Doing the Right Thing Gone Bad

If you Googled “Alex Ovechkin” on Tuesday and checked his news links, you would have had almost 6,500 hits.  A lot of them share a theme: “something is wrong with Alex Ovechkin.”  It does get tiresome.  Consider this – since his alleged “slump” began in the 2011-2012 season, how many players have more goals than Ovechkin through games of Monday, February 19^th?  Ten?  Fifteen?  Twenty?  Surely the world must have passed Ovechkin by in a big way by now.  Twenty five?

Four.

That’s right.  Steven Stamkos (114), Corey Perry (90), Patrick Marleau (77), and Jarome Iginla (76) have more goals that the 75 Alex Ovechkin has recorded since the beginning of the 2010-2011 season.  Ovechkin has played in fewer games than all of them, and only two – Stamkos and Perry – have significant leads in the goal-scoring rankings.

That is not to say that there are no issues with Ovechkin, but the problem, it seems, sits in the right church, but the wrong pew.  Before we embark on finding the right pew, let us acknowledge up front that hindsight is not just 20/20, sometimes it is 20/10.  This is not a blame-seeking exercise as much as it is a fable with a moral at the end.

And that brings us to two numbers that hover over Ovechkin like a dark cloud.  Neither have anything to do with goals, or points, or wins, or losses.  Not directly, at least. 

13 and 124.

The careful reader knows what those numbers are.  They are the terms of Ovechkin’s contract when he signed a long-term extension in January 2008.  At the time, everyone – from the fan in the top row of Verizon Center to the man who owns the team to the player who signed the contract – was thrilled with the prospect of Alex Ovechkin being on-board with the Caps through the 2020-2021 season.

Looking at the quotes from the time, the team and its followers looked poised to make the leap from perennial disappointment to championship contender…

"I cannot say how happy I am.  I didn't want to go nowhere. If I want to go somewhere, I could sign for three years."

-- Alex Ovechkin

"If you're going to make a long-term investment, who else would you do it with.  This takes away any of the issues about how committed we are to winning a [Stanley] Cup and how committed we are to keeping our team together."

-- Ted Leonsis

"Alex is the face of the organization. When people talk about the Caps, it's generally with him in mind. Him and Sidney Crosby are the faces of the NHL right now, and to have Alex here for 13 years, it means a lot the team, to the city. This could be a very good team for a very long time."

-- Olaf Kolzig

It seemed as if the deal would be a bargain.  Ovechkin was in the midst of his career season when he re-signed with the Capitals.  He was on his way to setting a league record for goals by a left winger – 65.  He would go on to sweep the major individual awards that season – Hart (MVP), Richard (top goal scorer), Ross (points leader), and Lindsay (outstanding player).  He would be named for a third time to the first NHL all-star team.  A Stanley Cup seemed a matter of time, not a matter of “maybe.”

Things change, though.  Today, Ovechkin is tied for 90^th in points, tied for 45^th in goals scored.  The Capitals are still waiting for that Stanley Cup and, in fact, look to be further away from it today than on the day he signed that contract.  He is not a bargain.

And that brings us around, not to the mysterious decline of Ovechkin, but the nature of the deal and the fork in the road taken before it was arrived at.  When the deal was signed in 2008, it was not unique on its face.  It was not even the longest deal in force at the time.  Goaltender Rick DiPietro of the New York Islanders signed a 15-year deal in September 2006.

It was, however, unique in its particulars.  Here is the deal, explained at the time by team owner Ted Leonsis…

“Alex was coming off his rookie contract, and he could have signed a four- or five-year deal.  Sidney Crosby had signed a five-year deal. Then [Ovechkin] would have been an unrestricted free agent. We talked to him and we told him we would give him another year, to make it six years. That was the first deal we negotiated, and that is why it came to $9 million. Crosby did five years at $8.7 [million]. We were buying a year of free agency — $9 million a year over six years.

“We were all happy.  We shook hands. We had a deal. Then it was, ‘Do you want to stay longer?’ And it was, ‘Sure, what do you have in mind?’ Then we did some research and asked, what is the average free agent deal, how long is it? Last year there were several seven year deals. So we thought, why not just negotiate his free agent deal now?

“So while $10 million sounded like a lot of money, I will bet you that in six years, when a player like Alex hits the free agent market, they are going to be paid a lot more than $10 million a year.  Dany Heatley this year makes $10 million. That is how we broke it up — do his first year now, then let’s negotiate his free agent deal. That is how it got to be 13 years.”

So here we are in Year 5 of the six-year portion of the Ovechkin contract, and if the second “free agent” portion of the deal had not been made, the club would be at a crossroads, given Ovechkin’s performance over the past couple of years.  For while he is that fifth-ranked goal scorer since the beginning of the 2010-2011 season, there is a clot right behind him that don’t command either the dollars or the term in compensation that Ovechkin does – Matt Moulson (74 goals), James Neal (73), Bobby Ryan (70), and Patrick Sharp (70) among them.

It begs the question, if there was no “free agent” portion of the Ovechkin contract, would he be re-signed by the club, and if so at what terms?  It certainly seems inconceivable that there would be a seven-year extension paying a total of $70 million.  But it certainly seems just as inconceivable that the club would let Ovechkin walk without making a concerted effort to re-sign him.  This is, after all, a club that re-signed Mike Green, Brooks Laich, Nicklas Backstrom, and even Alexander Semin to high-dollar and/or long term deals.  The club does take care of its own in that regard.

