Data Mining -- The Florida Power Play

In his latest edition of his "Tuesday 10," E.J. Hradek says the following about the Florida power play:

"If you're wondering how the Lightning gave up five power-play goals in a single game, here's one telling stat: They lost 12 of 16 short-handed faceoffs. When you consistently lose possession of the puck off the draw in the defensive zone, you're putting yourself in danger."

Yup, sure enough, Florida was 12-for-16 on the power play.  But there is more to this story.  Looking only at draws taken in the Florida offensive zone, Stephen Weiss was 8-1 all by himself.  Tomas Kopecky took one (an won it).  Of those ten draws, here is how they played out:

1.  Weiss (win) at 4:35 of 1st period/goal scored by Kopecky at 6:15.  According to the NHL.com play-by-play record, there were no intervening events outside the Florida offensive zone.  Chalk one up for O-zone faceoff wins.

2.  Weiss (win) at 14:09 of 1st period.

3.  Weiss (win) at 16:21 of 1st period/goal scored by Weiss at 17:12.  No intervening events outside the Florida offensive zone.

4. Kopecky (win) at 0:46 of 2nd period.

5. Weiss (win) at 1:43 of 2nd period/goal by Versteeg at 2:35.  Between these events Tampa Bay won a neutral zone faceoff.

6.  Weiss (win) at 18:39 of 2nd period/(end of period).

7.  Weiss (win) at 8:33 of 3rd period.

8.  Weiss (win) at 15:52 of 3rd period.

9.  Weiss (loss) at 16:02 of 3rd period/goal by Garrison at 16:47

10.  Weiss (win) at 19:28 of 3rd period/(end of period, but Tampa Bay did record two shots on goal).

Fine so far, although this is one instance.  But consider this, too.  Of the five power play goals scored by Tampa Bay in this game, they came from an average of more than 40 feet (according to distances recorded in the NHL.com play-by-play record).  They were not exactly standing on the door-step.

Each of the five goals had a story, though...

1.  Kopecky at 6:15/1st.  The goal was scored from 56 feet, but it clearly hit a Tampa Bay defenseman's stick in front of goalie Dwayne Roloson and changed direction on its way to the net.

2.  Weiss at 17:12/1st.  Scored from a distance ot 47 feet, Roloson looked to be screened by his own player.

3.  Versteeg at 2:35/2nd.  A 20-fotter, Roloson looked to be slow getting across his crease to defend against a shot coming from a cross-ice pass.

4.  Versteeg at 0:26/3rd.  A goal from 26 feet out, looked to beat Roloson cleanly on short side.

5.  Garrison at 16:47/3rd.  Scored from 59 feet through a nice screen set up in front of Roloson, but that goal came after Florida lost the preceding faceoff.

What to conclude?  The notion that taking a lot of shorthanded faceoffs -- and losing them -- especially in one's own zone is a bad way to play a hockey game.  But it looks as if only two of the five goals can be attributed to that factor.  One of those ended up being scored as a result of bad luck (if you are Roloson), it being scored off a teammate's stick deflection.  By the same token, if you don't lose that D-zone faceoff, you aren't put in a situation where that can happen.  Another came on what looked like a screen by Roloson's own teammate, but again...don't lose the D-zone faceoff, and it might not have unfolded that way.

Two other goals looked to be on Roloson for not being in a good position to stop the puck, and the fifth was off a long shot through a maze of players, the kind of play that doesn't depend on losing a D-zone draw.

A lot of things go into allowing (or scoring) power play goals, but two things we can safely say about this as the game is about to begin in another 90 minutes or so between the Caps and Panthers.  One, Stephen Weiss seems to be pretty good about winning offensive zone draws on the power play.  Second...

...don't take so many penalties.

The Peerless Prognosticator is ON THE AIR!!! -- Game 5, Panthers at Capitals, October 18th

The Peerless Prognosticator is ON THE AIR!!!

It’s Game 5 of the young season, and the Caps are in search of setting a franchise mark for consecutive wins to start a season. Only three Caps teams have won four in a row to start a season, including the 2011-2012 edition, but none have won one for the thumb (or the big toe) so to speak. Tonight, the Caps will try to set that record when they host the Florida Panthers, a team that has more new parts than an octogenarian at a joint replacement clinic. To wit…

Sean Bergenheim (Tampa Bay)
Matt Bradley (Washington)
Tomas Fleischmann (Colorado)
Marcel Goc (Nashville)
Tomas Kopecky (Chicago)
Scottie Upshall (Columbus)
Kris Versteeg (Philadelphia)
Brian Campbell (Chicago)
Ed Jovanovski (Phoenix)
Jose Theodore (Minnesota)

And that doesn’t even include backup goaltender Jacob Markstrom, who spent last season (save for 40 minutes with the Panthers) in Rochester in the AHL. It makes one look at the Panther locker room as one big collection of new kids in school. And in that vein we took a look a the online how-to site “WikiHow” to get some advice on how to handle being the new kid in school and how this might have been translated to being the “new kids “in the Panther locker room…

1. Be confident. Walk with your head held high and don't slouch. If you look confident, everyone will think you're confident. That's why first impressions are so important.

Tough on goalies who are always dropping into that butterfly thing.

2. Get used to the school. This way you'll know where everything is. You also won't be embarrassed because you do not know where anything is.

New kid: "Hey...where's the playoff schedule?"
Old kid:  "This is Florida. We try to get outta here by April."

3. Pack a cold lunch on the first day. This way you will be able to get to the lunch room early and won't have to face the embarrassment of having no where to sit.

Cold lunch? It’s a hockey rink. Everything is cold.

4. Join in some after school activities. That way you will meet some friends that have the same interests as you. They may not go to the same school, but they're still friends, right?

New kid:  "Hey, anybody want to stick around and shoot some stick and puck a while?"
Old kid: "Hell-OH?  Florida?  Beaches?  Golf courses?  Women in bikinis?"

5. Introduce yourself to your new teachers. They will be glad that you can speak for yourself and will respect you for that. It may be hard for you but you do not have to do it in the middle of class!

“Hey coach, I’m Scottie…
“…Hey Scottie, I’m Mr. Dineen. Do you have any idea where the faculty lounge is here, I’m new.”

6. Try to look your best the first day of school. Wear your best outfit (not fancy), and do your hair nice and neat. Something like a plain shirt and jeans is fine. Remember, first impressions are important.

Shouldn’t have been a problem for Matt Bradley. Every day after the first day he’s likely to be sporting welts, bruises, or stitches from fights.  Just like a hockey player should.

7. Be confident. This is another first impression thing. People will respect you for being confident.

Sean: “Hey, any of you guys score nine goals in the playoffs last year?”
Matt: “Shut up.”

8. Be honest. If they asked you where you lived, don't lie, tell them the truth. Don't tell them you live at the White House.

Matt: "I lived at the White House..."
Tomas: [laughing] "No he didn't, he lived with Semin..."

9. Talk with the person who sits next to you. You'll make a friend you sit next to every day.

Jose: “Hi, my name is ‘Jose.’ I’m a goalie.”
Kris: “OOH! GOALIE COOTIES! GOALIE COOTIES!!”

And so it is for the new kids in the locker room. They do get to show what they’ve got on the ice, though. However, what they’ve got isn’t much on offense. In three games heading into Monday’s game with Tampa Bay, no Panther has more than one goal, and none have more than three points. Only Jack Skille among the 18 skaters having dressed so far is in “plus” territory for the young season. Here is how the Panthers break down so far…

(click on pic for larger image)

Return of the Native(s)

For Tomas Fleischmann and Matt Bradley, it is a homecoming of sorts. Until he was traded to Colorado for Scott Hannan last December, the Caps were the only NHL team Fleischmann played for at the NHL level. Bradley spent six seasons in Washington, playing in 417 regular season and 37 playoff games with the Caps. Their starts with the Panthers have been very different. Fleischmann has a goal and an assist in three games, while Bradley is last among 18 skaters so far in average ice time, getting a few ticks fewer than eight minutes a game. Bradley does not yet have a penalty minute this season. Perhaps he is saving himself for this game – he had 47 fights as a Capital, many of which turned his face the shade of the Diggory Venn character in the Hardy novel “Return of the Native.” Here is your fun Matt Bradley fact: In his last game played against the Caps he recorded a Gordie Howe Hat Trick, with a goal, an assist, and a fight (against Jean-Luc Grand-Pierre, to give you an inkling of how long ago that was) in a 4-3 Pittsburgh win over the Caps in the finale of the 2003-2004 season, the last game before the lockout.

Power Time

Only one player in the league averages more ice time than the 29:18 per game put up by Florida defenseman Brian Campbell thus far (the Rangers’ Dan Girardi), and none more than the 6:39 of power play ice time. But here’s the thing. He has one power play shot on goal in almost 20 minutes of power play ice time in three games. One would expect that number to change, especially since he has a career line of 20-99-119 on the power play over 629 career regular season games.  Just not in this game, we hope.

