The Peerless Prognosticator is ON THE AIR!!! -- Game 19: Capitals at Avalanche, November 20th

The Peerless Prognosticator is ON THE AIR!!!

The Washington Capitals hope to wrap up their three-game road trip in a winning fashion and with a winning record as they visit the Colorado Avalanche in Denver on Thursday night.

The Caps are coming off a 2-1 overtime win against the Arizona Coyotes, the second time this season they won a game when scoring two or fewer goals (the other being a 2-1 Gimmick win over the Florida Panthers on October 18th).  After going 0-25-7 last year in games in which they scored two or fewer goals (including shootouts), the Caps are 2-5-1 in such games this season.

As for the Avalanche, they come into this contest having a difficult month of November.  In eight games so far this month, Colorado is 3-4-1, although they have won their last two games – a 4-3 trick shot win over the Rangers and a 3-2 win in New Jersey – to complete a 2-2-0 road trip.

On offense, the Avs seem stuck on “3.”  That would be the number of goals they scored in four of their last five contests, part of the 18 they have in eight games this month.  They have yet to score more than three goals in any of those eight games of November.

If we asked you who was leading the Avalanche in scoring in November, you might be inclined to answer Nathan MacKinnon or Gabriel Landeskog or Ryan O’Reilly.  We doubt that the name “Tyson Barrie” would have occurred to you, but that would be the correct answer.  Barrie’s six points for the month (all assists) has vaulted him into a tie for the team lead in points (13) with Matt Duchene.  Barrie is probably not well known to Caps fans, but his performance is not particularly surprising.  Last year, his third in the NHL, he finished 13-25-38 to finish one point shy of Erik Johnson for the team scoring lead among defensemen.

Up front, the precociousness of youth remains on display for Colorado.  Their own version of the “Young Guns” – Duchene, O’Reilly, Landeskog, and MacKinnon – are all 23 years of age or younger.  They also account for 17 of the 45 goals scored by the Avs through 19 games and six of the 18 scored by the club in November.  As a group they are 3-8-11 against the Caps over their respective careers, O’Reilly the only one not to have yet recorded a career goal against Washington.

In goal, the Caps seem unlikely to see their old friend, Semyon Varlamov.  His season has had its issues with consistency, perhaps due to distractions, perhaps due injury problems of the sort that plagued him in Washington and that will keep him out of this game. 

In his place is likely to be Reto Berra, a goalie of limited experience (37 career games, eight of them with the Avalanche over the past two seasons) and limited success (career: 11-19-4, 3.02, .896).  Berra has appeared in six games so far this season and is 2-1-1, 2.70, .914.  He has been quite inconsistent in limited play.  In his four starts this season his save percentages are .964, .889, .921, and .852.  The next in the series would be a .920-plus outing; on the other hand he has not appeared in a game since November 8^th.  Against the Caps he is 1-0-1, 3.30, .905 in three career appearances.

Here is how the teams compare in their numbers through Tuesday’s games:

1.  There have been 706 skaters dressing for at least one game this season in the NHL. Defenseman Nick Holden is dead last among that group in plus-minus (minus-15).  It not as if he has been much better in terms of possession.  Only six players have a worse Corsi plus-minus than Holden (minus-117).  Among 437 players with more than 200 minutes of ice time, he has the tenth worst Corsi-for percentage at 5-on-5 (37.94).

2.  Colorado is really struggling with the second period.  They are minus-2 in the first and plus-1 in the third periods of games, but they are a whopping minus-10 in the middle period.  That is the second worst second period goal differential in the league (Buffalo is minus-11).

3.  The Avs have the league’s worst record in the league when leading after one period (2-4-0).  Only they and Dallas have winning percentages below .500.  They are better, but only marginally so, when leading after the second period (.400), but they are the only team in the league with a winning percentage below .500.

4.  If Colorado has a strength, it is one that matches the Caps’ strength.  The Avalanche are fifth in the league in penalty killing (88.2 percent), but they are even better at home.  They have allowed only two power play goals at home this season.  No team has allowed fewer on home ice, and only Detroit has a better penalty killing rate at home (94.4 percent) than Colorado (93.8 percent).  It will be a challenge for the Capitals’ power play.

5.  Colorado is not a very good possession team.  They rank 28^th of 30 teams in Corsi-for percentage at 5-on-5 (43.51) and are minus-206 in Corsi events (numbers from war-on-ice.com).  They have been outshot in 13 of 19 games so far this season with a record in those games on 3-6-4, 27^th in winning percentage.

1.  The Caps do a much better job of leading after 20 and 40 minutes than they do of leading after 60.  They have taken a lead into the first intermission seven times while they have trailed only three times.  They have led after 40 minutes ten times while trailing just four times.

2.  Following on that first fact, the Caps have the fourth worst goal differential in the third periods of games (minus-7), undoing much of their earlier work (plus-5 in the first period, plus four in the second period).

3.  Washington’s ability to hold opponent shot totals down (26.8 per game) is the reason that they have the sixth best shot differential in the league (plus 3.3 per game).  Last season they were 27^th (minus-4.1)

4.  Even with all the shot suppression, the Caps are just tied for 18^th in goals allowed at 5-on-5.

5.  Alex Ovechkin and Nicklas Backstrom have not had a “plus” game since November 2^nd (seven game streak).  Even with that, the Caps are 4-2-1 in those games.

The Peerless’ Players to Ponder

Colorado: Alex Tanguay

For all the youth available to the Avalanche, it is the old man, Alex Tanguay, who leads the club in goals scored (7).  Tanguay spent his first six seasons in Colorado before heading off to Calgary, Montreal, Tampa Bay, and Calgary again before landing in Colorado once more in 2013-2014.  Now in his 15^th NHL season, Tanguay is closing in on 1,000 games played (957) and 800 points (784).  He has been hot lately, going 3-2-5 in his last six games, even if he doesn’t shoot all that much (ten shots on goal in those games, half of them against Toronto on November 6^th).  He is 4-5-9 in 17 career games against the Capitals.

Washington: Jason Chimera

Jason Chimera earned an assist in the Caps’ 2-1 overtime win over Arizona on Tuesday when he set up Jay Beagle for the Caps’ first goal.  It broke a seven-game streak without a point.  He is still working on a 13-game streak without a goal and has only one this season.  He has not been immune to slow starts.  Last season he started the year with one goal in his first nine games and finished with 15.  Two years ago he went the first 27 games of the season without a goal and finished with three.  So, it might be hard to ascertain whether he is victim of a slow start, or he is in what might be a painful season-long rut.  His shooting percentage has been an issue in terms of its consistency.  He has never been an especially efficient shooter (only twice in 11 previous full seasons has he finished over 10 percent; career: 8.7 percent), but his 4.8 percent is something to notice.  He is 6-8-14 in 28 career games against Colorado.

In the end…

This is not last year’s Colorado team.  Except for their penalty kill, this is a team that ranks in the bottom third of just about every other meaningful statistic, fancy or not.  They do come into this game on a mini-winning streak, having won their last two contests.  However, they are struggling to score, and their number one goaltender has a wonky groin.  However, this is also a team that skated rings around the Caps last season, and Washington has found its own difficulty in scoring in the thin air of Denver with one goal in each of their last two visits there, both of them losses.  Things are different this time though, the Caps have a new coach and a new approach, the Avs are paying for what seemed like a deal with the Devil last season.  You know how this will turn out…

Capitals 3 – Avalanche 1

A TWO-point night -- Game 18: Capitals 2 - Coyotes 1 (OT)

For the sixth time in 18 games this season, the Washington Capitals had to go to extra time to decide things, and they squared their extra time record at 3-3 when Eric Fehr scored 3:15 into overtime to give the Caps a 2-1 win over the Arizona Coyotes at Gila River Arena in Glendale.