In Ovechkin, the club has a player whose production dropped significantly from his highest-producing years, but one who still has averaged 36 goals per 82 games in the “slump” he has had over the past two-plus seasons.  The complication is his further drop-off in production this season.  With five goals (tied for 45^th in the league) and that being his expected contribution to team success, he is less and elite scorer than he is one of the pack, running with the likes of Colin Wilson, Nazem Kadri, and Mark Letestu.

Would such a player command the sort of deal that any of his post 2010-2011 goal scoring cohort command?  A six-year, $30 million deal such as that James Neal (73 goals since the start of 2010-2011) has in Pittsburgh? A five-year, $27 million deal under which Phil Kessel (72 goals) is laboring in Toronto?  Or even one with a cap hit equal to that of Ilya Kovalchuk (73 goals) -- $6.67 million?

But even that consideration jumps the gun.  This would be a player about to embark on his contract year, the last year on his original six-year deal.  Would the club be better served by trading such a player, if not now, then at some point over the next year?  And what would a 27-year old (or 28-year old next season) command in trade?  What does a team get for a player whose goal scoring has gone from 50 in 2009-2010 to being on a pace for 27 over 82 games, especially when that player carries a $9.00 million cap hit for next season (assuming the six-year, $54 million portion of the current deal)?

In 2008 the team took a risk in an effort to do the right thing – wrap up a unique talent that would hold the club’s fans in thrall for more than a decade, gambling that the deal would be a bargain in time (consuming a declining share of the salary cap) and over which the club would not just be a consistent championship contender, but would make good on their contender status by winning a Cup (or more).

These are not dumb people making these deals, but intelligence and clairvoyance are not synonyms, either.  The Capitals have eight years remaining on the Ovechkin contract after this season with an annual cap hit of $9.538 million.  At Ovechkin’s current level of production (perhaps somewhere between 25-35 goals per season) it would seem to be untradeable.  And, it encumbers an outsized share of the team’s salary cap, given that level of production.  On the other hand, if the player was to at least partially return to his early career level of production (perhaps a 35-45 goal scorer) the bill does not seem nearly so dear.

But the point is not the player, it is the deal and the difficulty in peering with clarity into the crystal ball.  Wanting to do the right thing, clearly what the Capitals intended for the club and its fans, does not always have the happy ending you intended.  And the Caps right now are not in a happy place, not with a player underperforming his contract and the team underperforming expectations. 

There are 16 players in the NHL playing on deals of at least 10 years in length.  Five of those contracts have annual cap hits of more than $7.5 million, including Ovechkin’s (Shea Weber, Vincent Lecavalier, Ryan Suter, and Zach Parise being the others).  What is unique about Ovechkin’s deal is that it was built as two separate deals negotiated one after the other in the same negotiation context.

It would be easy to the point of simplistic to say that the team made a mistake in entering into the seven-year portion of the contract (although the team had in hand a deal that would have ended on the eve of Ovechkin’s 29^th birthday).  The team wanted it, the player wanted it, the fans were thrilled with it (yes, us included).

But with that 20/10 hindsight, the Caps did not earn that Cup, the player’s production has declined, the team has lurched from coach to coach trying to find the key to unlock the secret to winning a championship, and while red is still being rocked, the Caps have a certain “yesterday” look about them as the Redskins and Nationals stake their claims to being the next big thing in D.C. sports.  What will eight more years of a contract that commits so much to one player – one whose best days might be behind him – do to the team’s brand? 

In making that 13-year commitment the team essentially decided to implement a 13-year strategic plan with the player being the central element of that plan.  Everything else flows from that commitment, including substantial commitments to other players.  But how many organizations have the capacity to plan that far in advance, to be able to predict with, if not certainty, then at least a reasonable expectation that they will be able to execute that plan?

What is the moral of the story?  This stuff is hard.  Cold-eyed decision making and the emotion of being a fan intersect here. We said a few weeks ago that “sports is a business.” It is, in most respects.  But in one respect it is not.  “Business” does not usually inspire rooting interests that border on the fanatical (the root of the word, “fan”).  And maybe that was the root of the question posed at the time, “why not just negotiate his free agent deal now?”  If the team did the research on what length the average free agent deal was, was that the right research to be doing?  Did the team do the research in terms of predictability of a player’s performance in years 7-13 of a contract, the term of which would not begin for another seven years?  How reliable could any such predictions be that would justify in a business sense the commitment of $70 million so far in advance?

This is not an issue unique to the Capitals, although the Ovechkin deal is unique in important respects.  There are a lot of teams out there who engaged in action that looked upon from afar would inspire the question, “what are they thinking?”  If you are much closer to those decisions – if you are a fan of the club making them – your question might be more of “when does the season start?!”

The collective bargaining agreement just negotiated denies these temptations for long deals to a point, but the decision-makers are still there, still looking for ways to do things that might seem like a good idea at the time, but in the passage of years look quite different.  For all the ink devoted to the decline of Alex Ovechkin, or the disappointment (should it come to pass) or a Zach Parise or a Ryan Suter in Minnesota, or the soap opera that is Roberto Luongo, the problems are not generally the players.  The problem lies at a higher pay grade in their respective organizations, despite the well-intentioned efforts to do the right thing by their franchises.