Special Time

Through three games the Panthers are fourth in the league in net special teams time (power play time less penalty killing time). Not that it matters this early in the season; Columbus is second, and they are 29th in the league in points. But it has contributed to the Panthers being one of the more efficient defensive teams in the league thus far, allowing only two goals per game. And that, in turn, has allowed Jose Theodore to sit in the eighth spot among goals against leaders (1.97/game) and 11th in save percentage (.930, with Detroit’s Jimmy Howard). It is all part of a piece. Don’t give other teams opportunities, and you have enough experience in goal to make it count in low goals allowed results.

On the Other Hand

The Panthers have not yet mastered putting pucks into the opponent’s net this season. Six goals in three games, all scored by different players. Three of them have come on the power play. The Panthers have a total of three even strength goals on 74 shots, a 4.1 percent shooting percentage. Sean Bergenheim, Kris Versteeg, and Jack Skille are the only Panthers who have recorded more than ten shots on goal on the season. None of them have an even-strength goal, and only Versteeg has a goal of any kind.

The Peerless’ Players to Ponder

Florida: Tomas Fleischmann

The easy pick here might have been Matt Bradley for it being his first appearance in Washington since his well-publicized comments about the team in general and their nonchalance, and Alexander Semin and his capacity to care about results. But that is a side show. The bigger matter is Fleischmann. On this team, it would be fair to expect him to be, if not the leading goal scorer and point getter, than certainly among them. If Florida is to contend for a playoff spot, Fleischmann almost certainly has to post career numbers in those areas. For the record, his best season was in Washington in 2009-2010 in which he was 23-28-51, plus-9 in 69 games.

Washington: Alexander Semin

No, not to try and make Bradley eat his words (for which, it must be noted, Bradley has apologized), but because he has a productive history against the Panthers (14-16-30, plus-6 in 35 career games). More to the point, half of Semin’s goals against the Panthers have come on the power play, and if there is one thing the Caps still need to establish, it is their ability to dominate teams when they enjoy a man advantage.

Keys:

1. Win the 5-on-5. Florida is not a good 5-on-5 team, particularly in terms of their ability to score goals. Three even strength goals in three games just is not going to get it done, and if the Panthers are held to this number in this game, it should end in the win column for the home team.

2. Be the Teacher. It appears at the moment that Jose Theodore, as the “hot goalie” for the Panthers, will get the nod on Monday night against Tampa Bay, meaning rookie Jacob Markstrom will make his first NHL start against the Caps in this one. Markstrom has a total of 40 minutes of NHL experience and will make his first start against one of the most formidable lineups in the league – on paper. The Caps need to provide an early lesson to the rookie and jump on him early.

3. No Fair Peeking. The Caps follow up this game with a game in Philadelphia on Thursday. That will be a much more meaningful game as a measuring stick than this one, all other things being equal, even if Florida is a division rival. And it would be natural to look ahead to that game. But if there is one reason the regular season “counts” it is in establishing good habits and not taking teams like Florida for granted. Not that they should. The Caps were 3-2-1 against the Panthers last season, although the Caps have probably the best player from that series for the Panthers now playing in goal for them in Tomas Vokoun.

In the end…

This is the last game that the Caps should be a prohibitive favorite for a while. After this, the Caps get the Flyers, Red Wings, a spunky Edmonton team on the road, Vancouver, and Anaheim before their next divisional game against Carolina on November 4th. Getting off to a 5-0-0 start isn’t just a matter of setting a franchise record, but one of banking points against teams they should and have to beat. The Caps have played too many one-goal games in a row already, and Florida is the kind of team that will look to keep things close and low-scoring. The wild-card is Markstrom, if he gets the call in goal for Florida. And the Caps need to give him a rude awakening to the lessons that need to be learned by young goaltenders in the NHL.

Caps 5 – Panthers 1

Looking Forward

In exchange for the New England Journal of Medicine's poster boy for the pathology of groin injuries, Semyon Varlamov, the Caps received from the Colorado Avalanche their first pick in the 2012 entry draft next June.  Many folks thought that pick might be a lottery pick.  So, from time to time we thought we would have a little fun with it and post the "Colorado Lottery Pick Meter" (Avs fans, it's all in fun, like photoshopping Ovechkin in a tutu or something). 

The meter runs from "1" to "30," the lower the number being worse for the Caps, for it reflects the Avalanche's place in the league standings.  For example, this morning they are fourth, according to NHL.com, and that had Caps GM George McPhee in a somewhat foul expression...

(click on pic for larger image)

That Was The Week That Was -- Week 1 (October 9-15)

We’re back with a feature from last year – "That Was The Week That Was" – in which we’ll take a look back at the week through ten areas and compare it to the previous week. Maybe we’ll see some progress along the way. First up, the week ending October 15th…

Record for the week: 3-0-0

The Caps ended the week having tied a franchise mark for consecutive wins to open a season (four). It was not achieved in a dominating fashion, but there is always something to be said for winning. But each game came with its own issues and demons to slay. First up was Tampa Bay, the team that ended the Caps’ season last spring in a four-game sweep in the second round of the playoffs. It was an odd affair with the teams exchanging goals over the first two periods that left them tied, 3-3. Jason Chimera scored at the four-minute mark to give the Caps a lead, but they could not hold it, surrendering two goals to the Lightning to fall behind by a goal. Chimera tied it late, which gave the Caps the opportunity to secure a second standings point in extra time. They did just that when Matt Hendricks and Alexander Semin scored on trick shots, and Tomas Vokoun shutout the Lightning in the Gimmick for his first win as a Cap.

Next up was Pittsburgh. No need to retell the importance of such a matchup here. The Penguins were missing Sidney Crosby (upper noggin) and Marc-Andre Fleury (illness), and Evgeny Malkin was nursing a “lower body” injury said to be unrelated to his knee surgery. Still, the Pens showed a talent for winning games with such roster absences last year, and they did play this game largely on their terms – hard-fought, close-checking, and hoping to get to extra time, where they usually find a way to win. They didn’t – win that is. Oh, they got to extra time, alright, but it was the Caps, courtesy of Dennis Wideman off a pretty saucer pass from Nicklas Backstrom on the power play, that skated off Consol Energy Center ice with their eighth consecutive regular season win in Pittsburgh.

The week ended with a 2-1 decision over Ottawa that could only be described as “lackluster.” There were moments – Nicklas Backstrom ending a 20-game goalless streak with a score on the power play from a difficult angle, Marcus Johansson putting his speed on display with a nifty wrap-around goal, and Tomas Vokoun stopping 33 of 34 shots. But it wasn’t what one would expect of a team as talented as the Caps against an opponent struggling as much as the Senators. It was, however, a game that might have ended worse in that that Caps were coming off two games against critical opponents, and they might have fallen victim to a letdown. They did not, and the four-game winning streak to open the season was theirs.

Offense: 3.33 goals/game (season: 3.50, NHL rank: 2nd)

Here is your takeaway number for the week: 15. Fifteen different skaters recorded points this past week in three games. Seven different players recorded goals (ten goals in all). That is the kind of balance the team is looking for. The top line of Ovechkin-Backstrom-Brouwer had three goals. The second line of Semin-Johansson-Knuble had three goals. The third line of Ward-Laich-Chimera had two goals. Dennis Wideman chipped in two from the blue line. If the second and third lines can contribute consistently like that, and Ovechkin and Backstrom raise their production a notch (Backstrom did have three points for the week, but Ovechkin had only one), the Caps will once more be a formidable offense.

Defense: 2.67 goals/game (season: 2.75, rank: T-21st)

With so few games, a stinker on defense is going to push the numbers up, and the Lightning hanging five on the Caps last Monday certainly did that. And as it turned out, it might not have been against the Tampa Bay we have come to know over the last year. It was the high-water mark of the week for the Lightning, who are now in the midst of a four-game winless streak in which they have scored only nine goals, five of them in that game against the Caps.

One item of concern is that three of the eight goals allowed for the week came in the third period. Twice this week the Caps gave up third period leads (Tampa Bay, Pittsburgh) that brought the total for the season to three in the first three games. They did not allow an Ottawa goal in the last game of the week, so chalk that up to results, if not “improvement,” given the state of the Senators.

Another item of concern is shots. The Caps allowed 75 shots on goal in the last two games of the week against teams that might not have been expected to generate a lot of offensive pressure. Individually, it helps to keep in mind that the Caps are breaking in two new defensive pairs – Mike Green and Roman Hamrlik, and Jeff Schultz and Dennis Wideman. Communication and instinct don’t happen at the drop of a puck, and the ever-slow-slight hesitation that comes with the lack of that knowledge was evident from time to time, especially with the Green/Hamrlik pair. Something to watch in the weeks ahead.

Goaltending: 2.57/.922

Tomas Vokoun started the week in his first game as a Cap and was victorious despite it being “just [an] ugly, ugly, ugly game for [him].” He allowed five goals on 28 shots, two on nine shots in the third period. But his career has not been without its problems in October. He sucked it up with Michal Neuvirth on the shelf with a lower body injury, stopping 39 of 41 shots against Pittsburgh and 33 of 34 against Ottawa to end the week. In all, Vokoun stopped 79 of the last 82 shots he faced this past week (.963 save percentage), and his overall .922 save percentage is right where you would expect him to be.