The scoring was a rare occurrence in a game where offense was often a rumor.  Jay Beagle opened the scoring for the Capitals in the first period on a rather basic play.  A shot from the left point by Chris Summers went high and wide of the Caps net and rimmed around the boards out of the offensive zone.  Jason Chimera chased the puck down in the neutral zone and skated into the Coyotes end down the left wing.  Joel Ward dashed to the net, occupying two Coyote defenders, leaving the middle wide open for the late arriving Jay Beagle.  Chimera centered the puck to Beagle in the slot, and Beagle fired it home to give Washington a 1-0 lead.

That lead held up into the early moments of the second period when Oliver Ekman-Larsson tied the game when Sam Gagner skated to the bottom of the right wing circle and threw a no-look backhand pass cross ice to Ekman-Larsson at the top of the left wing circle.  With nothing but open net to shoot at, Ekman-Larsson found the back of the net to make it 1-1.

And that was it for scoring in regulation time.  The last 20-second sequence was essentially an Eric Fehr production.  He started the play by winning a faceoff in the neutral zone from Antoine Vermette.  Then he skated the puck into the Arizona zone where his attempted snap shot from the top of the left wing circle was blocked into the corner by Mike Stone.  Fehr chased the puck down and move it along to Troy Brouwer in the opposite corner.  The Caps worked it around the top of the zone from Brouwer to John Carlson to Brooks Orpik at the top of the left wing circle.  Orpik fired a low shot that goalie Mike Smith stopped with his left pad.  The rebound was left lying at the top of the crease, though, and Fehr was there to pound it past Smith to give the Caps a 2-1 win and break their two-game losing streak.

Other stuff…

-- The Caps had three power plays, the most power plays they have had on the road since they had three chances in a 3-1 win in Calgary on October 25^th.  It was an avalanche of chances given that they had one in their previous two road games combined.  They might have been a bit out of practice, though, failing to convert on any of their six power play shots despite getting them from the guys who need to get them.  Alex Ovechkin had all three of his shots on goal for the game on a first period power play.  Nicklas Backstrom, Troy Brouwer, and Mike Green had the other shots on goal.

-- This was the Caps’ first win in Arizona since Ovechkin scored “The Goal” in January 2006. 

-- Jason Chimera’s assist on Jay Beagle’s goal broke a seven-game streak without a point.  He is still working on a 13-game run without a goal.

-- Braden Holtby made his first career appearance against the Coyotes, and he made it count.  He stopped 23 of 24 shots to make it four straight games with a save percentage better than .920, three of them .950 or better.  In those four games he stopped 112 of 118 shots (.949).

-- Maybe the hit meter was stuck on “ON.”  The Caps were credited with 41 hits, the only players not recording one being Evgeny Kuznetsov and Chris Brown.  Tom Wilson led the team with six.

-- Speaking of Brown, his recording no hits was part of a pristine score card.  In 6:36 of ice time he recorded no events.  Lucas Lessio might have done the same for the Coyotes in his 9:37 of ice time, but he finished with a minus-1, as he was on ice for the Jay Beagle goal.

-- The Caps killed off four power plays, 7:29 of which was in the second period when the teams had the long change.  That makes 13-for-13 over their last four games.  Brooks Orpik skated 4:14 of that shorthanded time and led the Caps in total ice time for the evening (23:11).

-- That last shift for Fehr – 27 seconds worth – was what pushed him over the ten-minute mark in ice time, thus avoiding the second time in his last three games he would have not reached that mark.

-- For the second game in a row, Marcus Johansson did not record a shot on goal, the first time this season he has gone consecutive game without being credited for a shot on goal.

-- Evgeny Kuznetsov continues to be fed ice time with a thimble.  In this game he skated just 7:32 and took only two shifts in the third period, not seeing the ice in the last 9:15 of regulation time and the entire overtime.

In the end…

As Braden Holtby said after the game, “we really needed that.”  This game was the epitome of the “grind it out” game.  Neither team had many opportunities on offense; the Caps had 40 shot attempts in 63:16, while the Coyotes had 50.  Both goaltenders played well, but Holtby was just a sliver better than Smith.  There was hitting (70 hits credited, 41 by the Caps), but there were not many turnovers (14 credited between the teams).  It was the kind of game that one might not like watching very often, but it is one that fans wish the Caps would win more often.  After two lackluster games over the past weekend, this game lacked a certain luster to it as well.  It did shine in the end, though.

The Peerless Prognosticator is ON THE AIR!!! -- Game 18: Capitals at Coyotes, November 18th

The Peerless Prognosticator is ON THE AIR!!!

The Washington Capitals try to break their two-game losing streak as they head to the desert and their second meeting this season against the Arizona Coyotes.  These teams last met on November 2nd with the Coyotes spotting the Caps a 3-1 lead before storming back with five unanswered goals on their way to a 6-5 win at Verizon Center.

Since then, both teams are on something of a meandering course.  The Caps are 3-2-1 since dropping that decision to the Coyotes.  They have been outscored by a 16-15 margin, but they are 2-1-1 in one-goal decisions.  Special teams have been a mixed bag, the power play going 3-16 (18.8 percent) in those six games but without a goal in their last two games and without so much as a power play opportunity in their most recent contest, a 4-1 loss to the St. Louis Blues to open this road trip.

The penalty kill has been another matter.  While it has struggled for much of the year (78.6 percent through the first Arizona game), it is 13-for-15 in its last six contests (86.7 percent) and perfect in its last three games (9-for-9).

The Caps are led in goal-scoring, perhaps improbably so, over their last six games, by Marcus Johansson with four.  Johansson also is tied for the team lead in points over that span (five) with Alex Ovechkin and Nicklas Backstrom, each with a 2-3-5 scoring line.  They have spread the help around with five players each recording three assists.

The Caps’ goaltending is hard to get handle on.  Braden Holtby has appeared in four games since these clubs last met.  He is 2-1-1, 2.23, .923.  He has been very good in his last three games, sporting a save percentage of .947.  There was that nasty giveaway, though, that led to the only goal in a 1-0 loss to New Jersey in his last appearance.  As for Justin Peters, he is just flat out struggling.  In two appearances since Arizona and the Caps met, a game in which he was the victim of the Coyotes' six-goal outburst, he is 1-1-0, 3.37, .885.  It is part of a rough stretch he has been in since an impressive 20-save effort in a 2-1 Gimmick win over Florida on October 18th.  In four appearances since then he is 1-3-0, 3.98, .871.  He allowed six goals on 30 shots in the loss to Arizona on November 2nd.

Meanwhile, the Coyotes are grinding along with a 4-3-0 record since their November 2nd meeting with the Caps.  Martin Hanzal and Shane Doan each have three of the 18 goals scored by the Coyotes over that seven-game span, all of Hanzal’s coming on a hat trick scored against Vanouver last Friday in a 5-0 win over the Canucks.  Hanzal and Vermette share the scoring lead in this stretch with five points apiece.  It is part of what has the look of a balanced offense.  In their 4-3-0 run the Coyotes have 18 different skaters with points, 11 different players with goals.