That Was The Week That Was -- Week 4

For the Washington Capitals, Week 4 was their first winning week of the season.  There was much that was good about the Caps’ play this week, but in terms of how this was translated into progress in climbing the standings, less so.  Here is how things shook out…

Record: 2-1-0

One of the things the Capitals did when they were winning Southeast Division titles and earning top seeds in the Eastern Conference was beating Southeast Division teams regularly.  This year did not start so well with the Caps losing their first two games against division opponents.  However, the Caps had a three-game stretch in the schedule (two of them played this week) in which they would face Southeast Division opponents again.  After the Caps opened that three-game set with a win over Florida to close last week’s play, the Caps beat the Panthers again to open this week – a 6-5 overtime win – then beat Tampa Bay by a 4-3 margin.  The wins made for the Caps’ first consecutive wins of the season, a streak that would reach three games.  It ended, though, when the Caps lost to the New York Rangers, 2-1, at Madison Square Garden on Sunday.  The three one-goal games left the Caps with a 4-4-1 record in one-goal games for the year.

Offense: 3.67/game (season: 2.73 / rank: T-13^th)

After limping along having scored 30 goals in their first 12 games, only once scoring more than three in a game (that coming in Game 12 in a 5-0 win against Florida), the Caps potted 11 in three games this week.  The week in offense represented a reversal of a disturbing trend.  Coming into the week the Caps had allowed the first goal in five games and went 1-4-0 in them.  This past week they scored first in every game and posted that 2-1-0 record. 

The difficulty the Caps had was their inability to capitalize on their good fortune by putting opponents further under their heel after scoring first.  They did manage to go out to a 4-1 lead against Tampa Bay after scoring the first goal of their game against the Lightning, but could not gain as much as a two-goal lead in either of the other games, despite scoring that first goal.  As it was the Caps had a certain balance, recording three goals in the first and second periods of games, four in the third periods, and an overtime goal in their 6-5 win over Florida.  If there was an oddity in the week’s results it was that the week’s leading goal scorer and point-getter was Eric Fehr (3-2-5).  Four players tied for the team lead in helpers – Mike Ribeiro, Joel Ward, Nicklas Backstrom, and Mathieu Perreault.

Defense: 3.33/game (season: 3.40 / rank: 29^th)

Three times the Caps took a lead this week, and three times they let it get away.  They scored first against Florida before allowing two goals, then spent the rest of the game in a job of catch-up, finally catching the Panthers for what would be the third time before winning in overtime.  They scored first against Tampa Bay, but allowed a tying goal.  Then they almost let the Lightning all the way back into the game after leading 4-1, finally escaping with a 4-3 win.  They scored first against the New York Rangers on Sunday, but wilted under a barrage of shots, losing 2-1.

The simple fact is that the Caps did not relieve themselves of enough pressure in their own end, despite the winning week.  They were outshot, 102-96, for the week.  While their Fenwick values (an average of 43.7 allowed compared to 45.0 of their own) was indicative of the close-to-the-margin week they played, it breaks down into comparatively dominating performances against Florida (43-40) and Tampa Bay (53-40), but a weak one against the Rangers (39-51), the game that they lost.

Goaltending: GAA: 3.32 / SV: .902

The week had its moments, good and bad.  All of them belonged to Braden Holtby, who faced 102 shots and stopped 92 of them.  Against Florida there was some poor defense in front of him (think of Jonathan Huberdeau’s second goal, when there was weak coverage by Mathieu Perreault as Huberdeau was going to the net), and there was an inability to clear the puck out of their own end (what led to Tomas Fleischmann’s goal), but Holtby might of wished he had back two or three of the five goals he allowed, too (Fleischmann’s goal, which went five-hole, and Shawn Matthias’ goal, which Holtby missed with his blocker).

Holtby was better against Tampa Bay – excellent, in fact, during the early going – before he seemed to lose focus, if not his mind (the Nate Thompson’ breakaway goal, when Holtby tried to charge out for a poke check) late.

Against the Rangers, though, Holtby almost single-handedly kept the Caps in the game.  He stopped 35 of 36 shots over 44 minutes and change before allowing the game-winning goal on what was a defensive breakdown in front of him.  On balance it was not a great week for Holtby, but the improvement he displayed made it a better week than the overall numbers would suggest.

Power Play: 3-8 / 37.5 percent (season: 25.0 percent / rank: 6^th)

When the Caps scored a power play goal 4:26 into their game against Tampa Bay on Thursday they were 3-for-4 on the power play for the week and were on a run of going 8-for-13 over a span of 14 periods of hockey.  What is more, they were efficient, perhaps uncommonly so.  The power play goal against Tampa Bay gave the Caps three goals on four shots on the power play to that point of the week.  Then the wheels fell off against the Rangers to close the week.  The Caps were 0-for-4 with the man advantage, failing to get a goal on any of the nine shots they had against goalie Henrik Lundqvist.  Still, that game was only the fourth this season (in 15 games) in which the Caps failed to record a power play goal.

Penalty Killing: 11-12 / 91.2 percent (season: 75.4 percent / rank: T-24^th)

It could have been a perfect week, both in terms of record and performance on the penalty kill.  And had the Caps been perfect against the Rangers on the latter, they just might have finished perfect on the former.  But against the worst power play team in the league – 10.4 percent going into the game – the Caps allowed the Rangers a third period power play goal that broke a 1-1 tie.  It was the fourth of what would be five power play chances for the Rangers, which proved to be too many for a club that is not very efficient at killing penalties.  The Caps finished the week 1-7-1 in games for the season in which they allowed more than three power play chances, and in those games they had a penalty killing success rate of only 72.0 percent.

Paying the Price: 70 hits / 36 blocked shots (season rank: 20^th / T-15^th)

The flip side of so many shots on goal for the week is that fewer of them were blocked.  Only 12 blocked shots per game, and barely half of those by defensemen.  Shot were getting to the net.  And of the 20 blocked shots by defensemen for the week, the Johns – Carlson and Erskine – had 13 of them.  Maybe it was indicative of defensemen not moving their feet, getting into shooting lanes.  Maybe it was just an odd week.

