 100 dollars worth of “Clutterbucks” to buy all sorts of cheesy Wild merchandise to clutter their coffee tables and display cases.

Colorado…all fans get two free tickets to Rockies games. They should have the experience of seeing a pro sports team this year.

As for the goings on at Verizon Center, the Atlanta Thrashers make their last appearance on 7th Street for the season. They might be resting in 13th place in the Eastern Conference, but they have been a nuisance to the Caps this year. The Caps and Thrashers have split four games so far this year, each team winning a pair on home ice. But while the Thrashers have torched the Caps for 12 goals in a pair of blowouts in Atlanta, the Caps have eked out a pair of close ones at Verizon Center – a two-goal victory in November and a one-goal win in February. The overall numbers look like this…


In those numbers is an unsettling statistic. It has to do with 5-on-5 play and the ratio of goals scored to goals allowed. On February 19th, the Caps ratio of goals scored to goals allowed was 1.29 (numbers greater than one being good, and the higher the better) and ranked 5th in the NHL. As the Caps take the ice today, that ratio had dropped to 1.10, and their ranking has dropped to ninth.

Meanwhile, when Atlanta last visited the Caps on February 16th, their 5-on-5 ratio was 0.89, and they were ranked 21st in the league. Today, they have improved to 0.97 and upped their ranking to 17th.

Atlanta is, at the moment, a hockey team to be reckoned with. Since February 1st, the Thrashers are 17-9-1 and are doing their level best not to be in the running to draft either John Tavares or Victor Hedman (they are 26th in the league points standings and one point away from exiting Lotteryville).

How is it that the Thrashers have not only become respectable, but worthy of fear in the last two months? Well, it starts in a big way with Ilya Kovalchuk, who is reminding hockey fans that Russian hockey does not begin with Alex Ovechkin and end with Evgeni Malkin. In his last 24 games, Kovalchuk is 20-19-39, +4. If Ovechkin has had a hot stick in getting to 50 goals, Kovalchuk’s has been positively radioactive over the last two months. In three games against the Caps this year, he is 1-4-5. And in 40 career games against Washington, Kovalchuk is 21-28-49, +12. One would have to think that attention will be paid to him.

Lost in Kovalchuk’s sonic wake has been the performance of Vyacheslav Kozlov. In the Thrashers late season run since February 1st, Kozlov has been on what might be one of the hottest stretches of his career. In 27 games since February 1st, he is 9-20-29, +4, with five power play goals and a game winner thrown in. He is also third in the NHL in total Gimmick goals and is second among players in shooting percentage in the evening gown competition who have taken more than five turns down the runway. He is 3-3-6, -1 this year against the Caps and is 7-19-36, +3, in 50 career games against Washington.

Rich Peverley joined the Thrashers when he was claimed off waivers from Nashville on January 10th, and in 35 games since had posted a 12-19-31 scoring line in 35 games. What’s more, he is +17 as a Thrasher. You’d probably have to search pretty hard to find a more productive waiver wire pickup in the NHL this season. And, he has five game-winning goals – tying him for the team lead this year – in 20 Thrasher wins since he joined the team (20-14-1). While a lot of teams are paying attention to Kovalchuk, perhaps thinking they’re getting a breather when Peverley is on the ice, this guy is making those teams pay. He is 1-1-2 in two games against the Caps this year.

In the category of “things that make Thrasher fans want next year to come faster,” there has been the play of the young defensemen Tobias Enstrom (24 and in his second NHL season) and Zach Bogosian (an 18-year old rookie drafted last June). After a slow start (scoreless and a minus-3 in October), Enstrom is 5-24-29, +15 in 68 games since. In 27 games since February 1st, he is 4-14-18, +9. Meanwhile, Bogosian got off to a slow start of his own – scoreless in October and finishing the month with a broken leg that kept him out of the lineup until New Year’s Eve. The team was concerned about the mental effects the injury could have on the rookie. Coach John Anderson said at the time, “"We’ll monitor him more psychologically than anything right now. You don’t want to feel lonely and by yourself and abandoned because you get injured, especially at 18. We’re well aware of the possible mental things he could go through." The Thrashers’ concerns were apparently ill-founded, or perhaps they should open counseling services at Philips Arena. Since his return, Bogosian is 7-8-15, +17 in 35 games. This is one of, if not the best under-25 pairs of defensemen in the league.

In goal, maybe Kari Lehtonen is finally getting it. A youngster with a world of talent (and heretofore perhaps some questionable work ethic) is starting to play like it, although his statistics are a bit deceiving. Since February 1st, he is 10-7-1, 2.90, .917, with one shutout. But over that span he has had the annual production of Goodyear and Bridgestone tires thrown at him – 34.9 shots per 60 minutes. He stopped enough of that rubber to emerge with a .917 save percentage over those 19 appearances. Lehtonen had cooled off though – in his last two full contests he allowed six goals in each in losses to Montreal and Detroit. The trouble for the Thrashers is that he suffered an “upper body injury” against the Rangers last week and appears unlikely to play against the Caps.

Lehtonen’s absence would leave the goaltending duties to Johan Hedberg, and he’s pulled his share of the load in a relief capacity. Since February 1st, Hedberg is 7-2-0 (including five straight wins, and counting). But where Lehtonen’ statistics are misleading in one sense, so too are Hedberg’s, just in another direction. While winning seven of nine decisions, he hasn’t had very good accompanying numbers. His GAA is 3.14, his save percentage .890. He’s allowed three or more goals in seven of his last nine appearances, although he allowed only two and one in his last two. Against the Caps he is a respectable 6-2-2, 2.66, .911 in ten career games (it sure seems like more, doesn’t it?).