Power Play: 2-for-11/18.2 percent (season: 25.0 percent; rank: 2nd)

After getting two on five chances on Carolina in the season opener, the Caps slid back a bit this week. On the bright side, they did get power play goals in each of the last two games of the week, one coming on Wideman’s overtime winner in Pittsburgh, the other from Nicklas Backstrom to open the scoring against Ottawa on Saturday. Perhaps just as important, Backstrom figured in both, setting up Wideman’s winner and scoring one of his own. It is, to be charitable, though, a work in progress. The power play was 2-for-17 in shots on 11 power plays for the week. More precisely, that was 17 shots in a total of 15:47 of power play time. An 11.8 percent shooting percentage with a man-advantage does not compare favorably with an 11.4 percent shooting percentage at even strength for the week. Had they shot better, those minutes wouldn’t pile up as time spent unproductively.

Penalty Killing: 9-for-10/90.0 percent (season: 78.6; rank: T-23rd)

It certainly was an improvement on allowing two goals on two man-advantages in the season opener against Carolina. The Caps allowed one goal on 15 shots (6.7 percent shooting percentage), which is (if you look at is as a save percentage of .933) quite impressive. If there was a cloud in this sunny sky, it was that the goal was a third period goal that tied the game late against the Penguins.

Paying the Price: 83 hits/46 blocked shots (season rank: 7th/T-15th)

Not much to conclude here, although it bears noting that the Caps recorded many fewer hits in the Penguin game (19) than in the other two games of the week (33 and 31), and that they finished with many more blocked shots (23) in that Penguin game than in the other two (13 and 10). A product of what the official scorer sees?


Faceoffs: 83-for-176/47.2 percent (season: 49.2 percent; rank: T-17th)

Losing faceoff wizards David Steckel and Boyd Gordon is likely to leave an impression in this area, but the Caps were on the wrong side of 50 percent in all three games this week. The difference was in the offensive zone. In the neutral zone the Caps were 27-for-54, and in the defensive zone they were 32-for-63. But in the offensive zone they were 24-for 59 for the week (40.7 percent). If you are a puck possession team, and you rely on establishing possession in the offensive zone, that number has to improve.

Turnovers: Plus-10

This is a product of the sum of takeaways the Caps had plus giveaways by opponents, less takeaways by opponents plus Caps giveaways. Plus-10 looks good, but that is entirely a product of the result of the Tampa Bay game (plus-13). The Caps were a minus-3 against Pittsburgh and even against the Senators. These numbers might be revealing over an entire season, but in short stretches of games might be taken with a grain of salt given the variation among arenas’ official scoring.

Impressions:

Not a bad week – a 3-0-0 week can never be said to be “bad.” However, three one-goal games, two of them going to extra time, is a pretty thin margin for error that one does not want to have to rely on as a steady occurrence. Generally, an important takeaway for the week is an inability to close teams out. Allowing three goals in the third period of games this week and blowing leads in two of those games is something that has to be corrected. And part of that seems to be an unwillingness – either by strategy or a lack of that “ruthless” gene that elite teams have – to stand on an opponent’s neck when they’re down. The Caps did have 31 shots on goal in the third period of the three games this week, but 20 of them came against Tampa Bay, a game in which the Caps actually fell behind in the third frame (the Caps recorded six shots on goal in the last 7:04 after the Lightning took the lead, scoring on one to re-tie the game).

On balance it was a good week – six of six possible standings points – but certainly not a great one. There are a lot of moving parts to integrate with this team at the moment. A new third line (which has been the most consistent in terms of effort so far), two new defensive pairs, and a new goalie. But it does not explain the slow starts of Ovechkin and Backstrom (although Backstrom might be coming around). The Caps need to get more production out of the Young Guns. If they do, then the early season hiccups will be soon forgotten. If they don’t, it will be a source of frustration and concern as long as it lasts.

The Goals Project

We are going to try something to assess the ability of the Caps to find "the bakery."  We're going to chart as best we can each and every goal the Caps score this season.  Below you will find a snapshot through the first four games of every Caps goal scored, in the order in which they have been scored, displayed from the perspective of how you would have viewed them from your television.  Game-winning goals are circled  (click the image for a larger view).

As you can see, "going to the bakery," in Brooks Laich's terms, has its benefits.  But this is not news; we are just providing a visual representation of what you already know to be true.

As for the game winners, so far they are:

Game 1, Goal 4: Mike Green
Game 2 (none, shootout)
Game 3, Goal 12: Dennis Wideman
Game4, Goal 14: Marcus Johansson

A TWO-point night -- Game 4: Caps 2 - Senators 1

Four and oh.

Maybe that should read, “four and oh brother.”

The Caps have been 4-0 three times in team history, and we feel quite comfortable is saying that this is the ugliest edition of the three. The Caps outlasted the Ottawa Senators tonight, 2-1, in what would have been perhaps the most boring 60 minutes of hockey in the league this season, if not for some sparkling work by Tomas Vokoun in goal for the Caps.

Vokoun stopped 32 of 33 shots to earn his second win, and that leaves him with 79 saves on the last 82 shots he has faced, going back to the third period of the 6-5 win over Tampa Bay (.963 save percentage). For the most part he was solid in his positioning, but it was his stick work that almost did him in, mostly when he was handling the puck behind his own net (we’ll chalk that up to the learning period with his defensemen).

The one time when it did do him it, it was merely the last miscue in a grisly shift in the defensive zone for the Caps. It came in the last minute of play in the first period, when Nick Foligno corralled the puck behind the Caps’ net. He sent it out to David Rundblad at the right point. Rundblad had acres of space and time to spare to figure out what to do, because the Caps were standing around in front of Vokoun with their backs to the play. Rundblad stepped up and sent a shot that deflected to the stick of Foligno at Vokoun’s left. Vokoun tried to poke-sweep check the puck away from Foligno, but only got a lot of Foligno’s skate. The move on Vokoun’s part left him prone on the ice and unable to do anything to defend Peter Regin, who picked up the puck near the goal line and snapped it over Vokoun with just over 25 seconds left in the first period.

The goal sucked all the momentum off the Caps bench that was built with Swedish hands. Nicklas Backstrom scored his first goal since last March 22, breaking a 20-game goalless streak (including playoffs). It came on the first of three Caps power plays and was the product of two nifty passes from in close. The first was from Mike Knuble behind the Ottawa net to Alexander Semin, who took advantage of a terrible attempt at a poke by Senator defenseman Chris Phillips by dishing it across the crease to Backstrom at goalie Alex Auld’s left. Backstrom stilled the puck with his skate, then ripped a forehand off the far pipe behind Auld and in from a severe angle.

The second goal was a product of something you can’t teach – speed. Marcus Johansson had the puck on his stick skating down the left side with Senator defenseman Erik Karlsson trying to keep pace. Johansson bent his line to curl around the back of the Ottawa cage, and Karlsson was left with only his stick to try to defend Johansson as he was pulling ahead. Johansson beat Karlsson around the back of the net, and beat Auld to the front as he wrapped the puck around the post and between Auld’s legs for the second goal.

Other stuff…

-- What to make of Alex Ovechkin. In 18 minutes he had seven shots, three hits, three takeaways, and played all 200 feet of ice, for the most part. But he looked lost in his own zone on the Ottawa goal, and he had a couple of fine scoring opportunities that he passed up looking for teammates.

-- And there is this, too, about Ovechkin. The Caps had a total of 5:49 of power play time. Ovechkin skated only 2:21 of it and was not on the ice when Backstrom scored his power play goal. Again, what to make of it. Parceling out the time, or trying to send Ovechkin a message?

-- Jared Cowen led all players with seven hits, but it was the hit he took that was the most memorable. Trying to angle Ovechkin to the boards on a rush, he looked to have Ovechkin pinned, but Ovechkin, sensing he was running out of room, lowered his shoulder and lifted Cowen off his feet with a hit of his own. But, Cowen didn’t allow a scoring chance.

-- Vokoun won the first star of the game, and we agree. Mike Knuble won the second star off a two-assist performance, and Marcus Johansson won the third star for what was the game-winning goal. But from our seat, the most impactful player on the night for the Caps was Jason Chimera. Chimera used his speed to great effect in pressuring the Ottawa defense, to the point of the Senator defensemen cheating to try to cut him off on wide rushes. It enabled him to at least attempt a few passes to trailing teammates.

-- This was a team the Caps should have put away early. They didn’t. But they should have put them away late, too. Defenseman Sergei Gonchar took a puck off the boot late in the first period and did not skate over the last 40 minutes (it was later diagnosed as a bruised foot). The Senators, not a very good defensive team when fielding a full complement of defensemen, rotated five defensemen through the lineup. The Caps could not take advantage.

-- “Prevent” defense usually prevents only winning. The Caps were outshot 29-16 after Johansson’s goal at the 12:01 mark of the first period. It could have ended much worse for the Caps.

-- The watch word in this game might be, “didn’t”…as in, the Caps didn’t let this one get to overtime (the first regulation finish in four games this season).

-- The Caps didn’t relinquish a third period lead (they did so in each of the first three games).

-- They didn’t take any silly offensive zone penalties. In fact, the one penalty called on Washington – a boarding call against the Caps – looked very weak from our view. Zenon Konopka as much lost his balance as he was hit by Alzner.