Faceoffs: 111-for-191 / 58.1 percent (season: 49.7 percent / rank: 18^th)

The Caps won the week, and they won each game in the circle, not bad for a team with a sub-50 percent record in the circle for the season.  Not that there were not blips along the way.  For example, the “offensive” centers – Mike Ribeiro and Nicklas Backstrom – were a combined 19-for-42 in the offensive end (45.2 percent).  On the other hand, these two were 25-for-40 (62.5 percent) in the defensive end.  But, it was the defensive zone draw the Caps lost -- Brad Richards winning a faceoff against Jay Beagle, that led to the Rangers' game-winning goal seven seconds later.  Strange week. 

Turnovers: +12

The Caps were charged with only ten giveaways for the week, and three players had two apiece – Mathieu Perreault, Eric Fehr, and John Erskine.  Scoring idiosyncrasies in different arenas might explain high or low values overall, but since opponents were charged with a total of 22 overall, it would seem as if the Caps did a passable job of being responsible with the puck.

In the end…

Two wins in three games are certainly nice, but that win against the Rangers would have been nicer still.  It is the difference between being in 11^th place and only two points out of a playoff spot (where they would stand had they won) and being in 15^th place, six points out of eighth place.  As it is, the week ended with a cruel reality.  When the Caps took the ice against the Florida Panthers on February 9th in a game that would begin their three-game winning streak, they were in 15th place in the East, five points out of eighth place.  After the loss to the Rangers to end the week, the Caps were still in 15th place, five points out of eighth place... right back where they started.

It is going to be a hard climb.

A NO-point night -- Game 15: Rangers 2 - Capitals 1

If the Washington Capitals miss the playoffs by one point this season, their 2-1 loss to the New York Rangers on Sunday will weigh heavily on their minds as a point (or two) that got away.  Not that the Caps played well – with the exception of goalie Braden Holtby they did not – but their opponents consistently failed to put the Caps away when they had ample opportunity in the first two periods to do just that.

The Caps would break on top in this one just 79 seconds into the game when John Carlson fired a laser of a slap shot over Ranger goalie Henrik Lundqvist’s blocker.  It was the end result of an early flurry by the Caps that had Alex Ovechkin test Lundqvist, Eric Fehr find a post, and then Carlson score the goal, all in a space of nine seconds.

Braden Holtby made the goal stand up for almost 28 minutes.  But the Rangers, despite outshooting the Caps to that point by a 29-10 margin, finally scored on their 30^th shot on goal, a redirect by Carl Hagelin of a Ryan McDonagh slap pass that snuck by Holtby’s left pad.

That would be how the teams stood until the fifth minute of the third period when the Rangers, on a power play, executed like you draw it up.  Brad Richards won a faceoff to Michael Del Zotto, who found Derek Stepan behind John Carlson to Holtby’s left for a short snap shot that slipped past Holtby for the game-winning goal.  The Caps would outshoot the Rangers, 7-4, after the Stepan goal, but could not get any past goalie Henrik Lundqvist, and the Capitals skated off with their modest three-game winning streak ended.

Other stuff…

-- Tomas Kundratek is a really nice story.  He is a young guy (23) formerly of the Rangers who might have been expected to toil primarily in Hershey with the AHL Bears.  He has been pressed into duty with the Capitals as the team deals with injuries and age on the blue line.  But what does it say about the state of personnel management on this team when a borderline NHL player is getting top pair minutes (23:25 in this game)? 

-- How good was Braden Holtby?  Well, let’s follow up on the last point.  For the defense in front of him, Tom Poti had not played since February 5^th and is coming off having missed the better part of two seasons.  Kundratek had not played more than 11:09 in any of his five NHL games coming into this season and had not played more than 16:26 in any game this season.  Jeff Schultz had played in 12 games coming into this game but was averaging barely 12 minutes of ice time in his appearances.  John Erskine had appeared in only eight of 13 games.  John Carlson was replaying the misadventures of his 2011-2012 regular season, having been on ice for more goals than any other defenseman in the league through 14 games.   Only Karl Alzner was resembling a reliable working defenseman.  And yet, Holtby still stopped 38 of 40 shots by game’s end.

-- For you Fans of the Fenwick, the Caps had 39 Fenwick events in this game (28 shots on goal, 11 missed shots).  Alex Ovechkin had 11 of them by himself.  It bears noting that the Rangers had more shots (40) than the Caps had total Fenwick events.

-- One can take this whole Fenwick thing a bit far though.  Wojtek Wolski had three, one shot on goal and two misses.  The two misses were crippling for the Caps; he could have – should have – buried either or both of them.

-- The line of Mathieu Perreault-Eric Fehr-Joel Ward was arguably the most energetic of the forward lines for the Caps in this game, but the Rangers were very adept at denying them chances. They combined for three shots on goal and one point (an assist by Fehr, although that came on a power play on which he was matched with other forwards).

-- Some leaders lead overtly, by the well timed speech or getting in teammates’ faces when they deserve it.  Some do it by example.  What to say of the example of Ryan Callahan for the Rangers.  Six blocked shots, two of them rockets off the stick of Alex Ovechkin, including one in the last minute when the Rangers were hanging onto a one-goal lead.  What’s more, on that last block of an Ovechkin drive, Callahan still managed to get into the play at the other end of the ice and harass Karl Alzner and bleed a few more seconds off the clock.  Its a style of play that teammates might see and think, "I don't want to let him down."