The Peerless’ Players to Ponder

Atlanta: Colby Armstrong

When Armstrong was with Pittsburgh, he had a reputation of a being an in-your-face, edgy sort of a nuisance who was all elbows and up-to-the-edge kinds of hits. In four games against the Caps this year, he has not been credited with a single hit. None. He does provide some lower-half-of-the-lines scoring (19-18-37), but he seems to be a somewhat different player than he was in Pittsburgh. He is 5-7-12, -1, in 14 career games against Washington, 2-2-4, +1 in six games against Washington while skating for Atlanta. He could be an “X” factor in this game; he’s 2-7-9, +9, while in the midst of a six game points streak.

Washington: Jose Theodore

After getting the night off against Buffalo, it is now time for Theodore to get his “Private Joker” war face on. Atlanta will provide a good test for Theodore, having averaged 3.37 goals a game since February 1st and 3.47 goals a game since March 1st. He does have a good career record against Atlanta – 12-5-0, 2.59, .908 – but has been horrific so far this year. He is 1-1-0, 5.39, .796 in three appearances. He hasn’t allowed fewer than three goals in any of his three appearances against the Thrashers this year, and that includes 29:30 worth of time in the season opener before he was pulled in favor of Brent Johnson when he allowed three goals on 14 shots. Until now, three goals has been a minimum against the Thrashers. From now on, the Caps – and Theodore – need to be thinking of three goals as a maximum…against anybody.

If you are inclined to draw conclusions from these teams’ respective places in the standings, don’t. Atlanta has a better record since February 1st (17-9-1, 35 points) than do the Caps (15-8-4, 34 points). It took a while for Bruce Boudreau’s old chum, John Anderson, to get his players all on the same page of his playbook, but he’s doing fine right now. This is a game that could bite the Caps squarely in the backside, and a loss would make for a nasty way to end the home portion of the regular season, especially when added to giving up a third period lead to lose to the Sabres in the previous game at Verizon Center. This will be entertaining, but in the end, the Caps have more Russians…

Caps 6 – Thrashers 3

Bracketology: The Two-Versus-Seven Matchup

In early April, thoughts of seeding come to mind. No, not seeding the lawn, although we have to get around to that, too, but seeding of playoff teams. And in looking at the seeds, one wonders if there isn’t something in there akin to the infamous 5-versus-12 thing you often see in the NCAA men’s college basketball tournament where the lower-seeded team pulls off the upset.

It turns out that at first glance, there is something like that in the NHL. And, it just so happens that it is the 2-versus-7 matchup that has potential for upsets. Going back through ten seasons worth of 2-versus-7 matchups in the Eastern Conference, we see the following results:


There are several things to note here. First, there is the matter of the 7-seed coming out on top in six of ten instances. That is rather amazing in itself. But also note that the first five occasions took place in the first five years of this ten-year window.

Then there is the matter of the matchups themselves. In four of the six occasions in which the lower-seeded team won, the teams were divisional opponents (Pittsburgh and Montreal were members of the Northeast Division before the NHL went to a six division format in the 1999-2000 season). Lower-seeded divisional rivals, who are more familiar with each other, appear to have been unfazed by the matter of seeding and who beat whom in the standings.

Amplifying this theme, there have been three sweeps in 2-versus-7 series in the last ten seasons, and in two of them the lower-seeded team won. In both instances, the winner – the lower-seeded team – defeated a division rival (Buffalo over Ottawa in 1999 and Toronto over Ottawa in 2001).

It doesn’t appear that regular season records have much to do with the results of the 2-versus-7 matchup. Five times the team that lost the season series won this playoff series. Incredibly, Buffalo swept Ottawa in 1999 after failing to win a single game in their regular season series (in an odd twist of history, Ottawa only won once, and that in overtime; there were four ties).

There has been a strange lack of suspense in the 2-versus-7 matchup, if by “suspense” you mean a game 7. In the last ten years in the East, there has been one game 7 in this matchup, that coming in 2004 when Montreal defeated Boston, 2-0. Of course, Montreal was the lower-seeded team. In fact, this has more often than not been a quick-work round of games. In six of the last ten years, the series has gone only four or five games, and in four of those the lower-seeded team won.

Who wins when during the series does appear to matter, though, although perhaps one shouldn’t read a lot into it. Seven times in ten instances, the team that won Game 1 won the series. Four times, it was the lower-seeded team turning the trick, but all four of those instances occurred in the first four years of this ten-season window. But here is the one to watch – Game 3. In nine of ten instances the team that won this game won the series. The lone exception was when Tampa Bay defeated New Jersey, 3-2, in Game 3 of the 2007 series, then lost to the Devils in six games.

The methods geeks will say that ten games is an insufficient sample size to draw any clear conclusions. Add in that teams change, turn over their rosters, etc., and there is more noise added to this kind of a look. But there is a point to be made here, and it is this – there are no easy paths to the Stanley Cup, not even a two-versus-seven matchup. For the Caps, what the last ten years of history suggest is that of the five teams below them that they could realistically face in a two-versus-seven matchup, they stand to have more success against the Rangers (3-0-1 against them this year), Pittsburgh (3-0-1) or Montreal (3-1-0). They would appear to want to avoid the Flyers (2-2-0). The team they do not want to face is their Southeast Division foe Carolina, against which the Caps are 3-3-0 (Carolina winning the season points battle by virtue of earning a point in a 5-4 shootout loss on March 14th).