-- Only Jeff Halpern won a majority of his draws, and that was only 3-for-5. The Caps were officially 28 up and 33 down in the circle, but it looked to us a lot worse than that. Part of the problem was poor support from wingers after the drop of the puck. The center was more or less on his own to win the draw cleanly too often.

-- Speaking of draws, the fact that nine Caps took draws, and eight Senators took them speaks to a busy night for linesmen throwing guys out of the circle.

-- The Caps were not sharp except for some stretches in the first period, but where they were bordering on poor was their work along the walls. Too often a Senator came out of a scrum or a one-on-one battle with the puck or able to push it along to a teammate.

-- We will give the Caps this… one penalty, one shot allowed, and if Erik Karlsson is the one taking that shot, we like the Caps’ chances. Part of winning the special teams battle, especially if you don’t draw many penalties of your own, is making sure to cut down opportunities for the other guys and minimizing chances when they do get them.

The 2-0 lead the Caps took 12 minutes into the first period might have been a signal that the Caps were going to lean on the Senators, get them down, and stand on their throats. But that goal with 26 seconds in the first period gave Ottawa some confidence, and they had the best of play in the last 40 minutes. One usually complains that a team doesn’t give a 60-minute effort. Tonight, the Caps didn’t give a “20-minute” effort in the first period, and it nearly came back to bite them in the end. Fortunately, Tomas Vokoun did give a 60-minute effort. It was enough for the Caps in a franchise record-tying, if not memorable, performance.

The Peerless Prognosticator is ON THE AIR!!! -- Game 4, Senators at Capitals

The Peerless Prognosticator is ON THE AIR!!!

The Caps are 3-0-0. It is not something they have done often over their 37 seasons. 2007, 2002, 1997, 1991, and…well, that’s it. This is the fifth time in 37 seasons that the Caps are 3-0-0, but somehow, it doesn’t have that “3-0-0” feeling. Not having won all three games in extra time, not having let go of leads in the third period in all three games, not with the Young Guns combining for a grand total of three of the 12 goals scored thus far by the Caps – a total equaled by Jason Chimera, himself.

But tonight, the Caps have an opportunity to shake the lingering rust of the off-season from their creaky joints, because the Ottawa Senators are in town, and…

“Ah rahze to challenge the assertion implahed in the comment of mah good friend from the Commonwealth of Virginnya that the Senatuhs are, how maght you call it… pushovahs?”

You sound like a Senator…

“That ah am, my friend. Ah represent the great state of Consternation ovah your comments about the Senatuhs.”

Forgive me, Senator, but you don’t exactly sound as if you hail from Ontario.

“Son, you are no doubt a-way-ah that Ottawa is in ‘suth'n’ Ontario?”

I guess you would have a point, but about the hockey team…

“Ah know what you are implyin’…what you are suggestin’…what you are hintin’ at… and Ah am hee-yuh to inform you that the Ottawa Senatuhs are a prideful tribe of Senatuh…”

Proud of that 32-win season last year, Senatuh…uh, Senator?

“But they were entertainin’ wins, and besides, we had those milestones last yee-uh…Daniel Alfredsson and his 1,000th point…Sergei Gonchar and his 1,000th game…Alex Kovalev and his 1,000th NHL point.”

I noticed those milestones were all in games Ottawa won.

“Indubitably…”

I think I see the Senators’ problem last year.

“And that is…”

Not enough milestones.

Well, if milestones are the tonic to cure the Senators, it does not appear that any are on the horizon of the kind reached by Alfredsson, Gonchar, and Kovalev last season, unless “fastest to minus-10 to start a season" is a “milestone” (Alfredsson is a league-worst minus-six heading into Friday action). That is, unless Chris Neil has four assists in him to get to 100 for his career, or Gonchar has three power play goals to get to 100 for his career. As for the rest of last season, here is how the Caps and Sens stacked up…

(click the pic for larger image)

There are Milestones, and There are Milestones

One Senator who does have a legitimate milestone in sight is goaltender Craig Anderson. With 99 wins he can hit the 100 mark with a win over the Caps. But it looks as if it will not happen against the Caps. Looks like he is sitting this one out. Too bad…for Caps fans. He has struggled mightily in his four appearances so far this season. He has allowed fewer than four goals only once in those four appearances and has numbers that boggle the imagination. His goals against average is 5.07, good for 32nd in the league and dead last. His save percentage is .853, good for 31st in the league and next to dead last. No goalie comes close to having allowed the 19 goals he has give up so far (Columbus’ Steve Mason is next with 12). But then again, no goalie has seen the rubber he has, either; Anderson has faced 129 shots (Dallas’ Kari Lehtonen is next with 117). But here is where it might get better for the Caps. Anderson’s backup, if you can believe this, has worse nunbers – Alex Auld has a GAA of 6.32 – last among 42 goalies appearing in NHL games so far. Ditto for his save percentage of .818. But then again, that is in only 19 minutes of work.

Which Brings Us To…

The defense. The motto for this bunch might be “shared pain.” Seven defensemen have dressed for the Senators so far, and all of them are buried under the “even” line at plus/minus. In four games, none have been on ice for fewer than four goals. And Chris Phillips, who has seen much better days – both for himself and his team – has been on ice for a whopping nine goals in four games. No defenseman has seen more rubber fly into his own net (only Tampa Bay’s Eric Brewer has seen as much). And Phillips has been on the ice for four power play goals against, again “tops” (depending on your point of view) in the league. And that goes a long way to explaining the…

Penalty Kill, or maybe “Penalty Hurt,” or perhaps “Penalty Noogie”

Only Dallas has surrendered more power play chances than have the Senators, and only two teams – St. Louis and San Jose – have worse kill rates than the 68.2 percent the Senators have. If there is a glimmer of hope here for the Senators it is that they have been quite respectable in killing off penalties in two road games – 12-for-14 (85.7 percent).

Can They Score?

Twelve goals in four games puts the Senators squarely in the middle of the pack in goal-per-game rankings (tied for eighth with seven other teams), which means “not enough to make up for a terrible defense.” They have played games close, with a pair of one-goal losses (one in the Gimmick) in their four games to date. They have some balance in scoring – eight players have recorded goals so far. But of those players with goals, they have a combined plus-minus of minus-23. This team does not score nearly enough to make up for serious shortcomings on defense.

Rules are made to be broken…stomped on, and ground into a fine powder.

One thing the Senators appear quite adept at is finding the penalty box without guidance. Chris Neil and Zenon Konopka sit one-two atop the NHL penalty minute rankings (25 and 24 apiece, the only club with two 20-minute players in this category). Konopka is the only player in the league to have recorded two fighting majors so far, and the Senators have more fighting majors (four) than any other team. They have much to be angry about.


The Peerless’ Players to Ponder

Ottawa: Sergei Gonchar

In 21 career games against Washington, the former Capital is 4-15-19, minus-1. He is 2-13-15 on the power play. So far this season he has one power play point (an assist) after being the Senators’ second leading power play scorer last season (5-15-20, tied for 19th in points among all defensemen). He has been on ice, though for five of the six power play goals the Senators have. That would be more power play goals/on ice than the total power play goals scored by 28 other teams. Things happen when he is out there with the man advantage.

Washington: Tomas Vokoun

Assuming that: a) Michal Neuvirth will be handled gingerly with his “lower body” injury, and that b) the Caps will reward Vokoun for his 39-save effort against Pittsburgh, then Vokoun would seem likely to get the start against the Senators. And boy, does he suck against Ottawa. 3-11-0 in 15 career games, 3.36 GAA, and a .897 save percentage. He does have one shutout, that coming in the 2008-2009 season. But over the last two years Vokoun is 1-5-0, 3.21, .890 against the Senators.

Keys:


1. Stay Alive, Avoid 4-on-5. Ottawa happens to have the third-best power play in the league (31.6 percent), as of early Friday, and the fourth-best road power play (36.4 percent). Eight different Senators have power play points in four games, Erik Karlsson (0-5-5) and Milan Michalek (2-2-4) teaming up to be an effective pair.

2. Get to the mileposts in front. Ottawa has yet to lead a game after one period; they have yet to lead a game after two periods. They are also 1-3-0 on the year…probably not a coincidence.

3. Steady pressure. No team has allowed more first period goals than Ottawa. That also goes for the second and third periods, too. There are bound to be opportunities over all 60 minutes.

In the end…

There might not be another team at the moment to cure what ails the Caps quite like the Senators. Although the season is young – four games for the visitors – the Senators have demonstrated themselves incapable of keeping pucks out of their own net so far. And for a team that would like to get Alex Ovechkin back to his dominating self (23 straight games without a multi-goal game; only one in his last 42, including playoffs), get Nicklas Backstrom lighting the red light (no goals in 20 games, and counting), and generally would like to get the power play going a little more energetically (only one of three power play goals has come in regulation), the Senators are made to order for Washington.

That’s on paper. Let’s face it, the Caps should end the competitive portion of this game in the first 20 minutes, but we know the Caps have had some issues closing out opponents in games like this. It will be especially tricky coming off a game against a big rival.  That makes this game a good test of the new found “accountability” and “maturity” this team says it has. But as soon as the Caps think Ottawa a “pushovah,” to quote the Senatuh, that’s when a team will rise up and take a big bite out of their bee-hind. We think the Caps will skate off with their collective bee-hinds intact. They’d better, or we might find we’re dealing with the “Same Old Caps.”