The special teams for the Coyotes have been anything but, recently.  Over their last seven games Arizona is just 3-for-27 on the power play (11.1 percent) and just 21-for-26 (80.8 percent) on the penalty kill, bringing their special teams index over that period to a disappointing 91.9.  Oddly enough, while the recent power play performance is substantially worse than the season as a whole (20.0 percent), the recent penalty killing is actually an improvement (77.0 percent for the season).

Here is how the numbers compare for the two teams:

1.  Arizona has received decent scoring support from the blue line in their 4-3-0 run.  Six defensemen have points, and as a group they are 3-10-13.

2.  The Coyotes balance their skaters in terms of ice time, at least among the forwards.  No forward averages as much as 20 minutes per game, and only one (B.J. Crombeen) averages less than ten minutes a game.  The defensemen are another story.  Oliver Ekman-Larsson (26:15) and Keith Yandle (25:10) both average more than 25 minutes a game.  Only Nashville (Shea Weber and Roman Josi) and Dallas (Alex Goligoski and Trevor Daley) have as many as two defensemen averaging more than 25 minutes a game.

3.  Arizona has as many power play goals (14) as do the Capitals.  The difference is that they have theirs on 70 opportunities, while the Caps have theirs on 54 opportunities. 

4.  Since playing the Caps on November 2nd, the Coyotes have five one-goal decisions in their seven contests.  They are 3-2-0 in those games, one of those wins settled in the trick shot competition (against Anaheim on November 7th, 3-2).

5.  Arizona and St. Louis are the only teams left in the league with “perfect” records when leading or trailing after the second intermission.  When leading, the Coyotes are a perfect 4-0-0 (St. Louis is 8-0-0), and when trailing, they are a perfect 0-6-0 (St. Louis is 0-2-0).

1.  November is “one-goal month” for the Capitals.  Six of their eight decisions have been by one goal. Their record in such contests is 2-3-1, including the 6-5 loss to Arizona on November 2nd.

2.  The Caps have 14 power play opportunities in seven road games.  Their 2.0 opportunities per road game is fewest in the league, and it’s not close.  Florida has the next fewest at 2.75 road power plays per game.  The Caps have spent only 17:16 in total power play time on the road in seven games.  Pity they don’t get more opportunities, since they are the best road power play team in the league (35.7 percent on 5-for-14).

3.  Only four teams have more wins when leading after two periods than Washington (7 wins): Pittsburgh (11), Tampa Bay (9), St. Louis (8), and Montreal (8).

4.  Washington has been reasonably well-behaved in the context of the rule book.  Only seven teams have fewer minor penalties taken than the 67 charged to the Caps.

5.  How big is the “big pair” in the early going?  When Nicklas Backstrom scores at least one point, the Caps are 5-3-2; they are 2-4-1 when he does not.  When Alex Ovechkin scored at least one point, the Caps are 4-1-2; they are 3-6-1 when he does not.  When both score at least one point the Caps are 4-2-2; they are 2-4-1 when neither scores a point.

The Peerless’ Players to Ponder

Arizona: Mikkel Boedker

This has the makings of a breakout year for Mikkel Boedker.  With seven goals in 18 games, he is on a pace to finish with 32 goals, a total that would obliterate his career high (19, set last season).  Boedker was an eighth overall draft pick in 2008, but it has not been an easy climb for him to get to this level.  A decent rookie season in 2008-2009 (11 goals in 78 games) was followed by a year spent mostly in the AHL (64 games with San Antonio).  He split time between Phoenix and San Antonio in 2010-2011 before sticking for good in 2011-2012.  He has not missed a game with the Coyotes since.  He comes into this game with the Capitals with points in each of his last four games (2-2-4).  In six career games against the Caps, he is 1-2-3, minus-1, including a pair of assists in the 6-5 win over Washington on November 2nd.

Washington: Evgeny Kuznetsov

Evgeny Kuznetsov might be nicknamed “The Morse Code Player.”  His scoring seems almost like an SOS call… dit-dit-dit (point-point-point)… dot-dot-dot-dot (none-none-none-none)… dit-dit-dit (point-point-point)… dot-dot-dot-dot-dot (none-none-none-none-none)… He has two three-game scoring streaks thus far, but he is without a point in his last five games and without a goal in his last seven games.  Moreover, he has almost stopped shooting.  After recording 21 shots in his first 12 games, he has two in his last four contests.  After a brief lull in which he skated less than ten minutes in consecutive games, he is back in double digits in each of his last two contests.  Still. These are modest achievements for a player many thought would challenge for a Calder Trophy as top rookie this season.  His last point came in the 6-5 loss to Arizona on November 2nd.

In the end…

There are no gimmes on the NHL schedule, but this is where the calendar looks a lot more hospitable for the Caps, starting with this game.  The Caps next three opponents – Arizona and Colorado on the road, followed by Buffalo at home – have a combined record at the moment of 18-30-8, and all of them are below .500 in standings points.  Except for a 4:38 span straddling the second and third periods, when the Coyotes scored three goals, the first of the meetings between these clubs was dominated by the Caps.  Unfortunately that’s like saying that but for a ruckus in the President’s box at Ford’s Theater, “Our American Cousin” was a delightful play.

The Caps have found it difficult to sustain any continuity in their performance from game to game, especially after their 3-0-2 start.  Putting together consecutive good games has been uncommon.  It is not as if the Coyotes have been setting the world on fire with their play.  It’s time the Caps start setting some fires of their own.  Under their own backsides would be a good start.

Capitals 4 – Coyotes 2

Washington Capitals: That Was The Week That Was -- Week 6

Ugh.  That was the word that that epitomized Week 6 for the Washington Capitals.  After letting the Columbus Blue Jackets – a team on an eight-game losing streak – hang around far too long before dispatching them in the first game of the week, the Caps’ guns went silent in their last two games of the week in losses to fall to .500 in standings points for the season.

Record: 1-2-0

Fluid.  That’s your word for the Caps’ 1-2-0 record.  It could have been different in a lot of ways.  Against the Blue Jackets, the team with the eight-game losing streak, the Caps stomped on them for three goals in the first period, then sat back and let Columbus to crawl back within a goal before tacking on an insurance goal late.  That could have been one that got away.  Against New Jersey, the Caps and Devils looked as if they would head to overtime in a scoreless tie in a thoroughly boring game.  That is, until The Demon in a Mask paid a visit to goalie Braden Holtby, who giftwrapped the winning goal…not for his own team.  That one could have gone either way.  There was no such suspense in the Caps’ last game of the week, a 4-1 loss to the St. Louis Blues in which they were thoroughly dominated because they were never really engaged in the game.  It made for a 1-2-0 week, the Caps’ second losing week in their last three.

Offense:  1.60/game (season: 2.88; rank: 7^th)

The good part of the week is that the Caps opened it with a bang – a three goal explosion in the first period against the Columbus Blue Jackets.  The bad part?  After scoring three goals on 12 shots in 16:04, the Caps scored two goals on 75 shots in the last 163:56 the rest of the week.  And the second of those goals was something of a gift, a misplay of a Joel Ward shot from the top of the faceoff circle by the Blues’ Brian Elliott.  Part of the problem in the last two games was upside down shooting.  The Caps got 24 shots from the defense, 31 from forwards.  That seems a bit heavy from the blue line as a share of total shots.  Another thing was that the Alex Ovechkin-Nicklas Backstrom pair had eight shots on goal in the last two games.  Their even-strength linemates – Jay Beagle against the Devils and Tom Wilson against the Blues – had one shot apiece.  While the top line had their troubles, the rest of the forward lines hardly distinguished themselves.  It was a team-wide slump.