Still, a 14-6-2 record against the five team group from which the first round opponent could emerge is a favorable sign for the Caps heading into the second season.

But that two-versus-seven history offers a warning – “beware what you wish for…”

Avery's at it again

He must be warming up to play against "Fatso"...



It did not have the intended effect, apparently. Tim Thomas shut out the Rangers, 1-0.

A ONE-Point Night: Sabres 5 - Caps 4 (OT)

[OK…so here is what we would have written, had not our interwebnets provider not decided that their service didn’t need a vacation. We’d name the culprit, but we are not given to such Bombast, if you catch our drift]

A local restaurant franchise offers Capitals fans free chicken wings if the Caps score six or more goals in a game. The Peerless wonders, if the Caps score seven, but three of them are by their own sticks or body parts into their own net, does that count toward free wings?

That was the story last night as the Capitals earned a point and won the Southeast Division title, but dropped a 5-4 overtime result to the Buffalo Sabres in a game where Semyon Varlamov was superb when facing actual shots off Sabre sticks. He just couldn’t cope with shots that: a) deflected off of Milan Jurcina’s skate, b) ricocheted off Viktor Kozlov’s stick blade, and c) took a hop off Shaone Morrisonn’s leg among the five goals credited to the Sabres. His save percentage was .926 on 25 saves in 27 shots faced from Buffalo shooters; it was .000 – no saves in three shots faced – against his teammates.

It was a weird night all around…

- Tim Connolly missed a wide open net from about 18 inches out in the first minute of the game. Bruce Boudreau alluded to this in the post game when he remarked that things – missed open nets and shots off your own guys for goals – tend to even out. Not in Capsville, Coach…not in Capsville.

- The linesmen (Pierre Racicot in particular) had a really bad night calling offsides. They missed no fewer than three instances in they whistled the Caps for the infraction when a Cap had in fact kept the puck in the zone. How do we know this? Because there was in-house replay of each instance. We wonder if the league isn’t going to tell the Caps to knock it off and stop showing up the officials.

- And The Peerless wonders…a Cap and a Buffalo player get tangled up and roll into the goalie, all three knocking the net off it’s pegs. The Cap is down and on his back. The Buffalo goalie takes a swat at the Cap lying on the ice. The Cap gets the gate for goaltender interference. What, Alex Ovechkin’s face interfered with Ryan Miller’s glove?

- Tomas Fleischmann had only a single assist, but it was a doozy. As Buffalo was trying to clear the puck out of their end, Fleischmann – parked near the Buffalo line – dove and poked the puck across to Sergei Fedorov, who ripped a shot past Ryan Miller. Fleischmann, perhaps more so than in any game this year, asserted himself in the corners and along the boards. He initiated contact instead of letting guys push him around.

- What’s gotten into Nicklas Backstrom? 13 for 18 on draws? In his last four games, he is 53 up and 22 down (70.1 percent) in the circle.

- Sergei Fedorov – a veteran of 1,243 NHL games heading into last night – made a rookie mistake in overtime, trying a risky pass in a 4-on-4 situation with a Sabre bearing down on him. Tim Connolly broke up the play and fed a streaking Jason Pominville, who skittered past the last man back – Jeff Schultz – and snapped the puck through Varlamov’s pads for the win.

- Speaking of Fedorov, things happened when he was on the ice. He took 24 shifts last night and in half of them, the shift ended with either a goal (three for each side) or a penalty.

- Alex Ovechkin had a 1-2-3 night…and still finished minus-2. The good with the bad.

- The Caps were 3-for-7 on the power play, but one had the feeling they should have had more…like that 5-on-3 in the second period in which they failed to score in both the 5-on-3 and the 5-on-4 segments.

- If you want a thrill ride, don’t head to Kings Dominion or Six Flags America…watch Semyon Varlamov handle the puck. Between wondering if he’s going to take a wandering penalty (he’s already been whistled for handling the puck outside the Trapezoid of Despair this year, and he came close a couple of times last night) and watching him cough it up (he had four giveaways last night…the Caps don’t have than many giveaway promotions in a season), The Peerless had his heart in his throat each time Varlamov was trying to play the puck. Hey, he’s a rookie…he’ll get better.

- The Caps had a game plan with which The Peerless agreed entirely. Buffalo is not a big team. They’re built for speed and quickness. The Caps, on the other hand, are among the bigger teams in the league. So, the Caps “tenderized” the Sabres pretty well last night in an effort to wear them down. Washington had 24 hits, many of them of the slobber-knocker variety. Milan Jurcina had five hits…Alex Ovechkin had four. Shoot, even Jeff Schultz had three. For heaven’s sake, Tomas Fleischmann had three! It woulda been a great game plan, except for that pesky detail about scoring into your own net.

- The Alexes had 18 shots between them – nine apiece.

- Speaking of shots, the Caps had 37 on goal, but only from 11 skaters. No shots from forwards Viktor Kozlov, Eric Fehr, and Tomas Fleischmann – all of whom are predominantly offense-oriented (and who combined had only three shot attempts) – is equal parts weird and disturbing.