-- The six-game streak with at least one power play goal came to an end with the Caps going 0-for-4 on the man advantage.  It was only the fourth time this season in 15 games that the Caps failed to record at least one power play goal.  It was not as if the Caps did not get the puck to the guys who needed to get it.  Ovechkin had six power play shots on goal, and John Carlson – subbing for injured Mike Green – had a pair of the Caps’ total of nine power play shots.

-- One has to wonder if there is something wrong with Nicklas Backstrom.  In 20-plus minutes, no shot attempts.  He is not generally a heavy volume shooter (2.32 per game for his career before this season), but 1.87 shots on goal per game?  He has only one game this season in which he recorded more than three shots on goal.  Right now he is not much of an offensive threat.

-- The Caps were 11-for-19 on faceoffs in the offensive end, but that is a bit misleading.  Matt Hendricks and Jay Beagle – not generally relied upon for their offensive contributions – accounted for a perfect 5-for-5.  Oddly enough, those two were a combined 1-for-4 in the defensive end.

-- On the other hand, there was the Rangers’ power play goal… faceoff-pass-goal.  Seven seconds, game-winner.

-- The difference…the Caps could not convert from their strength, the league’s third best road power play going 0-for-4.  Meanwhile, the league’s worst power play converted just enough of their chances – one out of five – to get the win.  The power play game winner left the Caps 0-8-1 when they allow at least one power play goal and 1-7-1 when they allow more than three power play chances.

In the end, the Caps are right back where they started before their three game winning streak.  Here is a useful, if depressing, way to think about it.  When the Caps took the ice against the Florida Panthers on February 9^th in a game that would begin their three-game winning streak, they were in 15^th place in the East, five points out of eighth place.  Tonight, after the loss to the Rangers, the Caps are in 15^th place, five points out of eighth place... right back where they started.

If the Caps had been able to bank wins against the likes of Tampa or Winnipeg or Toronto, they could afford the odd loss to a good team on the road, such as this 2-1 loss to the Rangers.  But there is nothing in the bank, and losses to any team become less and less tolerable if there are any realistic dreams of this team making the playoffs.  There is just too much ground to have to make up.  Although a team can only play games one at a time, as a practical matter the Caps almost have to sweep their upcoming three-game home stand to remain in the race.

The Peerless Prognosticator is ON THE AIR!!! -- Game 15: Capitals at Rangers, February 17th

The Peerless Prognosticator is ON THE AIR!!!

In a 48-game season played in fewer than 100 days, you take your lulls where you get them.  The Washington Capitals get theirs with only one game to be played in the week following their 4-3 win over the Tampa Bay Lightning on Thursday.  That game will be played tomorrow in New York against the Rangers, the team that eliminated the Caps from the Stanley Cup playoffs last May.

This is the first rematch of these two teams since the Caps lost Game 7 of the Eastern Conference semifinals on this same Madison Square Garden sheet of ice.  Both teams stumbled out of the gate to begin this season relative to expectations.  The Caps had that awful 2-8-1 start before peeling off three wins in a row this past week.  The Rangers – on many prognosticators’ short list of Stanley Cup contenders – played the January portion of their schedule to a 3-4-0 record.  However, they have turned things around in February with a 4-1-1 record so far this month.

For all the hype over the trade for Rick Nash last July, coming a year after the well-hyped signing of Brad Richards as a free agent, this last six-game February run has been led by the relatively less renowned Carl Hagelin.  The second-year winger from Sweden by way of the University of Michigan started the month with an assist and the game-winning goal in a 3-2 win over the Tampa Bay Lightning, and he is 4-2-6 over his last three games to leave him 5-3-8, plus-4 for the month.

Speaking of Nash, he has not yet been the goal scorer that folks might have envisioned when he was obtained.  He has only three goals in 13 games (a 19-goal pace over 82 games), but he is tied with Brad Richards for the team lead in assists with eight, and he is tied with Marian Gaborik for the team lead in points with 11. He will come into this game with his offense heating up, going 1-3-4, plus-4 over his last three games.

Marc Staal is not going to be anyone’s idea of an offensive defenseman, but at 1-7-8 for the season he has already surpassed his assist and point totals from last year when he played in 46 games.  That is the product of his leading the Rangers in assists so far this month (five).

Here is how the teams compare, numbers-wise:

1.  Your odd Ranger number for this game: 1.  The Rangers have lost only one game outside the Atlantic Division so far, a 3-1 loss to the Boston Bruins in their season opener.  The Blueshirts are 2-4-1 in the Atlantic Division, 5-1-0 outside of their division.

2.  The Rangers have goals from 11 different players in their 4-1-1 February, points from 14 different players.

3.  If the Caps have had trouble allowing goals in the second period of games this season, the Rangers have had trouble scoring them.  With only nine goals scored, only Nashville has scored fewer goals in the middle frame than have the Rangers.

4.  The Rangers are another of those teams that have happy endings in games at which they lead at intermissions.  They are 5-0-1 when leading after 20 minutes, and they are 5-0-0 when leading at the second intermission.  Then again, they are 1-4-0 when trailing at the first intermission and 1-5-0 when trailing after 40 minutes.

5.  Here is an odd juxtaposition of numbers.  The Rangers are third in the league in hits, but they also have taken the third fewest number of minor penalties.

1.  Only three teams have fewer major penalties taken than the Caps so far.  Matt Hendricks has four of the five taken so far; John Erskine has the other one. 