Defense: 2.33/game (season: 2.76/game; rank: 17^th)

If you give up two and a third goals a game over a season, chances are you are a top-ten scoring defense (it would be tenth as we write this).  In that sense, the week went pretty well.  It was how the Caps got there that was the problem.  After holding the Blue Jackets to five shots in the first period of their game to open the week, the Caps allowed ten or more shots in six of the next eight periods, an unusual occurrence for a team that even at week’s end had allowed the fourth-fewest shots on goal in the league.  The Caps spread it around, too.  There were 17 different skaters who were on ice for at least one goal (Michael Latta and Evgeny Kuznetsov escaping that fate), six of them on ice for three of the seven goals scored for the week.   This is not the sort of teamwork folks have in mind.

Goaltending: 2.36 GAA / .920 SV (season: 2.66 / .899 / 1 SO)

Let’s do this again.  If you have a 2.36 GAA you are having a pretty decent season in goal; it would rank 15^th in the league as we write this.  Ditto for the save percentage.  A .920 save percentage would be tied for 14^th.  So what gives with the 1-2-0 record.  Again, it was not the “what” as much as the “how.”  It was in this area that the week turned, and it did so on two plays, similar and from each goalie.  With the Caps and Devils skating to what seemed an inevitable overtime period in a scoreless game, Braden Holtby stopped a puck behind his own net, turned, and sent the puck on its way, right onto the stick of the Devils Mike Cammalleri.  One shot later, before Holtby could return to the front of his net, and the Devils had their game-winning goal.  Against St. Louis, with the Caps trailing the Blues by a 2-1 margin coming out of the second intermission, Justin Peters stopped the puck behind his own net, turned, and tried to move the puck along.  He managed to whiff on the attempt, and Patrik Berglund, who pressured Peters into the gaffe, slid the puck to David Backes for the insurance goal that deflated the Caps in a game that might have ended a bit differently had Peters made good on his pass attempt.  The different between 1-2-0 and 2-1-0 or even 2-0-1 can turn on two plays.   For the Caps, it did.

Power Play:  1-9 / 11.1 percent (season: 25.9 percent ;rank: 3^rd)

It was a bad week all around for the Caps on the man advantage.  First there were the chances.  The Caps had nine power play opportunities for the week.  In and of itself, that’s not bad, but the Caps went from five against Columbus to four against New Jersey to none against St. Louis.  The odd part of that was that the Blues went into the game tied for the fourth-most power plays faced at home (34).  They came out of that game with the same 34, the Caps getting none and leaving town as they entered it, with the fewest power play opportunities awarded on the road, 14 in seven games.

Then there was the efficiency.  The Caps managed 20 shots on goal in 15:14 of power play time, the 1.3 shots per minute of power play time being something to shoot for, so to speak.  But the Caps managed just that one goal on 20 shots, not something you want to see.  The Caps even got the shots from the players they wanted, but not necessarily in the way they wanted them.  Alex Ovechkin was 1-for-5 against Columbus, but was held without a power play shot against New Jersey, who blocked six of his attempts.  Marcus Johansson, continuing his early season shotzapalooza, had four power play shots against Columbus, one against New Jersey.  Six different Caps shared the rest of the power play shots for the week.  They just could not find the back of the net.

Penalty Killing: 9-for-9 / 100.0 percent (season: 80.7 percent; rank: 16^th)

If there was a bright spot to the week, penalty killing was it.  It would be hard to draw it up better than this as far as results are concerned.  First, the Caps killed off all nine shorthanded situations they faced, the first time since Week 1 that the Caps had a perfect week.  Then there was the efficiency.  In 18 minutes of shorthanded ice time, the Caps allowed opponents only a total of nine shots on goal.  When one considers that the Caps faced, at the time, the seventh-ranked (Columbus), 13^th-ranked (New Jersey), and third-ranked (St. Louis) power plays, it was a very good week for the penalty killers.

Even Strength Goals For/Goals Against: 4-7 / minus-3 (season, 5-on-5 goals for/goals against ratio: 0.97; rank: T-20^th)

One of the things that characterized the Caps good start to the season was their 5-on-5 play.  They finished Week 1 ranked 4^th in the league in goals scored-to-goals allowed ratio at 5-on-5.  They followed that up with weekly rankings of seventh and third.  Then the wheels started coming off, dropping to a tie for 13^th after Week 4 and a tie for 14^th after Week 5.  Now, they are tied for 20^th after a minus-3 week.  The Caps have dropped to tenth in Corsi-for percentage at 5-on-5, 51.57 percent (from war-on-ice.com).  The Caps were minus-16 for the week in Corsi at 5-on-5, on the wrong side of the divide in all three games.  The Ovechkin-Backstrom pair were victimized for three of the seven goals against while being on ice for only one goal for.  It was not a good week in this area for the Capitals.

Faceoffs: 98-for-190 / 51.6 percent (season: 49.9 percent; rank: 15^th)

It was a good week in the circle overall, if a bit uneven.  Overall the Caps were above 50 percent (51.6 percent), but it would have been much better if the Blues had not lit up the Capitals for a 58.5 percent winning percentage in the last game of the week, part of a generally lethargic performance by the Caps.  On an individual level, it was a case of the veterans and the kids, the former doing well and the latter not as much.  Nicklas Backstrom continued his fine work, going 59.7 percent for the week, including winning 11 of 13 defensive zone draws.  Eric Fehr won his week as well, finishing at 51.4 percent.  At the other end, the two kids – Evgeny Kuznetsov and Andre Burakovsky – are still a work in progress, the former winning 44.4 percent of his draws for the week and the latter winning only 29.4 percent of the 17 draws he took.

Goals by Period:

Start well, finish poorly.  That was the week for the Caps.  The Caps outscored Columbus, 3-1, in the first period of their game to open the week, then let the Blue Jackets inch back into the game before getting a late insurance goal.  In the losses, the Caps allowed the game-winning goal with 10:22 left in the third period against New Jersey and with 7:24 in the second period against St. Louis.  Getting only single goals in each of the second and third periods of games for the week had the usual and the unusual attached to them.  In the case of their lone second period goal for the week, it was unusual for the rare occurrence.  With 20 second period goals this season the Caps are tied for eighth in the league.  As for the third period goal, this is a continuing shortcoming.  The Caps have only ten third period goals in 17 games.  Only Florida (8) and Winnipeg (6) have fewer.

In the end…

Through Week 2 the Caps were 3-0-2.  In four weeks since then, they are 4-7-1.  There is probably one good win in that bunch, that coming in Chicago back on November 7^th.  Losses to Edmonton and Arizona more or less negate that.  While the Caps have lost to some very good teams, like Tampa Bay and St. Louis, otherwise the Caps have been struggling against teams like themselves, those who are going to be competing for that limited number of playoff spots next spring.  Week 6 was one of those struggling weeks when they held on to beat a Columbus team stuck in a rut, gave away a game to New Jersey, and never got their legs going against St. Louis.  Week 6 might not have been a week as good as the 1-2-0 record would suggest.  The Caps have an opportunity in the week coming up with three games against teams that are all under .500.  It’s past time to turn things around and establish some momentum.