- The Caps set a record last night – in attendance. With last night’s sellout, the Caps hit 723,715 in total attendance for the year. That’s 18,093 a game, or 99.0 percent capacity.

Both teams got what they wanted – Washington got a point to clinch the division and no lower than a three-seed for the playoffs; Buffalo got the extra standings point they desperately needed. But only one team got what they needed. Buffalo got a breath of life and kept their dim playoff hopes alive in a building where the Caps don’t lose often and rarely lose when scoring first.

The Caps, on the other hand, got the bitter taste of a clinch in a loss. It was a far different ending than the manner in which they clinched the division last year. In the post game radio show, it was reported that to a man, the Caps were not happy. Coach Boudreau certainly sounded equal parts subdued and unhappy in the post game comments. The thing is, the Caps outplayed the Sabres in just about every way. Except for the odd bounce that makes hockey “hockey,” this game wouldn’t have been competitive.

Congratulations to the Caps on winning the division for a second consecutive year. However, it’s a measure of what is expected this year, and the standards the club applies to itself, that no one is shouting about it this morning (which is now evening, thanks to our interwebnets provider).

Circle June 16th on your calendars

Puck the Media (which we found via Hooks Orpik over at Pensburgh) has what looks like a preview of the nationally-televised game schedule for the Stanley Cup playoffs.

And if things go to a 7th game in the Finals, by this schedule, then you might find yourselves crowded in a bar or around your TV sets on Tuesday night, June 16th, for Game 7 of the Stanley Cup final.

PTM notes some problems with this schedule -- the potential of a 12-day hiatus between the conference finals and the Cup final looking to be a doozy -- but when we looked at it, we thought...geez, the NHL really is becoming the NBA. The NBA seems to have a fetish about stringing out its playoffs, and now the NHL looks to be heading down that road, too.

But The Peerless doesn't care...so long as it's the Caps playing on June 16th. Or maybe it would be better that the season ended on June 14th for the Caps, seeing as that would likely be a home game...

The Peerless Prognosticator is ON THE AIR!!! -- Caps vs. Sabres, April 3rd

The Peerless Prognosticator is ON THE AIR!!!

The last home stand of the regular season is half over, and the Caps have two wins to show for it. They will look to make it three in a row when the Buffalo Sabres come calling. And that means Lindy Ruff will be in town coaching the Sabres. Ruff is the longest tenured coach in the NHL, and his history with the Sabres dates back to the 1979-1980 season, when he broke in as a 19-year old and played 63 games for the Sabres.

How long ago is that? Well, as the curtain was rising in October of that 1979-1980 season….

- The US returned the Canal Zone to Panama

- Pope John Paul II became the first Pope to visit the White House

- The Quebec Nordiques’ Real Cloutier became only the second NHL player to record a hat trick in his first game.

- Allan McLeod Cormack and Godfrey Newbold Hounsfield won the Nobel Prize for medicine for developing the CAT scan.

- The Philadelphia Flyers started their NHL all-time best 35-game unbeaten streak.

- Wayne Gretzky scored his first NHL goal.

- “Monday Night Football” broadcast its first game from New York City (the Jets beat the Vikings, 14-7)

- Mother Teresa was awarded the Nobel Prize for Peace.

- Home Depot was four months old and was operating in four stores in Georgia.

- Bryan Trottier was the defending Hart Trophy winner. It would be the last time someone not named “Gretzky” won the trophy for the next eight seasons.

- Ken Dryden and Michel Larocque of Montreal were the defending Vezina Trophy winners

- Denis Potvin was the defending Norris Trophy winner.

- Bob Gainey was the defending Selke and Conn Smythe Trophy winner.

- Bobby Smith was the defending Calder Trophy winner.

- Bob MacMillan was the defending Lady Byng Trophy winner.

It's been awhile...

If the Caps made a habit of playing desperate teams in March, then they are playing a team on life support tonight. Being six points out of a playoff berth with six games to play qualifies for the NHL equivalent of last rites, and the Caps could administer them this evening. What is puzzling is how Buffalo got into this position given their numbers…

Part of the problem, it seems, is that Buffalo’s strength in past year – its scoring balance – has become something of a weakness. The Sabres have 18 players in double-digit scoring and could finish the season with 20, which would match their number from two seasons ago. But that 2006-2007 team, which led the league with 53 wins and 113 standings points, had two players topping 80 points – Daniel Briere (95) and Thomas Vanek (84). Maxim Afinogenov pitched in at better than a point per game pace, too.

This year’s Sabres might be balanced, but they seem to lack a go-to scorer. Vanek looked to be that guy early, scoring 25 goals in 37 games in the 2008 portion of the season. But since New Year’s Day, he has only 12 goals in 30 games. He had an especially difficult March with only three goals in 12 games. Perhaps April agrees with him a bit more – he had a pair of tallies in a 3-2 overtime loss to Atlanta in his first game of the month.

Derek Roy leads the club in scoring with 67 points, which has to be seen as something of a disappointment, given his scoring progression in his first four years (19, 46, 63, and 81 points). What’s more, his March wasn’t very special – 4-4-8, -9, in a dozen games.

Perhaps visiting Washington will be a tonic for these two. Vanek has three goals in three games against the Caps this year (6-5-11 in 15 career games), and Roy has a goal in three games against Washington (8-7-15 in 17 career games).