2.  In this three-game winning streak for the Caps, the line of Eric Fehr (3-2-5, plus-4), Joel Ward (1-4-5, plus-4), and Mathieu Perreault (1-4-5, plus-4) lead the team in scoring.  Fehr and Troy Brouwer (four goals) account for almost half of the 15 goals scored by the Caps in their streak.

3.  Of 330 players having scored at least one goal so far this season, Nicklas Backstrom is tied for 313^th in shooting percentage (3.6 percent), and John Carlson is tied for 319^th (3.0 percent).  Jason Chimera would qualify but for the fact he does not yet have a goal on 27 shots so far.  For Chimera the Rangers might be the team to break out against; he had three goals in the seven-game playoff series against them last spring. 

4.  Mike Ribeiro is tied for the scoring lead on special teams with ten points.  He has had a hand in ten of the 13 power play goals the Caps have so far this season.

5.  Eight different defensemen have recorded points for the Caps so far this season.  The flip side of that is that only five Caps defenseman have played in at least ten games (including Mike Green, who is questionable for this game).  Two of those defensemen might be considered of the unexpected variety – Jeff Schultz (12 games) and Tomas Kundratek (13).

The Peerless’ Players to Ponder

New York: Brian Boyle

Two seasons ago Brian Boyle set a career high in goals scored with 21. Last year he dropped by almost half, down to 11 goals.  This year he has yet to light the lamp in ten games.  His problem has been getting shots.  Two years ago he averaged 2.66 shots per game.  Last year it was 2.01.  Through ten games this season he is down to 1.3 shots per game.  If there is a team against which he might reverse the trend Washington might be that team.  He has five goals in 13 career games against the Caps, just two fewer than Rick Nash or Marian Gaborik.

Washington:  Tom Poti

If Mike Green is unable to go on Sunday, Tom Poti would seem the likely candidate to take his place in the lineup.  Poti has not played since February 5^th, having sat out the last four games.  In the five games in which he has played this season the Caps are 0-5-0.  Poti, however, was on ice for only six of the 18 even strength goals scored against the Caps in those four games, despite logging an average of 15:36 in even strength ice time in those games.  In what might be a make-shift defense for this one, Poti’s experience could be important.

Keys:

1.  Be Better Than Even.  Only the New York Islanders have allowed more goals at 5-on-5 this season than the Caps.  Even in this three-game winning streak they have allowed eight even strength goals (although they have scored 11 themselves).  The Caps need to whittle down that goals against at even strength even more.  The Rangers will be a challenge, since they are tied for seventh in the league in even strength goals.

2.  Discipline.  The Caps are 4-2-0 when allowing three or fewer power plays, 1-6-1 when they do not.  Their penalty killing is just not efficient enough to successfully deal with high volumes of shorthanded situations.  Even though the Rangers are borderline inept so far on the power play (tied for 25^th in home power play this season), the Caps need to stay out of the box.

3.  Strong Down the Middle.  Capitals centers – Mike Ribeiro, Nicklas Backstrom, Mathieu Perreault – have combined for 10 assists in the three-game winning streak.  The strength down the middle and success are not likely to be mere coincidence.

In the end, the Caps have to be better in this game than they have been in any of the three wins on this streak so far.  Neither Florida nor Tampa Bay have especially stout defenses, and neither exhibit the sort of 200-foot pressure that the Rangers can apply.  Compounding the Caps’ challenge is the fact that Ranger goalie Henrik Lundqvist seems to be getting into a rhythm.  In his last three appearances he is 3-0-0, 1.62, .946. He has not allowed a power play goal in that span, which flies in the face of the Caps’ 4-for-6 performance with the man advantage over their last three games.  That could very well be the fault line on which this game is decided.

Capitals 3 – Rangers 2

A TWO-point night: Game 14: Capitals 4 - Lightning 3

On a night when the top line was anything but “top,” on a night when the goaltending was tending to be a bit shaky, the Washington Capitals found a spark in the unlikeliest places, then held on for a 4-3 win over the Tampa Bay Lightning at Tampa Bay Times Forum.

The spark came in the form of the line of Eric Fehr, Mathieu Perreault, and Joel Ward,  Fehr recorded his second and third goals of the season, Perreault had three assists, and Ward contributed a helper for the game’s dominant line.  Troy Brouwer added a power play goal, and Jay Beagle added what would be the game-winner in the third period, while goalie Braden Holtby recorded 27 saves to get the win.

Other stuff…

-- We made a point in the prognosto that the Lightning were a strong third period team, outscoring their opponents by more than a goal a game in the third period alone.  Sure enough, after Jay Beagle made it a 4-1 game, the Lightning outshot the Caps by an 8-5 margin over the next ten minutes in cutting the lead to 4-3.  But the Caps buttoned things up in the last two minutes, holding the Lightning without a shot on goal, including the last minute when Tampa Bay had an extra attacker on the ice.

-- And now, a few words about the power play.  The Caps only got one, but one was all they needed.  When Troy Brouwer connected at the 2:40 mark of the first period it marked the eighth time in 13 power play chances that the Caps converted.  I will repeat that… it marked the eighth time in 13 power play chances that the Caps converted.  That is a 61.5 percent conversion rate over 16 periods of hockey.  Pretty good.