Three Stars:

• First Star: Braden Holtby (1-1-0, 1.52, .944)
• Second Star: Marcus Johansson (2-0-2, 12 SOG)
• Third Star: Alex Ovechkin (2-0-2, GWG, 13 SOG)

…it was a dim week for stars.

A NO-point night -- Game 17: Blues 4 - Capitals 1

The Washington Capitals got off on the wrong foot on their three-game road trip with a 4-1 loss to the St. Louis Blues at Scottrade Center in St. Louis.  It was a game in which the Caps were not so much dominated as they were running in a lower gear than the one in which the Blues were playing.

The Blues took advantage of the Caps’ heavy legs at the start, Washington having played the previous night in a 1-0 loss to the New Jersey Devils.  St. Louis out-shot the Caps, 7-1, and out-attempted them, 12-4, in the first eight minutes. The pressure paid off for the home team when they took advantage of a passive to the point of (literally) prone Caps defense.  It started with a player heading off the ice.  From just inside his own blue line, defenseman Kevin Shattenkirk shot the puck up the left wing wall and headed to the bench.  The puck skittered past Jori Lehtera, who was tangled up with Mike Green in front of the players bench, to Jaden Schwartz crossing the Caps’ blue line.  As he skated in he backed Nate Schmidt off, Schmidt eventually leaving his feet and trying from his stomach to sweep the puck off Schwartz’ stick.  It did prevent Schwartz from getting a free shot at Caps goalie Justin Peters, but Schmidt’s momentum carried him out of the play.  Schwartz dropped the puck for Lehtera, who snuck into the middle as Green was trying to come to Schmidt’s rescue, and his shot beat Peters on the glove side to give St. Louis a lead at the 9:11 mark.

That would do it for the first period, which could have ended much worse than it did for the Caps but for some respectable goaltending from Peters.  The Caps, who have made a habit of letting teams hang around in recent games, were just that team as the sides skated into the middle of the second period.  Joel Ward then got the Caps even with a soft goal on goalie Brian Elliott’s part.  Taking a cross-ice feed from Mike Green in the neutral zone, Ward skated the puck down the left wing wall into the Blues’ end.  From the top of the faceoff circle he fired a wrist shot that Elliott tried to trap against his blocker.  He thought he had the puck squeezed tightly, but it dropped behind him and rolled over the line to tie the game 6:38 into the period.

After that it was just a slow leak for the Caps.  St. Louis regained the lead in the 13^th minute of the second period when Schwartz finished off a play that started with a clean offensive zone faceoff win by Lehtera against Eric Fehr.  The Blues worked the puck around the perimeter, and when Peters’ save of a Shattenkirk drive from the point was left lying in front, Schwartz fought off Karl Alzner and batted the puck in.

The Caps were still in it, though, after 40 minutes with the score remaining 2-1.  Then, for the second straight game, a Caps goalie giftwrapped a goal from behind their own net.  This time, Peters stopped the puck behind his own net and looked to send it back out to his right.  He heard footsteps, though, those being of Patrik Berglund charging in from Peters’ left.  It was enough for Peters to fan on his passing attempt.  Berglund circled around the back of the cage, slid the puck out to David Backes, and Backes snapped it into the back of the net before Peters could scramble back.

That pretty much ended the competitive portion of the evening as St. Louis clamped down and clogged things up for the Caps.  Berglund got one of his own off a pass from Backes with less than four minutes left for the final 4-1 margin, and the Caps had their second loss in as many nights.

Other stuff…

-- One goal in their last 125:21 for the Caps.  It happens, but the Caps do not seem to be getting anything in terms of second chance shots.  And that brings us to…

-- Power plays.  The Caps came into this game having been awarded the fewest power plays on the road in the league, 14 in six games.  Now, it is 14 in seven games.  They have had two or fewer in each of their last four games on the road.  What made the outcome so strange was that St. Louis came into this game tied for the fourth-most number of power plays allowed at home (34).  And, without an opportunity tonight against the Blues, the Caps suffered their second straight game without a power play goal, the first time this season they went consecutive games without one.

-- Alex Ovechkin had one shot on goal in the first 47:22 of the game. It would have been one thing if the Caps were spreading the shot volumes around (Ovechkin finished with three in the game), and to an extent they did – seven players had two or more shots.  But they had only 25 shots for the game, 11 of those in the third period.  Part of that is not having any power play opportunities, but the Caps spent too much of this game not exerting much pressure in the St. Louis end of the ice.

-- Has the clock struck midnight?  Has the coach turned back into a pumpkin?  Has Marcus Johansson turned back into, well… Marcus Johansson?  He recorded no shots on goal in this game and has not had a shot on goal in the Caps’ last 99:52 of clock time (29:43 of personal ice time).  He was part of a second line that had two shots on goal for the night, Andre Burakovsky and Troy Brouwer recording one apiece.

-- The third line was almost a mirror image of the second line.  Eric Fehr had no shots on goal, while Jason Chimera and Joel Ward had one apiece.  The difference was, of course, Ward scoring on his lone shot.

-- The fourth line of Evgeny Kuznetsov, Jay Beagle, and Michael Latta had a combined total of one shot on goal (Kuznetsov).  See a theme here?  Fifteen of the Caps’ 25 shots came from defensemen.  Hard to generate much offense if the shots are coming from outside, and there are no second-chance opportunities.

-- The Caps were consistently short on faceoffs – 42 percent in the offensive zone, 42 percent in the defensive zone, and 41 percent in the neutral zone.  Burakovsky was the only Capital over 50 percent (4-for-7).

-- Tom Wilson… six hits, seven minutes in penalties, a Blues player in each hand.  If his offensive game ever even approximates his physical game, what’s this kid going to be like in five years? 

-- This makes four straight games (in six appearances) that Justin Peters allowed three or more goals.  He is 1-3-0, 3.98, .871.  He doesn’t have to be a stone wall back there, but he has to be able to provide credible relief when called upon.  Right now, he is just leaky enough to be one of the (but certainly not the only) problems this team has.

-- After averaging 3.29 goals a game over a 14 game span starting with their 4-0 shutout of the Boston Bruins on October 11^th, the Caps have scored only one goal in their last two games.

In the end…

With this loss the Caps dropped 7-7-3, fifth in the Metropolitan Division and 11^th in the Eastern Conference.  By the time the Caps played 17 games last season they were 9-7-1, second in the Metro Division and sixth in the Eastern Conference.  The Caps might be giving their maximum effort, but in the last two games especially they looked very passive in their approach, letting the Devils and Blues dictate pace and dominate position.  Maybe that is a lack of urgency, maybe it is having played four back-to-back sets of games already (the loss to the Blues was the back end of their fourth such set).  Whatever, the Caps need to stop the bleeding and establish some momentum.  They have three days to lick their wounds and figure out how to tighten up in both ends of the rink before the slow leak turns into something they can’t stop.

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

The Peerless Prognosticator is ON THE AIR!!!

The Washington Capitals, fresh off their 1-0 loss to the New Jersey Devils on Friday night, head on the road to The Gateway of the West, St. Louis, to meet the Blues in a battle of teams near the top of their respective games.  The Caps, even with the loss, are 3-1-0 in their last four games and have allowed only eight goals in the process.  Meanwhile, the Blues are winners of nine of their last ten games, a 2-1 loss to the Nashville Predators that broke a seven-game winning streak last Saturday the only blemish on that record.