Dominic Moore was picked up at the trading deadline from Toronto, perhaps with an eye toward providing some secondary scoring. He was in the midst of his best offensive season – 12-29-41 in 63 games with the Maple Leafs – but he’s been more or less silent in Buffalo. In 12 games since the trade, he is 1-3-4. Buffalo is his fifth team in five NHL seasons. We’re betting he’s on a first name basis with moving van companies across North America.

Two years ago, in that 53-win season, the Sabres had seven defensemen with at least ten points, and all 10 of those who dressed that year finished the season even or better, led by Brian Campbell’s +28. This year, there is that balance – six defensemen have at least ten points – but the scoring is down significantly, and among those players who have played in at least 50 games, only Craig Rivet is in plus territory.

Clearly, this team isn’t the same since the departure of Daniel Briere, Chris Drury, and Brian Campbell. That is 75 goals and 212 points from that 2006-2007 season not skating for the Sabres. But Ryan Miller is still there in goal. He’s even having a better year, statistically, than he did two years ago. His goals-against average is down (2.73 to 2.57), his save percentage is up (.911 to .918), and he has more shutouts (five versus three). What he hasn’t had is health. Two years ago, he played in 76 games. This year, he missed a month with an ankle injury in the middle of what should have been Buffalo’s push to the playoffs. He’s been fairly sharp since his return, though, going 2-0-1, 2.85, .911. He’s also been successful against the Caps – 8-3-0, 2.53, .910, with two shutouts. He is 1-1-0, 1.51, .949, with one shutout against the Caps this year.

The Peerless’ Players to Ponder

Buffalo: Ryan Miller

Last week, CBC asked the question in an online story headline, “Is it too late for Miller to save Sabres?” At this point, that’s about what it comes down to. Buffalo has become a very average offensive team, and the defense has holes in it due to departures and age (five defensemen are past 30, and two are past 35). The Canadiens and Rangers aren’t playing so well in seventh and eighth place that they are impossible to catch at this stage, but the Sabres would almost have to win out to do it. And to do it, Miller has to be at his absolute best, starting tonight.

Washington: Michael Nylander

To be charitable, Nylander has had a difficult year. It is the classic case of a player with skill and talent who just doesn’t seem to fit in with what it is the Caps are trying to do. Nylander had a rough March – 1-2-3, -3, in eight games and sitting in the press box on some nights. April, if it is possible, started worse. In the first game this month, he was held off the score sheet and sat for the last 17:48 of the game after skating only eight minutes. He does have 28 points in 37 career games against the Sabres, though, and sometimes the day is darkest before the dawn. Let’s hope so…the Caps could use a productive Nylander going forward.

The Caps are in a position to make history – they are within six standings points of the franchise high for a season – in a season where a fair amount of history has already been made. But that is really secondary. The Caps are getting ready for the playoffs. Jose Theodore could get the baseball cap tonight in favor of Semyon Varlamov, and Coach Bruce Boudreau might be further inclined to test line combinations and defense pairings. It could make for a closer game than fans might like, but in the end, well…two points is two points.

Caps 3 – Sabres 2

Your Caps Caption Three Fer...

" 70-chip, on two...on two...ready, BREAK!"


Viktor "Tiger" Kozlov picks the worst time imaginable
to practice his short game


Some pictures say a thousand words...

...and then again, some don't



(pictures: The Washington Capitals)

A TWO-point night: Caps 5 - Islanders 3

Last night, the Caps surged…well, surged isn’t quite the word. Let’s say that they crawled over the 100-point threshold for the season in defeating the New York Islanders, 5-3.

It was a game we might call an “ISO” game. No, not some personals “in search of” kind of thing, more of an “in spite of” sort of effort…

In spite of looking for all the world for the first 40 minutes as if he had downed a bottle of NyQuil before the game, Mike Green ended the night with a very splashy score sheet – two goals, an assist, two hits, four blocked shots, a franchise record for power play goals (season) after netting his 17th and 18th, and becoming only the eighth defenseman in NHL history to register 30 goals for a season.

In spite of never having engaged in an NHL fight, and having only two on his resume – one in the WHL and one in the AHL – Jeff Schultz dropped the mitts with Tim Jackman. We have to give it to Schultz, he didn’t tangle with a lightweight. That was Jackman’s 19th fight of the NHL season and 33rd of his NHL career. It would be nice to say Schultz won, or even held Jackman to a draw. He didn’t. But the kid gets marks for competing out there last night. It was something that seemed curiously lacking in his game the last month.

In spite of being the guy with the reputation for wadding up like a cheap suit when he gets hit, there was Tomas Fleischmann standing in front tangled with Brendan Witt when Mike Green floated the puck in for the game winner.

In spite of being only 5-6-1 this season when recording at least 40 shots on goal, the Caps managed to get the win in this one after getting 43 shots on goal.

In spite of looking like they were spraying shots like an actor doing a spit take all evening, the Caps were credited with only 19 missed shots. It seemed like 39.

Some other stuff…

The Caps had only two shots on goal on the power play…they scored on both of them (Mike Green getting both shots and both goals).

The centers schooled the Islanders in the circle. Nicklas Backstrom (16-for-24), Sergei Fedorov (11-for-18), Keith Aucoin (7-for-9), and David Steckel (5-for-6) were a combined 39 up and 18 down on faceoffs on the way to a 45-24 overall edge.