But if there is motivation, consider this. With a win on Saturday the Caps will tie a franchise record for consecutive wins to start a season. They’ve done it twice, and the last time they did it was in 1997, which happens to be the only season in which the Caps played in a Stanley Cup final.

Capitals 5 – Senators 2

In Time

Time (def.): the measured or measurable period during which an action, process, or condition exists or continues : duration; a nonspatial continuum that is measured in terms of events which succeed one another from past through present to future.

Three games might not be enough time to arrive at any conclusions about time, but it might be time to make a comparison between similar groups of Caps and time…

…on ice, that is.

Last season, the Caps opened each of their first three games with a third line of Eric Fehr, Marcus Johansson as a rookie, and Jason Chimera. In those games the trio had average total and even-strength ice time as follows (with their respective scoring lines):

Compare that to the trio who started the first three games on that third line last season (with their respective scoring lines):

This is a group that has – in a brief and small number of instances – been given more opportunities in terms of ice time, averaging substantially more even strength ice time than their 2010-2011 counterparts. And they have (so far) delivered, contributing four of the Caps’ 12 goals scored to date. That is a bump over the three of 12 the third line recorded in the first three games last year.

But the current edition of the third line has been on ice for few opposition goals – Laich and Ward for two, and Chimera for one of the seven even-strength goals scored against the Caps so far. Last year’s edition was on for a similar number of fewer goals (Fehr, Johansson, and Chimera for two apiece of the six even strength goals scored against the Caps in the first three games of the season) and in shorter chunks of even strength ice time.

It is early, but in time, this third line could be the two-way contributor that the Caps haven’t had to support the big guns on the top two lines of the forward group.

A TWO-point night -- Game 3: Caps 3 - Penguins 2 (OT)

No Sidney Crosby…it’s only regular season…it’s the third game of the year.

Sure, but the record will say that the Caps won – in Pittsburgh, again, for the eighth straight time in the regular season. It might have been dicey – the third time in three games that the Caps relinquished a third period lead – but a 3-2 overtime win in the Burgh makes any Caps fan smile.

If you looked only at the score sheet, you might be inclined to say that the Caps didn’t deserve this one. They were out-shot, 41-19. In fact, Pittsburgh had more shots on goal (41) than the Caps had attempts (40). They drew only one penalty in almost 63 minutes.

But it is not how, it is how many, and in the end, the Caps had three, the Penguins two. With the 3-2 win the Caps had their first 3-0-0 start since the 2007-2008 season.

The Caps did it with goals from guys they need to get scoring from – Mike Knuble driving to the net and scoring ugly, Alex Ovechkin getting his first goal with a nifty tip-in, and finally Dennis Wideman off a splendid saucer pass from Nicklas Backstrom on the power play in overtime to clinch the win.

Other stuff…

-- Alex Ovechkin does that little tip-in thing in warm-ups before every game. Maybe it’s just horsing around with his teammates, but it is the sort of thing that builds a certain memory of motion. The thing about that tip in goal though was that Penguin defenseman Paul Martin was right behind him and could not or did not apply any resistance to Ovechkin setting up in the low slot. He looked badly overmatched.

-- How do you like Tomas Vokoun now? Forty-one shots, 39 saves, and the two goals came on weak-side lapses by the Caps that left James Neal with clear looks at open nets. But stopping 17 of 18 shots in the third period was what Vokoun is here for.

-- It seems worth noting that despite the fact that the Caps have played all three games thus far into extra time, Ovechkin is averaging just over 20 minutes of ice time a game. He had only 18:55 tonight.

-- OK, Nicklas Backstrom hasn’t scored a goal in 20 games (going back to last season and including playoffs), but that pass he made to Dennis Wideman is why he gets his money. A saucer pass, across his body, skating at speed, right on Wideman’s tape. Are there three players in the league who can be counted on to make that pass in that situation?

-- If that wasn’t the ugliest goal in the career of Mike Knuble, it has to be in the top-five. He walks out from the goal line, gets ridden off the puck by Derek Engelland, and as he is trying to keep his balance skating behind the Penguin net, the puck somehow slithers under goalie Brent Johnson. Only a guy with 30 goals in 61 games against the Penguins would get a goal like that. Even Kanoobie hid his eyes looking at the replay.

-- John Carlson and Roman Hamrlik might be decent offensive linemen in football, because they can “block.” Carlson had six blocked shots, and Hamrlik had seven.

-- There are nights when Alexander Semin is so clearly the best player on the ice, that he is jaw-droppingly awesome to watch. There are other nights when you wonder if he dressed. Tonight was a night of the latter variety. He had an assist on the Knuble goal, but that was incidental to an ugly play. Otherwise he skated 15 minutes and change, had one shot on goal, and nothing else – no other shot attempts, no hits, no takeaways, nothing. And he hasn’t yet skated more than 18:38 in a game (yes, it’s early).

-- We note that after three games there are five Caps in “minus” territory. All four of the “Young Guns” are in that category.

-- From the “working the kinks out” file, Roman Hamrlik was on ice for both Penguin goals, Mike Green for one of them. That pair has the dubious honor of “leading” the Caps in goals scored against/on ice so far. Hamrlik has been on the ice for six of the ten goals scored against so far, Green for five.

-- These teams give their fans their money’s worth. The Penguins have now played in three extra time games out of five played (1-2), and the Caps have had all three of theirs go to extra time (3-0).

-- About the two Penguin goals, it seemed as if on both that Vokoun had his feet in awkward positions, as if he was between a butterfly and a stand-up posture. We’re guessing that in March, when he’s in the rhythm of a season, he stops them both.

-- And about this Arron Asham/Jay Beagle scrap. It really was a fight in three parts. There was the tangle of Beagle and Kris Letang that sparked the whole affair. Beagle might have been rightly called for roughing, but it wasn’t as if Beagle flattened Letang in open ice away from the play. What was it about this scrap that needed a third party to police it? Then there was the fight itself. Asham is a bruiser; he’s had 82 fights in the NHL before tonight. Beagle? A tough guy, but not a fighter. Tonight was his first NHL regular season fight. The results were entirely predictable. Finally, there were the antics displayed by Asham after the bout was over – the boxing referee knockout gesture, then the “go to sleep” gesture. And that with Beagle bleeding on the ice. To his credit, Asham realized later that it was, as he described it himself, a “classless” gesture. He deserves credit for that. But in the moment, perhaps playing to the home crowd, it is the kind of thing that needs to be nipped in the bud by the league.

In the end, the game looked as if it was played almost at a playoff pace. Players might say that it is just an early season game, that it is only one of 82, but the play on the ice revealed that lie. It was a closely played game that the Penguins probably held an advantage in, in terms of territorial play. But the Caps got goals from players they need to have produce, in ways they have to produce – Knuble on an ugly piece of work, Ovechkin with some deft stick work, and Wideman burying an open look at the goalie. And if a Caps fan was disappointed with the overall play, or was inclined to pick apart individual performances, remember that the Penguins have spent the last year winning games like this in greasy fashion – playing it close and winning in extra time. Not tonight. And right now, that speaks well for the Caps in trying to become that kind of team.

The Peerless Prognosticator is ON THE AIR!!! -- Game 3, Capitals at Penguins

Pittsburgh? In Game 3??

Thursday's game in Pittsburgh against the Penguins marks the earliest these two teams have met in an NHL season since they met in the season opener of the – Sidney -- 1990-1991 season.

In that October 5, 1990, game the Penguins rode a pair of goals from Mark Recchi and another pair from Kevin Stevens to a 7-4 win. John Cullen had five assists for the – Sidney – winners. Dale Hunter and Kelly – Sidney – Miller scored for the Caps, and Mike Liut allowed all seven goals on 29 shots for the – Sidney —

OK, what’s going on here? What’s with this “Sidney” nonsense? Who are you?

“I.T. Nerdwell, NHL systems coordinator.”

You have an explanation for this “Sidney” twaddle?

“We’re testing a new system… ‘CROS’ – the Crosby Repetition Operating System. Since Sidney Crosby hasn’t yet appeared in a game this season, the league thought it important to keep his name in fans’ minds as he recuperates from being struck down in dastardly fashion by that goon, David Steckel, last season.”

And this is what you came up with?

“Yes, inserting the name, ‘Sidney’ in such unobtrusive fashion provides a subliminal cue to readers of any NHL stories or blogs that Sidney Crosby is still the important name in the NHL and…”

Wait, “subliminal cue?” As if we don’t see Crosby’s name enough on a daily basis in print and pixels with variations on the question, “when is he coming back?”

“The league doesn’t think so. We have done studies that show that the saturation point at which NHL fans become tired of hearing the name ‘Sidney Crosby’ is 238,391 instances per 24-hour period.”

What sort of studies?

“Well, asking Commissioner Bettman, surveying the Canadian hockey media. That sort of thing.”

That explains a lot. And you haven’t reached that saturation point yet?

“Close – we’re a couple of thousand short, but we’re working diligently on that.”

Oh, I have no doubt.