On offense, the formula has been simple for the Blues in their 9-1-0 run – everybody feed Tarasenko.  Vladimir Tarasenko has nine of the Blues’ 30 goals in their last ten games.  The third-year forward, taken 16^th overall in the 2010 entry draft, has shown himself to be a goal scorer from the start.  In his rookie season of 2012-2013 he averaged 0.21 goals per game.  That number jumped to 0.33 goals per game last season, and through 16 games this season he is averaging 0.63 goals per game.  His ten goals in 16 games is tied with Toronto’s Phil Kessel for fifth in the league.  And, like a fellow Russian known well to Caps fans, he is not shy about shooting the puck.  His 63 shots on goal is tied for fourth in the league with San Jose’s Logan Couture, ten shots behind league leader Alex Ovechkin (through Thursday’s games).  He is without a point in his only appearance against the Caps to date.

The other side of the equation is who is providing the helpers.  The defense has contributed only two goals to the 30-goal total over the Blues’ last ten games (Carl Gunnarsson and Jay Bouwmeester doing the honors).  But five defensemen have recorded to total of 19 assists in this run of good fortune.  Kevin Shattenkirk has contributed eight of those helpers.  Shattenkirk has been a prolific point producer from the blue line, by modern standards, averaging 45 points per 82 games over his four-year career coming into this season.  He has ramped that up significantly so far.  With 14 points in 16 games he is on a pace for 72 points.

At the other end, the Blues have had solid goaltending.  The shots allowed have not been remarkable, but Brian Elliott and Jake Allen have allowed only 19 goals on 286 shots over the last ten games, a .934 save percentage.  Both goalies have been stingy this season.  Neither Elliott, in ten appearances this season, nor Allen, in six games, has allowed more than three goals.  Allen pitched shutouts in back-to-back appearances against Anaheim and New Jersey on October 20^th and November 4^th.  He has been a bit leaky otherwise, though, allowing ten goals on 89 shots in his other four appearances (.888 save percentage).  Elliott has allowed two or fewer goals in six of his ten appearances and has a save percentage of .939 in his last four appearances, three of them wins.  Elliott is 4-2-0, 3.50, .871 in eight career appearances against Washington, while Allen is 3-1-0, 2.26, .908 in four appearances against the Caps.

Here is how the teams compare in their numbers through Thursday night’s games:

1.  St. Louis has allowed 13 goals – total – in 640 minutes of first and second periods of games so far this season.  Only Minnesota has allowed fewer first period goals (7) than the Blues (8), and no team has allowed fewer second period goals than St. Louis (5).

2.  Only five teams have scored fewer 5-on-5 goals than St. Louis (26).   On the other hand, only Florida (Florida??) has allowed fewer goals at 5-on-5 (16) than the Blues (18).

3.  If you score against the Blues’ goalies at even strength, keep the puck.. Brian Elliott has the best even-strength save percentage (.950) among goalies appearing in at least five games.  Jake Allen is sixth (.944).

4.  Score first, and you have a chance.  No team has more wins than the Blues when scoring first (8).  They are only 3-3-1 when allowing the first goal.

5.  For a team that has the capacity to stifle a team, the Blues are not highly ranked in hits (24^th) or blocked shots (tied for 21^st).  They are, however, on the good side of 50 percent in possession numbers – 52.58 percent Corsi-for at 5-on-5 (ranked sixth).

1.  The Caps are developing decent scoring balance.  Seven different players have at least ten points through 16 games.

2.  Last year, 9-7-0 after 16 games for 18 points.  This year, 7-6-3 for 17 points.  Hey, they only won nine of their first 16 games in 2009-2010, when they finished with 121 points, so there is that.

3.  Only Buffalo has won fewer games (none) when trailing first in games than the Caps (1).

4.  The Caps are wasting a lot of good efforts at holding shots down.  They are just 5-5-3 when outshooting their opponents.

5.  Numbers at 5-on-5…Corsi-for percentage: 51.74 (rank: 10^th); PDO: 99.41 (rank: 21^st).  You would think something has to give (numbers from war-on-ice.com).

The Peerless’ Players to Ponder

St. Louis: Jori Lehtera

With all the attention being paid to Vladimir Tarasenko, Jori Lehtera is flying under the radar.  Don’t be deceived.  In the Blues’ 9-1-0 run he is 5-8-13 and had a hat trick in the Blues’ 6-1 win over Buffalo on Veterans Day. A third round draft pick (65^th overall) in the 2008 entry draft, Lehtera is something of a late bloomer, although that might be a product of his spending his entire career since the draft playing in Europe before this season, except for seven games with the Peoria Rivermen of the AHL in 2008-2009.  At 26, he does not qualify as a rookie, although he would be second in points if he did (6-10-16).  This will be his first appearance against the Capitals.

Washington:  Braden Holtby

Does Barry Trotz put Braden Holtby back on the horse after his mistake led to the New Jersey Devils’ 1-0 win over Washington on Friday night?  He might just select Holtby because he has been playing well lately, his giveaway to Mike Cammalleri for the Devils’ game-winning goal notwithstanding.  In his last four appearances he has a save percentage of .947 (89-for-94) after finishing four games in five with a save percentage under .900.  He has had success in limited opportunities against the Blues (2-0-0, 1.00, .974 in two appearances).

In the end…

The Caps beat the Blues twice last season, each by a 4-1 margin.  The Caps are 5-1-1 in their last seven meetings against the Blues, so it is not as if the Caps find themselves at an insurmountable disadvantage.  This will be the fourth back-to-back set of games the Caps have played in 17 games this season, though.  Even early in the season, before the grind sets it, that can’t be easy.  Still, there was enough to take away from the New Jersey game of a good nature, especially in the way the Caps battled the Devils in an ugly game, to suggest that the Caps will continue their good fortune against the Blues.

Capitals 3 – Blues 2

A NO-point night -- Game 16: Devils 1 - Capitals 0

[Take a look at the QuickCap and the Recap we penned over at Japers’ Rink for more details on the Caps’ 1-0 loss to the New Jersey Devils.]

You could see it coming with every minute that was ticking by.  As the Washington Capitals and the New Jersey Devils moved long through their contest at Verizon Center on Friday night, it looked more and more as if the game would turn on a moment. A deflection, a shot through a screen, or a turnover.

If you had “turnover,” you win the prize.  Braden Holtby’s giveaway in the tenth minute of the third period – a gift that he placed on the stick of Mike Cammalleri – was the deciding moment in the Devils’ 1-0 win over the Caps.  Stopping a dump-in behind his own net, Holtby turned and looked to send the puck on its way on the other side of the net.  You might wonder just to whom Holtby is about to direct the puck…

And once he did, he remembered that it’s the open side of the net you really want to be in front of…

Which led to much rejoicing by the men dressed in white jerseys…

Other than that, this was one  of the more boring games you’ll see this season, which was just fine if you were a Devils fan.  They hounded, badgered, and frustrated the Caps all night, especially in their attempts to spring Alex Ovechkin loose on the power play.  Ovechkin registered no shots on goal in 6:54 of power play ice time.  This against the worst penalty killing team in the league, one that was perfect in killing penalties for only the fourth time in 17 games.