On the other side of that coin, Josh Bailey…1-for 12. Doug Weight…4-for-17. Guys, you do know you can use a stick in the faceoff circle, right?

The Islanders’ Joel Rechlicz is nicknamed, “The Wrecker.” Think he comes by the name accidentally? In four seasons (and counting), starting in the QMJHL through last night’s game, he’s had 63 fights. That’s what makes John Erskine’s tussle with him all the more impressive. Choreographed fights of the sort a lot of heavyweights engage in these days are side shows to the game – they really don’t seem to have much of an effect. But there was a distinct change in the energy level in the Caps’ play after Erskine beat Rechlicz. With the Islanders leading 2-0 when that fight took place, you have to wonder if Rechlicz shouldn’t have skated away. Alex Ovechkin scored five minutes after the bout, and the Caps had their feet back under them again.

Give Keith Aucoin credit for recognizing an opportunity and pouncing on his own rebound to get his first goal as a Cap – he was one of the hardest working guys out there all night. But give Eric Fehr credit on that one, too. His persistence in forechecking and using his reach to deflect a pass to Aucoin’s stick started that play.

Is it me, or does it just seem as if Richard Park plays his best hockey against the Caps? Park had 12 shot attempts (Parkvechkin?) and a goal in just over 16 minutes of ice time.

Speaking of Park, how did the puck end up on his stick to be able to split the Caps defense and walk in alone on goalie Jose Theodore? Well, along the boards Michael Nylander got tangled up with Tim Jackman, and Nylander kicked the puck to the center of the ice at the Caps line and onto Park’s stick. Nylander did not see another shift for the rest of the game.

How many times do you see three unassisted goals in a game (ok, one was Backstrom’s empty-netter)?

One looks at Kyle Okposo and sees a little bit of Alex Ovechkin (circa 2006) in this respect…if the Islanders can ever get some talent around this guy, watch out.

How lackadaisical were the Caps over too much of this game? How does 24 giveaways sound? And the Caps lost the turnover battle, 31-16.

Hey, we get the “Unleash the Fury” thing to rouse the crowd in the third period. What we don’t get is having to announce it. Just play it…the crowd knows what to do.

Admit it, the Caps shouldn’t have won this game. For most of the night, the Islanders outworked the Caps in all three zones, and Joey MacDonald had, for the most part, a fine game in goal. But the Caps just have too much skill for that team to cope with. Even when the Caps tried – at times quite literally – to give the two points away, the Islanders couldn’t put it away. And when Green tied things up mid-way in the third, one had the feeling that the Islanders, even with the effort they were expending, were going to fade in the stretch.

That’s not a recipe for success, but then again, the Caps are now 7-2-1 in their last ten games. That’s only one point fewer than the media’s darlings of the month – Carolina and Pittsburgh over the same span of games. The Caps haven’t done it as prettily as Pittsburgh or as confoundingly as Carolina. But two points (or 15) is two points.

In a way, how the Caps are doing this is encouraging. They are finding ways to win games when they don’t have their “A” game, when they have to struggle, be it from illness running through the team or a general lack of intensity given their opponent. Winning when things are going peachy is comparatively easy. Figuring out how to win when you don’t have your best stuff is how a long playoff run could be built.

101!!

Apparently, Defensive Defensemen Need Not Apply

To the AHL All-Rookie Team, that is.

The six rookies named to the elite squad are:

Goaltender: Nathan Lawson, Bridgeport Sound Tigers (30gp, 18-9-2, 2.13gaa, .929sv%, 2so)

Defenseman: Mattias Karlsson, Binghamton Senators (67gp, 8+41=49pts.)

Defenseman: Yannick Weber, Hamilton Bulldogs (66gp, 14+27=41pts.)

Forward: Justin Abdelkader, Grand Rapids Griffins (71gp, 22+27=49pts.)

Forward: Nathan Gerbe, Portland Pirates (50gp, 26+24=50pts.)

Forward: Tim Kennedy, Portland Pirates (66gp, 16+43=59pts.)

We don't have a problem with the forwards (especially since two of them are fellow Michigan State alumni), although the criteria there appear to be points-based. We don't have a problem with Nathan Lawson as the top rookie goaltender, seeing as he is second in the entire league among all goalies in GAA and save percentage.

Our problem is with the defensemen. Mattias Karlsson and Yannick Weber happen to be the top two scorers among rookie defensemen. However, Karlsson is a -11 on a likely playoff team (Binghamton is fourth in the East Division), and it is a mark that is exceeded by only two other players on the Senators' roster.

As for Weber, he plays for a playoff participant (Hamilton has already clinched a spot), but his +9 is surpassed by eight other players on the roster, including a pair of fellow rookies, and is matched or exceeded by five other defensemen on the roster. One could make a case that these are the two best offensive defensemen in the rookie class.

We can appreciate there being few statistics that shine a bright light on defensemen, and plus-minus is a statistic that can be abused if taken out of context. But there is a rookie defenseman who is currently third in the AHL in that statistic. If you look closely, you would find that his +27 for the season is roughly the same as a number of teammates. On that basis, you might say -- with reason -- that his mark is the product of his surroundings. However, he accomplished his feat in a mere 42 games, not the almost-70 of his teammates and similar AHL leaders. And, he has a mere 10 penalty minutes taken this season, which speaks to his discipline as a player. His 19 points in 42 games apparently was not enough to convince the voters that he was one of the top two defensemen, without respect to adjective, in the league.