The Penguins, owners of a 3-0-1 record, host the Capitals at Consol Energy Center, an anagram for “Enter Cyclone, Goners.”  Except that the last – and as yet, only – time the Caps visited CEC, it was the cyclone that was Alex Ovechkin’s shot that resulted in the game’s only goal, and Michal Neuvirth playing as calmly as if he was the eye of the storm, stopping all 39 shots he faced in a 1-0 shutout.

Last season the Penguins were a team that, aside from losing the services of both Sidney Crosby (Damn! Now we’re doing it!!) and Evgeni Malkin for half the season, parlayed hard work and perseverance into a fourth place finish in the Eastern Conference (and most wins), one point behind Eastern Conference leader Washington. They accomplished that feat in no small part on the basis of an excellent record in extra time. The Penguins were 15-8 overall games decided after 60 minutes (no team won more extra-time games), including a 10-3 record in Bettman’s Brainchild (again, no team won more). Here is how the Pens fared last season compared to the Caps…

(click on pic for larger image)

Pittsburgh seems to be picking up where they left off last season, two of their first four games having gone to extra time, both to the Gimmick (a 1-1 record). And, with Crosby still out and Malkin nursing a lower body injury, the Caps might be facing a club that resembled very much the one they shutout in the last two meetings of last seasons’ series. Which is not to say the Penguins are without weapons, they just don’t happen to be the ones you might expect.

Unconventional Weapons

When hockey fans woke up on Wednesday morning and checked the league statistical tables, the leading scorer was – drum roll – “Kris Letang.” With a goal and five assists, he led all league scorers. He also was tied for the league lead in assists, was tied for second in plus-minus, and was tied for fifth in shots on goal. He also happens to be eighth in the league as this short juncture in ice time, so Caps fans will see a lot of him on the ice. In 14 career games against the Caps Letang is 1-4-5, but he drags a minus-11 into this game, too. One thing to watch; in his last eight games against Washington he has recorded an almost Ovechkinian number of shots on goal – 27, 16 of those coming in four games last season.

Then there are the two Penguins among a logjam tied for seventh in the league in scoring – Jordan Staal and Pascal Dupuis. Both have recorded a goal and three assists in the early going, both are plus-2. Neither, however, has been especially successful against Washington. Staal is 6-1-7, minus-4 in 19 career games against the Caps, while Dupuis is 2-4-6, minus-5 in 24 career games against Washington. Staal was held without a point in three games in last year’s season series, and Dupuis was scoreless as well, with a plus-1. Dupuis was responsible for the only standing point the Penguins took from the Caps last season, scoring in the trick shot portion of a 3-2 win, his goal clinching things in the seventh round.

You Can’t Spell “Goon” or “Goal” without “Go”

And when the sign flashed “GO” to start the season, Matt Cooke – perhaps the “reformed” Matt Cooke? – jumped out of the starting gate. He leads the Penguins with three goals – one even strength, one power play, and one shorthanded – and has done it having taken a single penalty (an interference minor) in four games. He is another player with unremarkable career numbers against the Caps – 1-3-4, minus-4 in 19 games, including a scoreless season series against the Caps last year.

MVP – Most Valuable Person

Mike Babcock has more wins (so does Bruce Boudreau, for that matter), Lindy Ruff has been around longer, but there might not be a more effective coach in the NHL at the moment than Dan Bylsma. Certainly, none – not even Nashville’s Barry Trotz – got more out of his team than did “Disco Dan” last season. Sidney Crosby missed the last 41 games of the season, and Malkin missed all but one of the last 35 games. In those first 41 games the Penguins had a record of 26-12-3 for 55 points. In the last half of the season, without Crosby and almost all of it without Malkin, the Pens were 23-13-5 for 51 points, hardly a hiccup. It was a team with only one player finishing with more than 50 points (Crosby, as it turned out) and only one with more than 25 goals (again, Crosby). It was a team that reflected its coach – hard working, gritty, and persistent.

The Peerless’ Players to Ponder

Pittsburgh: James Neal

With apologies to Matt Cooke, Neal is the go-to goal scorer for this team until such time as Crosby returns to the ice and Malkin returns to full health. He has not yet displayed the scoring touch expected of him when he arrived from Dallas last season with defenseman Matt Niskanen for Alex Goligoski. In 24 games with the Pens he is 3-6-9, minus-3, although he does have two of those goals in the Penguins’ first four games this season. One thing to watch for is that for a winger expected to put up some goals, he doesn’t manufacture a lot of shots on goal. In 238 career games he has only 595 shots (2.50/game), although he is up a tick with Pittsburgh with an average of 2.66 shots in his 24 games with the Pens.

Washington: Alex Ovechkin

In the absence of the two Penguin stars, it is Ovechkin’s stage tonight. It has been a rough six weeks or so for him, with the unfortunate tragedy befalling his countrymen on the Lokomotiv Yaroslavl hockey team and the passing of his uncle. Add to that the pressure that is laid upon him to put last year’s disappointing numbers behind him, and it makes for a difficult start to the year. But he has had a couple of days off to prepare for an opponent against which he has performed well. In 24 regular season games against the Penguins he is 18-14-32, plus-14, with nine power play goals. Curiously, only one of those goals is a game winner – that coming in the 1-0 shutout in the only meeting of these teams at Consol Energy Center so far. Ovechkin has had a knack for shining when the light shines brightly (at least in the regular season). Tonight we will see if he still has the gift.

Keys:

Score First. That’s pretty much a golden rule in the NHL in any circumstances, but the Penguins had the fifth best winning percentage in the NHL when scoring first last season. They have scored the first goal in three of four games so far this season and are 2-0-1 (yes, they won the game they fell behind first, too).

Power Up. The Penguins led the league in penalty killing last season. They are 16-for-16 in killing penalties so far this season. They’re good at this. Part of it is their depth on defense – they had four defensemen log an average of at least two minutes of shorthanded ice time per game last season. But they have very active forwards as well. The Caps have had issues with crisp passing on their power play. The Pens will give them neither space nor time to dawdle.

Flummox Fleury. Marc-Andre Fleury has not had a particularly sparkling record against the Caps in his career – 9-6-2, 2.90, .908, with one shutout. Last year, he was more a victim of bad luck than bad play, going 1-3-0 against the Caps despite a 1.99 GAA and .929 save percentage. But his start this season could be described as “solid,” if unspectacular. He allowed three goals to Vancouver, which is no sin, but in his other two games he faced teams – Calgary and Florida – that won’t scare many people with their offense. He allowed five goals on 54 shots in those two games (.907).

In the end, both teams will be getting their first real test in the East this season. But the Caps have owned this series over the past several seasons – Crosby and Malkin, or no Crosby and Malkin. The Caps are 11-1-2 in their last 14 regular season games against the Pens, including a record of 7-0-0 in Pittsburgh in three different venues – Mellon Arena, Consol Energy Center, and Heinz Field. They’ve done it by being able to score (3.86 goals/game in this run) and, when need be, by playing defense (holding the Penguins to three goals in four games last season, shutting them out twice).

The Caps have bolstered their third and fourth lines, giving them a peskiness and an offensive threat they didn’t have there last season. But this game would seem likely to turn on whether the Caps can solve the Penguin penalty kill. If they don’t, they are playing Pittsburgh’s game, and the result is likely to bring that long successful run to an end. But you already know what we think the likelihood of that happening is…

Caps 3 – Penguins 2

Bears Opening Night Duds?

The Hershey Bears are going to be wearing special Opening Night jerseys, according to this press release from the club.

It is a celebration of the 10th anniversary of Giant Center and the Bears' three Calder Cups since 2006.  The jerseys will be auctioned for charity after the game this Saturday against Norfolk.

Re-Realignment

More than two years ago, we came up with this plan for realignment/relocation/expansion. Well, it seems realignment is not far from the front of folks' minds, what with Atlanta having relocated to Winnipeg and throwing the Southeast Division into a tizzy (unless you rationalize things by thinking Winnipeg is in Southeast Manitoba).

So let's do this again.  An old-school way to realign and keep Detroit, which is in Southeast Michigan, out of the "Southeast Division."

Oh, and yes, we would still maintain that our playoffs include the first two rounds as intra-divisional play. Like we said back in August 2009, "there is nothing like beating up on your divisional opponents for a few games in the playoffs to build up that hate among players and fans that seems to be missing from too many divisions (well, the Southeast, anyway)."

(edit: and thanks to the careful readers who found my brain fart moment by not having used the version with Phoenix replacing Atlanta in the Norris).

Neuvember?

In response to our last entry on "Voktober," Twittererer...erer... J.P. asks...

"So Voktober won't be followed by Neuvember?"

Let's hope not.  In nine career games played in Neu... uh, November, Michal Neuvirth has a nice win-loss record of 5-1-1, but his GAA is 3.18, and his save percentage is .892.  He was pulled in one of those games after allowing three goals on five shots in the third period of a game against Boston that ended in a 5-3 Caps win last November in Braden Holtby's debut and first win.

But hey, it's a Neu season...so to speak.

Voktober

Since the lockout that cost the NHL the 2004-2005 season, Tomas Vokoun has had the most interesting of Octobers.  It is a month that can be divided into his "first games of the season" and "everything else."  Here's what those two parts of October have been over six years coming into this season...