It made for an exasperating evening for the home team.  The threesome that started the game as the top line – Ovechkin, Nicklas Backstrom, and Jay Beagle – managed only five shots on goal as a group, only three of those at even strength.  Andre Burakovsky was hemmed in and bottled up well enough to prevent his recording a shot on goal.  Welcome to Devils Hockey, Mr. Burakovsky.  Nine of the Caps’ shots on goal came from defensemen.

It was not as if the Caps played poorly.  After all, they “played” to what should have been a shutout from their end, a game in which they would likely have earned at least one standings point but for Holtby’s moment of brain lock.  There was, though, the matter of who dictated pace.  On that score, the Devils certainly had the advantage.  They won the Corsi wars marginally at 5-on-5 (36-34, according to war-on-ice.com), but the pace of the game slowed to a crawl over long stretches. 

In the end…

This game was especially disappointing.  It was a loss against a division rival who leapfrogged the Caps in the division standings.  It was a game there for the taking, given the Caps power play and Devils penalty kill performance coming into this game.  And, it would have been a good way to head out on a three-game road trip, trip that now looks more difficult given the way St. Louis is playing lately (very well), Arizona already having beaten the Caps once this season, and the memory of Colorado speed rushing the Caps into losses last year perhaps still a bit fresh.  It is going to be a challenging week, made more so by this loss.

The Peerless Prognosticator is ON THE AIR!!! -- Game 16: Devils at Capitals, November 14th

The Peerless Prognosticator is ON THE AIR!!!

The Washington Capitals look to extend their three-game winning streak to four as they host the New Jersey Devils on Friday night at Verizon Center.   This will be the second of five meetings between the clubs, the first of which was won by the Caps on October 16^th by a 6-2 score.

Starting with that first meeting with the Caps, one that ended the Devils’ three-game winning streak to open the season, New Jersey is 4-7-2.  They have won consecutive games only once in those 13 games, October 30 and November 2nd against Winnipeg and Columbus, respectively, teams with a combined record of 12-16-3.  Their power play has been anemic, their 8-for-42 run (19.0 percent) skewed by the fact that seven of those eight power play goals were scored in three games.  They went without a power play goal in nine of the 13 contests.  The penalty kill (28-for-46; 60.1 percent) has been worse.  It is almost impossible these days to have a special teams index lower than 90.0 (sum of power play and penalty kill percentages).  But there, they are, with a special teams index number of 87.1 for the season (79.1 in their 13-game skid).  It is hardly surprising that they have been outscored overall, 43-29 in those 13 games.  At the moment, this is not the New Jersey Devils team we came to know over the past two decades.

The Devils come into this game losers of four in a row before snapping their streak with a 3-1 win over Minnesota on Tuesday.  Over those last five games the Devils have only ten goals.  That’s the bad part.  Not that there is a good one, but if you’re looking for one, their meager scoring is balanced.  Eight different players share the ten goals, 17 different players have points. 

The Ageless Wonder, Jaromir Jagr, leads the Devils in points in those five games with four (1-3-4).  It figures.  Jagr leads the team in total scoring (3-9-12).  But here’s the thing.  That team-leading 12 points ranks tied for 53^rd in the league.  If that’s your leader, what does the rest of the team look like?

As it turns out, not much, at least on offense.  Mike Cammalleri is the only other Devil in double digits in points (6-4-10) and leads the team in goals.  Those six goals rank tied for 27^th in the league.  This is not a team that scores much, at least lately.

But here is where things take a turn.  Almost a quarter of the Devils’ goals this season come from the blue line.  Five different defensemen have goals, led by Damon Severson, who has four of them, including both of the Devils’ goals in the 6-2 loss to Washington in October.  He has only one goal since, covering a span of 12 games.  In this five-game skid in which the Devils find themselves, they have only on goal from the defense, that coming from Marek Zidlicky in a 4-3 loss at St. Louis on November 6^th.

Here is how the teams compare in their numbers through Wednesday’s games:

1.  New Jersey is a respectable defensive team at 5-on-5, having allowed only 25 goals in 16 games (tied for ninth fewest).  They are the only ones getting killed on their penalty kill, though, allowing 20 power play goals to opponents, easily the worst in the league (Buffalo: 16).

2.  The Devils have not scored more than three goals in a game since Game 2 on October 11^th, a 5-1 win over the Florida Panthers.

3.  It’s not even as if the Devils are a poor-efficiency team when it comes to shooting the puck.  The league average shooting percentage is 8.9 percent; the Devils are shooting 9.9 percent as a team.  Four players appearing in at least ten games are shooting better than 15 percent.

4.  New Jersey’s problem is shooting the puck.  They are 29^th in shots per game and have out-shot teams only five times in 16 games.  The strange part of that is that the Devils are just 1-3-1 in those five games.  Only Ottawa has won fewer games when outshooting their opponent (0).

5.  Despite their offensive shortcomings, the Devils remain a decent possession team.  They are 11^th in Corsi-for percentage at 5-on-5 (51.60), right behind Washington (51.74), numbers from war-on-ice.com.

1.  If it’s a blowout it is likely, as it was in the first meeting between these teams, to be in Washington’s favor.  The Caps are 3-3-3 in one-goal games, 2-2 in two-goal decisions.  They are 2-0 in games decided by three of more goals.

2.  The Caps have gone ten games without having to resort to the Gimmick to settle things.  It took the Caps until Game 66 last year before they went longer without going to the shootout.

3.  Not team in the league has spent less ice time on the power play than the Caps (69:44).  It is a little deceiving; the Caps are 11^th in home power play time (52:28).

4.  Washington has not scored fewer than three goals in a game in the month of November.  They are also just 3-2-1 in doing so.

5.  The Caps are 3-4-4 in their last 11 games against the Devils dating back to November 2011.  They are winless in their last 14 games to the Devils in which they went to extra time dating back to April 13, 2002 (0-13-1).  The last time they beat the Devils in an extra time game was on January 14, 2000, when they beat Devils, 3-2, in New Jersey.  The last time the Caps won an extra time game at home against New Jersey was March 7, 1992, beating them by the same 3-2 score.

The Peerless’ Players to Ponder

New Jersey: Cory Schneider

Cory Schneider is expected to make it 17-for-17 in appearances in goal for the Devils on Friday night.  Glenn Hall’s record of 502 consecutive appearances in goal is not in immediate jeopardy, but the heavy workload for Schneider does seem to be exacting a toll.  He allowed four goals in consecutive games before stopping 23 of 24 shots in the 3-1 win over Minnesota last Tuesday, the first time he allowed for or more goals in consecutive games since last March, and those games were a week apart.  He already has more than a third of the total appearances he has all of last season (45), which was a career high.  It is not as if he is getting any special breaks in shot volumes, averaging 30.0 shot on goal faced per 60 minutes so far this season.  In four career appearances against the Caps he is 2-2-0, 2.16, .925.

Washington: Eric Fehr

Eric Fehr got off to a slow start, scoring-wise.  In his first eight games he had only two assists despite averaging more than 17 minutes of ice time per game.  In his last four games he has a pair of goals, even as his ice time was pared back to a little over 14 minutes a game.  The ice time situation seems to be resolving itself, his having increased in that area in each of the last two games after skating a season low 8:18 in the Caps’ 6-5 loss to Arizona on November 2nd and being scratched for the next two games.  Fehr has had intermittent visits to the dog house under a number of coaches, so the idea here is whether he can play at a high level of effort on a consistent basis, to the satisfaction of Barry Trotz.  His on-ice possession stats have been good (55.2 Corsi-for percentage at 5-on-5; numbers from stats.hockeyanalysis.com), and his PDO (1049) is third among forwards appearing in at least ten games.  Still, there is something that coaches see in him that they find disturbing from time to time.  It would appear that it is on Fehr to change that judgment.  In 21 career games against the Devils he is 3-2-5, minus-1.