-- A few more words (with pictures) about the power play… The 1-3-1 is, like much about the game, a case of geometries, in this case triangles.  As this power play unfolded one could see the Caps “getting it.”  The 1-3-1 cleaves into two triangles, with the long axis of each shared as a line going from the point (Mike Green) through the slot (Troy Brouwer in this instance) to the player manning the crease area (in this case Mathieu Perreault).  Here it is, with the triangle completed by the trigger man along the right wing wall, Nicklas Backstrom, passing to the point:

Green accepts the pass, but look at the triangle.  It maintains its integrity in the long axis, Troy Brouwer shifting with Green as Green eases off toward the left side.  Green will then return the puck to Backstrom:

Backstrom has moved above the right wing circle in this next frame, but again the integrity of the triangle is maintained.  Backstrom now has choices: a) shoot, b) shoot with the aim of getting a Brouwer deflection, c) return the puck to Green for a one-timer, d) pass to Perreault at the goal line extended.  Backstrom will choose (d):

Perreault receives the puck, and now he has choices that depend on what the Tampa defensemen and goaltender do here. He can: a) walk out and try to stuff the puck past the goalie, b) try to slide a pass across the crease to Alex Ovechkin (the point of the other triangle on the left side), c) return the puck to Backstrom, or d) pass to Brouwer between the hash marks for a shot.  The goalie is playing hard to the near post, and the defenseman to his right (Sami Salo) is watching Perreault.  With this combination of variables, the play is to the player neither the goalie nor defenseman is occupied with – Brouwer.  Perreault chooses (d).

All that is left here is for Brouwer to get the shot on net, since the goaltender is still at the left post.  He does so…celebrating ensues:

Other other stuff…

-- Eric Fehr now has goals on three of his last four shots on goal.  That Fehr-Perreault-Ward line is almost like the Rat Pack.  Peter Lawford (Ward) stirs the drinks by digging for pucks, Frank Sinatra (Perreault) sings the tune with his set ups, and Dean Martin (Fehr) gets the girl, as it were, by scoring the goals.

-- These are games the Caps have to win, and here is why.  Neither Alex Ovechkin nor Mike Ribeiro had a point, and both were minus-2.  There will be nights like that, it happens.  The trick is for others to step up.

-- Braden Holtby was excellent early, good in the middle, and a real adventure late.  Kudos for trying to surprise Nate Thompson with a sliding poke check on Thompson’s breakaway, but yeesh, it looked bad.

-- Any night you hold Steven Stamkos to fewer shots (two) than he has hits (three), and no goals in the process, consider it a pretty good night for the defense.

-- And holding the Bolts to one power play shot (Stamkos) in four minutes of power play time…pretty good for the defense, too.

-- Every single Capital skater had at least one shot on goal.  This is how you deal with a one-dimensional team like the Lightning (all “O,” no “D”)…shove their dimension right back in their face.

-- Cory Conacher, the darling of the media after the season opener when he had a two-point night in the Lightning’s 6-3 win over the Caps, drew a penalty but was otherwise not heard from.  That’s six straight games for him and a minus-6. Welcome to the bigs, kid.

-- Backsliding… 11-for-26 on faceoffs in the offensive zone, Backstrom and Ribeiro going 5-for-17 between them.

In the end, three is better than two.  As in “winning streak,” which is where the Caps now find themselves.  They have 15 goals in those three games, they are 4-for-6 on the power play, and in spite of some occasional adventures in goaltending are not playing bad defense.  They look like a playoff team.  We will get a better picture on that score when they visit the Rangers in New York on Sunday.

The Peerless Prognosticator is ON THE AIR!!! -- Game 14: Capitals at Lightning, February 14th

The Peerless Prognosticator is ON THE AIR!!!

"Oh, if it be to choose and call thee mine, love,

thou art every day my Valentine!"

When the English poet Thomas Hood wrote those words in the 19^th century, he probably was not talking about hockey as his every-day Valentine, but he might have been.

Today we celebrate the joys and the sorrows of love.  The love of a well-placed wrist shot. The love of a well-timed hip check.  The love of spinning red lights, of glove saves, of dekes, of stickhandling.

And we don’t have to buy lingerie or chocolates (unless that is your preferred manner of watching games and your snack food of choice).

On this Valentine’s Day 2013, the Washington Capitals have a date with the Tampa Bay Lightning at the Tampa Bay Times Forum.  Instead of flowers and candy the Caps will be bringing a two-game winning streak and 11 goals scored in their last six-plus periods of hockey.

They’ll need them.  The Lightning have been dominating at home, posting a 5-1-1 record.  Only Ottawa and San Jose have earned more standings points on home ice, and both teams have played one more game (in both cases an extra time loss) than have the Bolts.

Then again, Tampa Bay is on a five-game winless streak overall.  After beating Winnipeg on the first day of this month by an 8-3 margin, the Lighting have gone 0-4-1 and have scored a total of only nine goals in the process.

In those five games they are getting scoring from the players the Lightning need to score, but the problem is they are not scoring enough.  Steven Stamkos is tied for the team lead in goals in this five-game stretch with two, about half the rate at which he scored goals on his way to a 60-goal season last year.  Martin St. Louis has three assists in the five games, but that is a pace that is lower than he had in any of the last six full seasons; and, he has no goals in this stretch.

After Stamkos and St. Louis, the Lightning are not getting much recently in offense.  Victor Hedman as two goals and is quietly putting together a whale of a season offensively, but no one else has more than one goal over the last five games for the Lightning. Add to that the fact that only Hedman, Matt Carle, and Vincent Lecavalier have as many as three points, in addition to Stamkos and St. Louis, and one can see that the Lightning are getting little in the way of secondary scoring.

Defense and goaltending has been an issue for the Lightning in recent years, and it continues to be so far.  Anders Lindback, obtained from Nashville to address the netminding issue, has appeared in ten of Tampa Bay’s 12 games to date.  However, he ranks 32^nd among 43 qualifying goalies in goals-against average and 26^th in save percentage.  He is winless in his last four appearances and has a 3.11 goals-against average and .888 save percentage to go with his 0-2-1 mark in those four appearances.  Part of the trouble is shots.  Lindback is facing 30.4 shots per of ice time.  There are only seven teams facing shots with more frequency.