First Game of the Season: 2-4-0, 4.14, .855

Everything Else:  25-19-3, 2.66, .920, six shutouts

Resume panicking, Caps Nation

A TWO-point night -- Game 2: Caps 6 - Lightning 5 (OT/SO)

He’s human, after all.

“He” being Dwayne Roloson, goaltender for the Tampa Bay Lightning, who allowed five goals on 43 shots in the hockey portion of the evening and two more in the trick shot competition as the Washington Capitals outlasted the Lighnting, 6-5, in a Gimmick outcome.

For the Caps it was a tale of two teams. First, there were the “character actors.” Jason Chimera was doing his best “Jason Voorhees” impersonation, slashing his way to a rebound goal off a Brooks Laich shot, then knifing his way out of the corner to a loose puck that he wristed past Roloson with less than three minutes in regulation time to tie the game at five goals apiece.

There was Marcus Johansson, making his season debut after given a seat in the press box in the opener by coach Bruce Boudreau, with a goal and an assist, nine shot attempts in 15-plus minutes (four on goal), two hits, and a takeaway. It was a performance good for the second star.

Troy Brouwer had a goal and seven hits, more than twice as many as any other Cap, in 14 minutes of ice time.

Brooks Laich had an assist, two hits, a takeaway, two blocked shots, and won 12 of 22 draws in skating almost 24 minutes.

There were John Carlson and Karl Alzner, who as a defensive pair were not on the ice for any of the five Tampa Bay goals (Alzner was paired with Mike Green on the Bruno Gervais goal in the first period).

There was Matt Hendricks with another display of goalie-splitting stick skill in the shootout, showing forehand, teasing Roloson with the puck, pulling it back and pulling Roloson to his stomach in the process, then gliding to the side and lifting it calm as you please into the open net for what would prove the game-winner. It made him 3-for-5 in trick shots in his year-plus with the Caps.

There was Jason Chimera with a pair of goals, including the one that sent the game to overtime. It was his first multi-goal game as a Cap and his first one since October 31, 2007, when he was skating for the Columbus Blue Jackets.

Those were the character actors. Then there were the leading men. Not an award-winning performance.

Alex Ovechkin skated almost 22 minutes, had ten shot attempts (three on goal), two hits, and a minus-two, as he was on the ice for two of the Tampa Bay goals.

Nicklas Backstrom had four shots on goal in almost 20 minutes, lost eight of 14 draws, took a pair of second period penalties and was on for two goals against, himself.

Mike Green played 24 minutes without recording a point and was on ice for Tampa Bay’s first three goals.

Alexander Semin had the game-clinching goal in the Gimmick, but his taking a hooking penalty in the offensive zone in the overtime negated a power play, and he couldn’t click on any of the five shots he had on goal; he was on ice for three goals against.

New Guy/Young Gun Scorecard:

-- Brouwer/Halpern/Ward/Hamrlik: 1-2-3, even, 5 SOG, 11 hits, 2 takeaways, 2 giveaways, 5 blocked shots

-- Ovechkin/Backstrom/Semin/Green: 0-0-0, minus-7, 15 SOG, 7 hits, 7 takeaways, 2 giveaways, 1 blocked shot

Then there was Tomas Vokoun. He allowed five goals on the first 21 shots he faced, but after Jason Chimera tied the game with 2:44 left in regulation, he stopped the last seven he faced in regulation and overtime. It was the first time he allowed as many as five goals since doing so against Ottawa last October 28th. He allowed five goals twice in October 2009… he allowed five in his season opener in the 2008-2009 season… he allowed five in his season opener of the 2007-2008 season… he allowed seven in his season opener and six in his next game to start the 2006-2007 season…

You see a post-lockout pattern here?

But Vokoun manned-up, stopped everything he had to when the Caps crawled back into a tie, and at least gave them a chance for the second standings point. And one might wonder what Tampa Bay coach Guy Boucher was doing giving Nate Thompson a go at it in the Gimmick (he had not take a shootout attempt in either of his two seasons in Tampa Bay), but Dominic Moore was 3-for-6 last season. He wasn’t a stiff, but was stiffed by Vokoun.

In the end, the best spin you could put on this game is that the reason for the deals the Caps made last spring and summer were on full display. In last spring’s sweep at the hands of Tampa Bay, the Caps had their top guys stopped, and they got no contributions from down the roster. Last night, the big guys were quiet, but there were Troy Brouwer and Dennis Wideman getting goals. There were Jeff Halpern and Joel Ward getting assists. And that made Jason Gretz- uh, Chimera getting a pair of goals that much sweeter.

On the other hand, that’s eight goals allowed in two games on 59 shots, a .864 save percentage. That’s not going to do. It is only two games into the season, and one is always tempted to say, “it’s not how, it’s how many.” The thing is, though, if you pay attention to the “how,” the “how many” usually ends up being a bigger number in the end.

The Peerless Prognosticator is ON THE AIR!!! -- Game 2, Lightning at Capitals

The last time the Washington Capitals and Tampa Bay Lightning met, the Lightning were dancing off into the Eastern Conference finals, and the Capitals were reserving tee times, the Lightning having swept the Caps in four games in the Eastern Conference semifinals last spring.

New year, clean slate. And the first chalk marks on that slate will be made tonight at Verizon Center as the teams renew their rivalry. Not that it matters a great deal, for if there is a difference between the regular season and playoffs, perhaps nowhere is it more stark than in the rivalry between the Caps and Lightning. The taste of that sweep no doubt will linger in the mouths of the Caps and their fans until they meet again in games played in the spring, but this will have to do for now.

And in regular season games, the Caps have owned the Lightning in the Boudreau era. Since Bruce Boudreau stepped behind the Caps’ bench, Washington is 19-3-1 against Tampa Bay, including a record of 4-1-1 last season.  Here is how the teams fared last season...

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But the Lighting own an 8-2 record in games and a 2-0 record in series against the Capitals in the post-season.  Caps fans probably remember the latter much more than the former.  But on to tonight's matchup.

A Familiar, If Haunting Face…

Those losses last season to Tampa Bay – in regulation and overtime – speak to a change in the Lightning that seems to have been made precisely with the Capitals in mind. On New Year’s Day, while the Caps were visiting the Pittsburgh Penguins in the Winter Classic, the Lightning were finalizing a trade with the New York Islanders that brought goaltender Dwayne Roloson to Tampa in exchange for defenseman Ty Wishart. Three days later, Roloson shut out the Caps, 1-0, in overtime. Eight days after that, he shut out the Caps again. And then, after he allowed four goals in a 5-2 loss on February 4th, he held the Caps to one goal on 30 shots in a 2-1 shootout loss in the season series finale.

Roloson changed the direction of the season series and the rivalry in his four appearances with the Lightning against the Caps last season. His 2-1-1 record was respectable enough, but it was his 1.22 goals against average and his .959 save percentage, with two shutouts, that provided the Lightning with the antidote to the Caps’ offense. He numbers weren’t quite as impressive in the playoffs – a 2.44 GAA and .925 save percentage against the Caps -- but he allowed only two third period goals in the four game Lightning sweep. If there is a “Cap killer” among goaltenders in the NHL, Roloson stands at the head of the class with an 8-5-4 win-loss record, but a 2.11 GAA, .923 save percentage, and four shutouts in 17 career appearances against Washington.

So Far…

It has been feast or famine in two games for the Lightning, a 5-1 win in the season opener and a 4-1 loss to Boston on Saturday. Of particular concern to the Caps is the fact that the 5-1 win over Carolina in the season opener featured a 32 save effort by Roloson (he did not play in the 4-1 loss to Boston). The Lightning have had the benefit of six goals from five different players – Martin St. Louis the only one with two – and points from 12 different players.


Big Three…

You might expect St. Louis and Vincent Lecavalier to be featured prominently on the scoring rankings for the Lightning, and there are St. Louis, with two goals and an assist in two games, and Lecavalier, with a game-winning goal and an assist at the top of the list.

You might also expect Steven Stamkos to be right there with them, and he does have two assists, but he hasn’t found the back of the net on any of his seven shots in the Lightning’s first two games. It isn’t good news for Caps fans, either. In his first season Stamkos went his first eight games without a goal before getting a pair in Game 9. The following year, he went two games without a goal before scoring a pair in Game 3. Last year, it was a pair in the Tampa Bay season opener. Pairs to open the bidding is his habit. Stamkos is 8-4-12, minus-10 in 18 career regular season games against the Caps. He has four power play goals among the eight tallies, but he has no game-winners among them.

The Peerless’ Players to Ponder

Tampa Bay: Ryan Malone (career vs. Washington: 28 games, 6-9-15, minus-3)

Since posting career highs in goals (27) and points (51) with Pittsburgh in 2007-2008, Malone has seen his numbers dip with the Lightning. In three years with Tampa Bay, his games played dropped from 77 in his last year in Pittsburgh to 70, to 69, then to 54 last year; his goals drop from 27 to 26 to 21 to 14 last year, and his points drop from 51 in that last year with the Penguins to 38 last season. He has received a modest amount of ice time in two games so far (averaging about 14 minutes), but he is making good use of it with a goal and an assist. In fact, he will come into this game having scored goals in four of his last five regular season games (he finished 2010-2011 with a goal in each of his last three games). He also had two of his three playoff goals in the four-game sweep of the Caps last spring. He has scored six goals in his career against the Caps – two on the power play, two shorthanded, and two at even strength.