Karl Alzner, we're thinking you wuz robbed.

The Peerless Prognosticator is ON THE AIR!!! -- Caps vs. Islanders, April 1st

The Peerless Prognosticator is ON THE AIR!!!

The Caps return to action after a welcome rest since last Friday’s 5-3 win over Tampa Bay. Tonight’s guest – the New York Islanders – pose another of those “will they play down to the level of their opponent” challenges.

Well, as far as playing down to the level of the opponent is concerned, the Islanders occupy quite the low level, as their numbers suggest…

However, the Islanders did manage to put together a 6-5-2 record for March, which would equal that of the Caps. There were some impressive wins along the way, too, as the Islanders knocked off New Jersey, Montreal, and Chicago before shutting out Detroit in their last road game of the month.

"And I was the goaltender in that game!"

And you are…

“My name is Tommy Flanagan, and I'm a member of Pathological Hockey Liars Anonymous. In fact, I'm the president of the organization! Uh, no…I’m Emperor of the organization…that’s it.”

And you were the goalie in the Islanders shut out of the Red Wings…

“That’s right.”

It says in the score sheet that Joey McDonald was the goaltender…you’re lying, aren’t you?

“I didn't always lie. No, when I was a kid, I told the truth. But then one day, I got caught stealing my brother’s hockey sticks…and my mother caught me. I lied. I told her that my coach told me to do it, that he said my brother’s sticks had more goals in them. And he got fired! Yeah, that's what happened!

“After that, lying was easy for me. I lied about my age and joined a Canadian junior team. I was thirteen at the time…no, I was ten! Yeah... I went to Kamloops, and I was injured catching a puck in my teeth. I didn’t miss a shift…and they made me captain! And then I went to Europe, playing for MoDo-dee-oh-doh, or some Swe…uh, Russian team! Yeah… I was scoring a goal every ga…uhhhh, period! In fact, I won the Hartsky Trophy as the most valuable player that year! Yeah, that's the ticket.

“And then I got a call from Wayne Greztk…uh, Scotty Bow…uh, Toe Blake. Yeah, that’s the ticket. And he offered me a five…ten…sixty million dollar contract! But I wanted to play on the team Mike Milbury was coaching. Yeah, right.. And he told me about Pathological Hockey Liars Anonymous.

“Oh, you'd be surprised how many famous hockey people belong. In fact... at one of the meetings I met my wife – Carrie Milbank! Yes, I'm a changed man now, and all because of Pathological Hockey Liars Anonymous. Why, I - I even have my picture on the cover of The Hockey News. Yeah. Every day! Online!! Yeah.. that's the ticket! Yeah, you betcha!”

April Fools Day…it brings ‘em all out, doesn’t it? Getting back to the real game…What New York was able to do in March that could spell some trouble for the Caps is play respectably, if not spectacularly, on special teams. The Islanders coverted 8-of-46 power plays (17.4%) while killing off 48-of-59 shorthanded situations (81.4%). Those numbers actually got better on the road – 20.0 percent on the power play (6-of-30) and 86.2 percent on the penalty kill (25-of-29).

What is perhaps odd in this improvement for the Islanders is that it was accomplished after their second leading scorer – Bill Guerin – was removed from the lineup and subsequently traded to Pittsburgh. What Guerin’s trade created was an opportunity, and Kyle Okposo seems to have taken advantage of it. In 13 games in March, the rookie was 5-8-13, +2, and had two game winners to his credit. The Caps haven’t seen much of him, as Okposo had played in only one of the three games to date played by these clubs. He had a goal in that game, on January 19th.

Meanwhile, Doug Weight is just getting back into the lineup after missing six weeks to a knee injury. He left quite an impression in the Islanders’ last game – a 4-3 shootout loss to Philadelphia. In what was one of those “I went to a fight, and a hockey game broke out” kind of nights, Weight took on Darrell Powe, getting an instigator and a misconduct on top of the five-minute major, then added a roughing minor penalty later on his way to a 19-penalty minute evening – big stuff for a guy who has averaged a little over 40 minutes of PIMs a year over the last seven seasons coming into this one.

Frans Nielsen is another of those guys who might be taking advantage of the departure of Bill Guerin to make an impression. He was 4-6-10, +2, in his last 11 games in March. Nielsen also had two game winners for the month. Nielsen has an assist in three career games against the Caps.

What the Islanders would probably like to get is some more production out of Andy Hilbert. The center is 11-15-26 in 63 games this year, which probably wasn’t what was envisioned when he was brought to Long Island after getting 18 points in 19 games to close the 2005-2006 season in Pittsburgh. He’s been something of an underperformer since (28 points being his high mark in three seasons with the Islanders), and he was 1-3-4, -2, in 13 games in March. He hasn’t had much success against the Caps, either, going 1-1-2, -2 in 12 career games. He has no points in two games against Washington this year.

On defense, Mark Streit has had as fine a year as one could hope for on a team that struggles as much as do the Islanders. He leads the team in scoring by a wide margin (55 points, compared to 36 for Okposo). Streit also had a fine month of March, going 4-7-11, +7, in 13 games. He’s fifth among all defensemen in total scoring, fifth in goals, and tied for second in power play goals. Against the Caps, he is 3-9-12, -1, in 14 career games, and 1-4-5, +1, in three games this year.