Here is how the two teams’ numbers side-by-side:

1.  That 3.83 goals per game scoring offense for Tampa Bay?  Sounds impressive, doesn’t it. It should.  It is almost precisely what the Caps averaged over the entire 2009-2010 season (3.82) on their way to a Presidents Trophy.

2.  Tampa Bay has averaged 5.67 goals in six wins, 2.00 goals in six losses  This is not a team that steals wins with defense and goaltending.

3.  Tampa Bay is 12-for-32 on the power play (37.5 percent) in their six wins, 2-for-19 (10.5 percent) in losses.  And note the chances per game – 5.33 per game in wins, 3.17 in losses.  

4.  The Lighting have not yet lost any game when leading at any intermission.  They are 6-0-0 when leading after one period, 4-0-0 when leading after two. 

5.  As you might expect for a team that lives and dies by scoring goals in volume, the Lightning struggle in one-goal games.  They are 0-3-1 in such games (only one of two teams still winless).  They’re not so great in two-goal games, either (1-1).  Blowouts?  Blowouts they can do (5-1 in games decided by three or more goals).

1. The Caps have only one regulation win in their last seven visits to Tampa Bay (2-4-1 overall).

2.  The Caps are 7-for-12 on the power play dating back to the third period of their 6-3 loss to Pittsburgh on February 3^rd.  They are working on a five-game streak in which they scored at least one power play goal.  It is their longest such streak since a five-game streak in Games 3-7 from October 13^th through October 22^nd last season (the last five games of the Caps’ seven-game winning streak to start the 2011-2012 season).  If they get one in this game it will be their longest streak since getting at least one power play goal over a seven-game period from March 6 through March 18, 2011.

3.  Only Colorado has a worse differential in time spent on the power play and time spent killing penalties in road games than the Caps’ 3:11 per game.

4.  Streaks:  Alex Ovechkin is on a five-game points streak (3-4-7).  Mike Ribeiro is also on a five-game points streak (4-5-9).  Joel Ward is working on consecutive multiple point games (two in each of the last two contests).

5.  Of the 22 skaters that have dressed for the Caps this season, 21 have recorded points.  Only Jack Hillen (injured in his only appearance to date) is without one.

The Peerless’ Players to Ponder

Tampa Bay: Teddy Purcell

With Ryan Malone out for 3-4 weeks as a result of going all World Cup during Tampa Bay’s pregame before the New York Rangers the Lightning need to get someone to step up and provide secondary scoring.  Teddy Purcell scored 24 goals last season and was rewarded with a three-year contract extension that will pay him $4.5 million per year, starting next season.  However, this year Purcell has only two goals in 12 games, none in his last five (coincidentally the length of the winless streak the Lightning have).  He does have six goals in 16 career game against the Caps, so this might bear watching.

Washington:  Nicklas Backstrom

With Mike Ribeiro continuing his productive play and Alex Ovechkin resembling the Ovechkin with whom Caps fans are more familiar, it remains to get Nicklas Backstrom’s game elevated to accustomed levels of production.  Backstrom has one goal in 13 games, none in his last five.  He had two assists in the 6-5 win over Florida on Tuesday and averages almost a point a game against the Lightning over his career (5-23-28 in 29 career games).  One would like to think that it is a matter of time, that a player with a 12.0 percent shooting percentage over his career coming into this season would improve on a 3.3 percent mark he carries at the moment (one goal on 30 shots).  Time, however, is a commodity in limited supply.

Keys:

1.  Discipline.  That 40.6 percent home power play really does leap off the page for the Lightning.  No team is within six percentage points of them (St. Louis: 34.5 percent).  And the Lightning are averaging 4.8 chances per game on home ice.  The Caps need to keep this number to three or fewer.  They have been able to do this in four of their last six games.

2.  Manage shots.  In January the Caps averaged 31.6 shots on goal allowed per game.  They went 1-5-1.  So far in February they have allowed on average 27.5 shots on goal.  They are 3-3-0.  It is a work in progress that will be tested in this game, especially if Tampa Bay puts extra effort in trying to turn around a stretch in which they have averaged only 23.4 shots on goal per game over this five-game winless streak.

3.  Be a rude guest, overstay your welcome.  Tampa has an average goal differential in home games of +2.29.  Only one other team in the league has a home goal differential greater than 1.00 per game (Ottawa at 1.25).  The Lightning have a greater than 1.00 goal differential in the third period of games alone (+1.67 per game on 22 goals scored and 12 allowed).  The Caps might have to finish strong as much as they have to keep the Lightning from doing so.

In the end, the Caps are still in last place in the league, despite their modest two-game winning streak.  They are still five points out of eighth place.  They still have seven teams to climb over to get there.  But they have stopped the bleeding for the moment, and that is what teams that are at the bottom have to do.  The Caps are going to have to string together, if not a long winning streak, then a long and sustained stretch of games in which they lose only a game or two.  The Caps looked good against the Lightning for two periods in the season opener at the Tampa Bay Times Forum before wilting in the third period.  They need to find a way to make the last 20 minutes a happier ending this time around.  Otherwise, Caps fans will be left to sigh over an opportunity lost.  But as Shakespeare once remarked…

"Love is a smoke made with the fume of sighs."

We’ll still love ‘em.

Capitals 5 – Lightning 3