Washington: Tomas Vokoun (career vs. Tampa Bay: 23 games, 11-7-1, 2.60, .921, one shutout)

The newcomer gets his first start for the Caps against a familiar foe. Vokoun has appeared in 23 career games against the Lightning, but might have had his best run of games last year against Tampa Bay. In three games he was 2-0-1, 1.26, .954 with one shutout. Vokoun had a GAA lower than that against only one other team he faced more than once last year, and that happens to be the one he is playing for now (0.99 against the Caps).

Keys:

1. Don’t make it special. Here is a number to chew on – 0.99. Last season that was the 5-on-5 goals ratio of both the Tampa Bay Lightning and the Carolina Hurricanes. One advanced to a conference final in the playoffs, the other sat out the dance entirely. But the Lightning were a top-ten team on both sides of special teams, sixth on the power play, eighth in penalty killing. The Lightning shut down the Caps’ power play quite effectively last spring, killing 17 of 19 shorthanded situations (89.5 percent).

2. Stymie Steven. Last season Steven Stamkos had only one goal in six games in the regular season, and the Caps were 4-1-1. He had two in four games in the playoffs, and the Caps lost all four games. He can score goals in bunches – he had four streaks of at least three consecutive games with a goal last year and eight multi-goal games last season. He also had 36 of his 45 goals in wins. Keeping him from lighting the lamp is essential.

3. Start up the Vokeswagon Bus. Tomas Vokoun did not get the opening night start, but he probably maintains an advantage over Michal Neuvirth in the latest edition of Goalie Sweepstakes. His value is in what he does in the spring, but getting off to a solid start is the kind of thing that only adds to the confidence his teammates have in front of him. He was 4-4-0, 2.37, .921 in October last season, but he was 2-7-1, 3.28, .912 in October the previous season. He is not unfamiliar with slow starts.

In the end…

It is not a revenge game. You don’t get back at someone for eating your steak dinner by stealing their bag of potato chips. This is another regular season game, important because it is a division opponent and a game on home ice – the kind of situation the Caps need to take advantage of to take care of divisional business. They can do that by imposing their game on the Lightning, being patient enough to defeat a 1-3-1 defense and using their speed across their forward lines to take advantage of a large, but somewhat plodding blueline corps. And just how long can this Roloson guy keep playing well in goal, anyway? Tonight, not well enough.

Caps 3 – Lightning 2

A TWO-point night -- Game 1: Caps 4 - Hurricanes 3 (OT)

The last time the Washington Capitals lost a home opener, Eric Belanger (you remember him) was on the ice... for the Los Angeles Kings in a 4-1 Kings win on what was then “MCI Center” ice in the 2000-2001 season opener. Since then, the Capitals won nine consecutive home openers going into last night’s contest against the Carolina Hurricanes at Verizon Center.

The Caps made it ten in a row with a 4-3 overtime win over the Carolina Hurricanes last night.  It looked really good for a tenth straight opening win on home ice with 3:45 to go in regulation time when Brooks Laich scored the Caps’ first power play goal of the season from the doorstep, taking a rebound of an Alex Ovechkin shot off the end boards and backhanding it past Carolina goalie Brian Boucher to give the Caps a 3-2 lead.

It looked a good deal worse for keeping that streak alive 2:26 later when, with the Hurricanes’ goalie pulled, Carolina won a battle for the puck in the Olympia corner to the right of Caps goalie Michal Neuvirth. Eric Staal slid the puck out to the front of the Caps’ net, where Jeff Skinner redirected the puck to the left of Neuvirth. Jussi Jokinen stopped the loose puck with his right skate, kicked it to his forehand, and flipped it past a sprawling Neuvirth to get the ‘Canes even with 1:19 remaining.

It got worse for the Caps at the horn ending the period as the Caps would go to overtime having to kill a penalty, a boarding call against Alexander Semin. Carolina managed three shots on the 4-on-3 advantage before the Hurricane hero, Jokinien, went to the penaltiy box for a goat-horn fitting, taking a holding penalty against Karl Alzner at 1:29. Less than a minute later, the Caps spun a hit from years past. Nicklas Backstrom skated down the right wing boards with the puck with Carolina’s Tim Brent trailing him. Backstrom backhanded the puck out to Dennis Wideman at the right point. Wideman steered the puck to Mike Green on the other side. Green returned the puck to Wideman, then the two defensemen traded places at the top of the zone. Wideman sent the puck back across to Green, now at the right point and with some room to maneuver. Green stepped into the top of the right wing faceoff circle and let fly with a slap shot. The puck looked as if it might have taken a nick out of defenseman Bryan Allen on the way through, and it was enough for the puck to elude Boucher for the game-winner and a tenth consecutive home opener win, courtesy of “Game-Over Green.”

Other stuff…

-- The penalty kill did not get off to a good start against the Hurricanes. Carolina finished the night 2-for-5, and the Hurricanes recorded 12 shots on the five power plays. It might be worth noting that last season the Caps did not allow their first power play goal against until Game 7 of the season, a 4-1 loss to Boston.

-- On the other hand, there was the power play. It looked too much like last year’s ineffective squad, misfiring on their first three power plays, or more accurately, not firing at all, recording only two shots on their first three man advantages. But the Caps made up for it in their last two power plays, converting both, and in fact scoring on their last two power play shots on goal.

-- It is only one night, but the new guys were everything advertised on display. Troy Brouwer hits? He finished the night credited with six and had four shot attempts (two on goal) along with a plus-1. Roman Hamrlik is steady? He led the Caps with 23:18 of ice time and led all Caps with five blocked shots. Joel Ward adds some grit? Fifteen-plus minutes, a hit, a blocked shot, three faceoffs taken (all won), and displayed a nasty snap shot off a Brooks Laich feed early that might have put the Caps up in the game’s fourth minute.

-- It is worth noting that officially, the Caps scored their first three goals from an aggregate distance of 35 feet. Granted, two of them came on clean breaks – one by Alexander Semin and the other by Jason Chimera – but it seems easier to score from inside of 20 feet than it is from outside that distance.

-- Nicklas Backstrom might not have been named a star of the game, but that doesn’t mean he wasn’t among the most effective players on the ice. In almost 21 minutes, two assists, seven shot attempts (three on goal), four hits (second to Brouwer), two blocked shots, and he won 15 of 25 draws.

-- Jeff Schultz…more than 15 minutes of ice time in which he blocked two shots and had two shot attempts of his own. Oh, and no goals scored against. Eighty two nights like that will be just fine, even if he doesn’t record a hit.

-- Brooks Laich had an effective game of his own, the variety of his game on full display. A goal on three shots on goal, three hits, two takeaways, two blocked shots, 10 wins in 16 draws taken, 3:13 in shorthanded ice time, more than any other Cap.

-- The Caps got balance out of their lines in terms of shots on goal. Nine for the first line, eight for the second, seven for the third, and three for the fourth, not to mention nine from the defense.

-- The Caps dominated draws in the offensive zone, going 15-for-25 and led by Backstrom’s 8-for-11. Jeff Halpern might have finished the night on the wrong side of 50 percent on draws, but he won four of six in the defensive end, and ultimately that is where he’s paid to win.

-- The record will show that Michal Neuvirth allowed three goals on 31 shots, but two of them were of the “he didn’t have a chance” category, as Eric Staal was all by himself on the weak side for a pair of open-net power play goals. Even on the last, with the Hurricanes having six skaters on the ice, Jussi Jokinen was left more or less unmarked on the weak side as the puck worked its way across from the far corner. He had a solid, if unspectacular game.

-- Will Alexander Semin be getting a call from Brendan Shanahan this week? That hit at the end of regulation on Bryan Allen was not the brightest thing Semin did yesterday, especially given the context…there was nothing Allen could have done with the clock about to tick to zero. It was a silly, stupid play that could cost Semin a pinch in the wallet, if not games in the press box.

-- On January 16, 2006, Alex Ovechkin scored what is famously referred to as “The Goal.” Phoenix goalie Brian Boucher was the victim of that career highlight. Ovechkin has not solved Boucher in any of the five games he faced Boucher since, including last night, failing to rustle the twine on either of his two shots on goal.

In the end, it was not pretty, and if body language means anything, Bruce Boudreau’s spoke volumes as he was leaving the bench. He looked like a guy who wanted to get his team on the ice right then and right there to correct some things…like a shaky penalty kill, like being too fancy on their first three power plays when they were content to pass around the perimeter instead of pounding the net, like not closing out a team when they had a lead with less than two minutes left.

It was the kind of game that made for a happy dramatic ending, but we don’t suspect those whose job it is to lead and evaluate these players will be happy with how it was achieved. It looked like a game that pitted a team playing its first game against one that got its feet wet the previous evening. We would like to say the Caps played better late than early, but this wasn’t really the case, either. Not when they allowed a game-tying goal in the last two minutes of regulation and succumbed to retaliation in the final second of regulation hockey.

The Caps have a full day to shake the cobwebs entirely out of their system, because they will jump up a weight class or two in their next opponent, the Tampa Bay Lightning. To get two points out of that one, they will have to display a more consistent 60 minutes (or more) than they displayed last night.