In the end…

The Devils are down, their win over Minnesota on Tuesday notwithstanding.  This game sets up like the Games against Carolina and Columbus, both Caps wins, but both of them games where they let an inferior opponent hang around much too long after dominating early.  New Jersey is a veteran group.  Let these guys hang around too long, and the Caps will pay a price.  It always seems that going for the jugular is always an issue for the Caps, and it might be the biggest issue they face in this game.

Capitals 3 – Devils 2

A TWO-point night -- Game 15: Capitals 4 - Blue Jackets 2

It could have been a game that would have Washington Capital fans muttering, but when the final horn sounded in the Caps’ 4-2 win over the Columbus Blue Jackets, fans couldn’t complain about the Caps winning their third straight.  It is the Caps longest winning streak of the season.

For the Blue Jackets it was their ninth straight loss, tying a franchise worst.  It stared poorly for the visitors just 96 seconds into the game when Marcus Johansson got the Caps off and running.  It started with Andre Burakovsky controlling the puck along the right wing wall in the Columbus end and centering it for Troy Brouwer between the tops of the circles. Brouwer’s shot attempt was interrupted in its follow-through by Adam Cracknell.  The shot was further muffled on its way to the net, but goalie Curtis McElhinney could not control it.  Johansson darted across the crease, kicked the puck to his forehand, and slid the puck past McElhinney’s right pad to open the scoring.

Six minutes later it was Alex Ovechkin converting a power play.  With Brian Gibbons and Fedor Tyutin in in the penalty box to give the Caps a 5-on-3 advantage, the Caps worked the puck around the perimeter until Mike Green fed Ovechkin in his office in the left wing circle.  Ovechkin slammed a one-timer past McElhinney’s blocker to make it 2-0 at the 7:49 mark.

The Blue Jackets halved the Caps’ lead barely two minutes after Ovechkin’s goal when Boone Jenner beat Nicklas Backstrom on a faceoff to goalie Braden Holtby’s left.  Jenner drew the puck back to Cam Atkinson who fired through a screen and past Holtby to make it 2-1 just before the ten-minute mark of the period.

The Caps regained their two-goal lead with just under four minutes in the period when the Caps executed a passing sequence that looked more like the Harlem Globetrotters than ice hockey.  Ovechkin started the play when Fedor Tyutin’s pass through the middle of the neutral zone to Jenner was a bit too long.  The puck squirted off the end of Jenner’s stick where Ovechkin picked it up on the Caps’ logo at center ice.  Ovechkin backhanded a pass to Nicklas Backstrom at the Columbus line, and Backstrom touch-passed the puck to Jay Beagle entering the offensive zone.  Beagle took a couple of strides in, and with Tyutin challenging him, Beagle drop-passed the puck back between his legs to Ovechkin trailing.  Ovechkin stepped up and leaned into one, wristing the puck over McElhinney’s glove to make it 3-1 at the first intermission.

The second period was scoreless until the final minute when David Savard cut the Caps’ lead to a goal.  A Fedor Tyutin wrist shot from the right point handcuffed Braden Holtby and popped into the air.  Holtby seemed to have some difficulty locating the puck, which dropped to the ice to his right.  Trying to fight past Troy Brouwer, who was locked up with Boone Jenner at the post, Holby kicked the puck into the net with his right skate to make it 3-2 at the second intermission.

The Caps held on in the third period, denying Columbus the tying goal, finally getting the insurance goal for themselves, courtesy of Marcus Johansson with 5:21 left.  Johansson started the play by taking a pass from Nate Schmidt at the red line.  Johansson skated the puck down the left wing wall into the Columbus zone, then left the puck for Andre Burakovsky.  Johansson took a return pass from Burakovsky below the Blue Jackets’ goal line, then continued around the back of the net, finally stuffing the puck past McElhinney on a wrap-around inside the far post for the final 4-2 margin.

Other stuff…

-- Marcus Johansson recorded eight shots on goal, a career high.  It was his fourth career multi-goal game, his first since he recorded a pair on January 9, 2012 in a 5-2 loss to the Los Angeles Kings.

-- For Alex Ovechkin it was his 88^th career multi-goal game, by far the most in the NHL since he entered the league in 2005-2006 (Jarome Iginla: 64). With his eight shots on goal, he and Johansson combined for half of the Caps’ 32 shots on goal.  On the other hand, while Ovechkin had six shots on goal in the first period, he had only one in each of the second and third periods.

-- Andre Burakovsky had two assists.  That makes three multi-point games this season for the rookie and points in nine of the 15 games in which he has played.  His 12 points is tied for second in points among rookies (Filip Forsberg: 15).

-- The Caps’ penalty killers were very efficient.  Not only did they hold the Blue Jackets without a power play goal for just the fourth time this season, but they held Columbus to only four power play shots in eight minutes of power play time.

-- Jason Chimera had a strange night.  He was a victim of a bad icing call when he had position getting to the puck, he had his stick splinter as he was taking a shot on a good scoring opportunity, and he was a team-worst Corsi minus-10 at 5-on-5 (tied with Brooks Orpik).

-- As an empirical matter, the Caps had it all the way…

…if you were watching, you probably were not convinced (graph from rinkstats.com) 

-- You like symmetry?  How’s this?… the Caps were 14-for-21 in offensive zone faceoffs, 14-for-21 in defensive zone faceoffs.  One of the reasons we tried to rationalize Jay Beagle on the top line was that he gave the Caps another faceoff option if Backstrom should get thrown out on an important draw.  Who knew he’d have more assists (one) than faceoff wins (none on one draw taken).

-- Nate Schmidt had an assist.  It is his first point of the season and first since recording a goal in a 4-1 win over the New York Rangers on December 8, 2013 (a streak of 17 games without a point).  Odd Schmidt stat… he has precisely one shot on goal in each of his last seven games.

-- The Caps enjoyed a better than two-to-one advantage in shot attempts in the first period (24-11).  Over the last two periods, Columbus out-attempted the Caps, 48-32, and finished the game on top, 59-56.  At 5-on-5, Columbus won the Corsi war with a Corsi-for-percentage of 56.1 percent.

-- Evgeny Kuznetsov skated a total of 7:48 in ice time, his lowest total since opening night against Montreal (6:36).  It is the first time in his career he recorded less than ten minutes in ice time in consecutive games.

-- Cam Atkinson’s goal for Columbus was his fifth career goal against the Caps, the most he has against any team in the NHL.

In the end…

Odd as it might sound against a team on an eight-game losing streak, the object of the exercise was not to be the team that served to end that streak.  However, past that it was not a game that one can be entirely happy with.  After dominating for 20 minutes and seeing the body English on the Columbus bench look like that of a team on, well, an eight-game losing streak, the Caps took their foot off the gas.  

Just as they did against Carolina last Saturday, they let the Blue Jackets hang around far longer than they should have.  Columbus being a team decimated by injuries with a less-than-average goalie getting the call, this game had the makings of a rout early on.  That it wasn’t said more about the Caps – who still have issues going for the jugular in games – than it did about Columbus.  A win is a win, though, and two points are always better than none.