Joey MacDonald will get the call against the Caps tonight in goal, and he – Not Tommy Flanagan – was the author of the 2-0 shutout of the Red Wings at Joe Louis Arena last week. He did not have a busy March, as he was nursing knee and groin injuries for a large portion of it. However, he was 2-0-1, 2.00, .944, with that one shutout for the month. He’s had his troubles against the Caps, though. In two career appearances – both this year – he is 0-1-1, 4.37, .895.

The Peerless’ Players to Ponder

New York: Brendan Witt

Let’s face it, the Caps should score on this team. If the Islanders are to have any chance of preventing that, they are going to have to have some guys step up on the blue line in the absence of Andy Sutton and perhaps Freddy Meyer. Streit has been a horse for the blueliners, but a guy like Witt needs to step up. While Witt is dead last in the NHL in plus-minus (-31), he was even for the month of March and contributed a couple of assists. Against his former team, he is 0-1-1, -5 in ten career games and 0-0-0, -5 in three games this year.

Washington: Eric Fehr

Here is an odd piece of information to take with you for this game. In the two games that MacDonald has played in goal for the Islanders, seven different Caps have the nine goals scored against him. And, of those seven, three of them came from very unlikely sources (Boyd Gordon, Donald Brashear, and Milan Jurcina). Three of them came from Alex Ovechkin, who generally has his way with the Islanders, anyway (11 goals in 14 career games). Another of those goals was off the stick of Eric Fehr, who appears to be getting another shot on the top line tonight. That goal against the Islanders in a 5-2 win on December 4th is his only career goal against New York, but he should get ample opportunities to add to that total tonight. His problem hasn’t been getting shots – he had 27 in 13 games in March, while averaging less than 12 minutes a game on the fourth line more often than not – it’s been getting them to go in. He had one goal on those 27 shots in March.

Well, it’s April. And now, while there will be some experimenting (like Fehr on the top line), it’s time to get down to business. The trick for the Caps is to start playing like it’s the playoffs to ensure that they are still playing at the end of the month, not just the beginning.

Caps 5 – Islanders 2

Sittin' at the End of the Bar

Stuff that caught our eye this morning...

- On New Year’s Eve, the St. Louis Blues were 14-20-3 and looking like they might be renting space in Lotteryville. Since then, the Blues are 23-10-6, have won five in a row to close March, and have climbed over Anaheim into eighth in the West.

- Bill Guerin gets pulled from the lineup in anticipation of a trade, then finally gets sent to Pittsburgh. The Islanders are 7-5-2 since and could pass Colorado for 29th place in the league (they are five points behind with seven to play).

- Speaking of Colorado…26th in league attendance? This was a team that sold out seasons not long ago. Since 2001, their ranking has gone: 10th, 10th, 10th, 10th, 11th (those five years all being 100 percent of capacity), 13th, 17th, 26th.

- Menawhile, Washington (14th) is the only team in the Southeast Division ranked higher than 20th in attendance. It is the only team playing to better than 85 percent capacity (96.8 percent).

- A Tale of Two Marches…Before St. Patrick’s Day: 7-7-14, -1 in eight games. After St. Patrick’s Day: 1-3-4, -5 in seven games. That would be Jarome Iginla.

- Has anyone put together a quieter scoring season than Nicklas Backstrom? Since February 1st, he is 9-21-30, +6 in 26 games. He’s failed to register a point in only five of those games.

- 75 games, 30-46-76, +22, seven game winning goals
75 games, 18-57-75, +19, six game winning goals
Yes, Daniel and Henrik Sedin are twins.

- Miikka Kiprusoff and Marty Turco each have played in 71 games. They are the only goalies with more than 4,000 minutes played this year. Kiprusoff is 43-21-5, but his GAA and save percentage are ordinary (2.85, .903). Turco doesn’t appear as if he’ll make the playoffs, and his GAA and save percentage are wallowing in the same region of the rankings as Kiprusoff (2.84, .897). Without looking it up, can you name their backup goalies? Are Curtis McElhinney and Tobias Stephan really that bad? Well, McElhinney hasn’t won a game this year (0-6-1), and Stephan has one win (1-3-1). We don’t like either team’s chances (should Dallas get into the playoffs) to last past the first round.

- Three of the top five, four of the top ten, five of the top 15, and six of the top 20 players in plus-minus hail from Boston. Meanwhile, Brendan Witt is last, at -31, although he was even for March.

- A guy with a $942,000 cap hit who has 32 goals in 65 games this year, 59 goals in his last 127 games, and who was named “Mule” by none other than Steve Yzerman is going to get a nice payday coming when he becomes an unrestricted free agent this summer. And, he’s a center. And no, I don’t think Johan Franzen will be a Cap…but it’s nice to think about.

- Once upon a time, the Flyers’ Jeff Carter was leading Alex Ovechkin in the goal scoring race. Carter has nine goals in his last 29 games, only two against teams currently in the playoff mix (New Jersey, Washington).

- Chris Osgood shut out St. Louis to open the month. After that, the Red Wings allowed 37 goals in 12 games (3.08/game). The over/under on the Wings seems to be “two” for March. When allowing two or fewer, they were 7-1-0. When allowing three or more, they were 1-3-1. They also allowed five or more goals three times in their last 11 games of the month. Last year, they allowed five or more goals three time – total – in 30 games after February 1st. Something’s not right there.