The Peerless Prognosticator is ON THE AIR!!! -- Game 9: Capitals at Oilers, October 25th

The Peerless Prognosticator is ON THE AIR!!!

The Washington Capitals try to make it two-for-two in their western Canada road swing when they visit Rogers Place in Edmonton (not to be confused with Rogers Arena in Vancouver, where the Canucks play, or Rogers Centre, where the Toronto Blue Jays baseball team plays, or Roy Rogers, which serves up a fine Double R Bar Burger) to face the Oilers.

Washington will be looking to channel their inner Lou Brown, legendary (if fictitious) manager of the Cleveland Indians, who once remarked to his club, “OK, we won a game yesterday. If we win today, it's called ‘two in a row.’ And if we win again tomorrow, it's called a ‘winning streak’... It has happened before!”  This contest against the Oilers would be the “two in a row” part of the scheme as the Caps work their way east on this trip.

For the Oilers, well, getting to competitive is a challenge.  So is consistency.  After dropping a pair of games on the road to start the season, the Oilers went on a three-game winning streak (see, it HAS happened before) before getting shut out by the Nashville Predators on home ice, 3-0, last Saturday and dropping a 6-5 overtime loss at Rogers Place on Tuesday against the Pittsburgh Penguins.

You would think that a team that had seven straight years of top-ten draft picks from 2010 through 2016, four of them first overall picks, would have more than a 24^th-ranked scoring offense.  Well, you’d think that.  But in the “these guys could screw up a one car motorcade” file, let’s look at those seven top-ten picks:

• 2010: Taylor Hall (taken first overall), traded to New Jersey in June 2016, where he won a Hart Trophy.  The return – defenseman Adam Larson (himself a fourth overall pick in 2011) – has eight goals and 34 points in 149 games with the Oilers.
• 2011: Ryan Nugent-Hopkins (1^st overall), 121-201-322 in 464 games, but has been injury prone the last few years (missed 47 games the previous three seasons) and hasn’t been north of 50 points since 2014-2015 (56, tying a career high).
• 2012: Nail Yakupov (1^st overall), played 252 larely disappointing, frustrating, confounding games over four seasons, was traded to St. Louis for someone named Zach Porchiro, signed in July 2017 as a free agent by Colorado, is now playing in Russia.  A number of Caps fans once upon a time thought this was a player the team should get.  This is why fans aren’t general managers.
• 2013: Darnell Nurse (7^th overall), played in a full slate of games for the first time in his four year career last season, scored the game-winning goal in Winnipeg against the Jets on October 16^th, no dubt inspiring many folks to drag out the “good night, Nurse” phrase.
• 2014: Leon Draisaitl (3^rd overall), has more assists (136) than any player in his draft class and is second only to Boston’s David Pastrnak in goals (79 to 104) and points (215 to 218).  An actual achiever in this group not named “Connor,” which brings us to…
• 2015: Connor McDavid (1^st overall).  He’s good.  Let’s leave it at that before we get everyone riled up over the great McDavid/Crosby debate.
• 2016: Jesse Puljujarvi (4^th overall).  On the one hand, it’s too early to tell, since he just played in his 100^th NHL game on Tuesday night.  On the other, he has one point in seven games this season and is minus-4, which even for the Oilers is pretty bad this early.

1.  Edmonton has 18 goals scored in seven games so far.  McDavid has a hand in 13 of them (five goals, eight assists).

2.  The Oilers have one goal from a defenseman this season so far (Nurse).  That is one goal on 72 shots from eight defensemen.  None of the eight are a “plus” player (Nurse and Evan Bouchard are “even”).

3.  If there is one thing the Oilers can do well, it is kill penalties on home ice.  They have skated off nine of ten shorthanded situations on home ice so far this season.

4.  The Oilers have not led a game at either intermission this season through seven games, the only club left in the league who could say that (if not very loudly).  They have scored the game’s first goal only once in seven tries…and lost.  They dropped a 4-1 decision in Boston to the Bruins on October 11^th.

5.  One problem Edmonton has is that in some respect, they are “The Gang That Couldn’t Shoot Straight.”  Their 5.4 shooting percentage at 5-on-5 is fourth-worst in the league.

1.  Washington’s save percentage at 5-on-5 of .899 is 27^th in the league.  Could be worse, though.  Columbus, who has their own Vezina Trophy winner (Sergei Bobrovsky) is dead last at .885.

2.  Speaking of “27^th,” the Caps are 27^th in the league in road penalty killing (69.2 percent).

3.  Shots matter.  The Caps are 3-0-1 when outshooting opponents, 1-2-1 when outshot.

4.  John Carlson has more points (13) than the rest of the Capitals defensemen combined (10).

5.  The Caps continue to struggle with shot attempts, their shot attempts-for percentage at 5-on-5 (47.68) ranking 24^th in the league (although they are going for “quality,” not “quantity”), but on the other hand, their offensive zone start percentage (54.87) ranks sixth highest in the league.

The Peerless’ Players to Ponder

Edmonton: Cam Talbot

You would think that backstopping a team like the Oilers, with their bevy of offensively skilled (on paper) players, would have you cringing under a hail of rubber as teams take advantage of a certain defense-challenged attitude among those skilled players.  Well, not really, at least not in the case of Cam Talbot.  In 418 minutes of ice time this season, Talbot has faced 28.8 shots per 60 minutes of play.  Despite having the sixth highest total of minutes played, 12 goalies to have logged at least 350 minutes have faced more shots.  He has struggled in even strength situations, though, his .905 save percentage at evens ranking 44^th among 62 goalies to dress so far this season (through Tuesday).  It is early, but it is quite a drop off considering that in his three-plus seasons in Edmonton, his even strength save percentage is .920.  In seven career games against the Caps, Talbot is 2-4-0, 2.51, .917.

Washington: Christian Djoos

Christian Djoos had a fine rookie season in 2018-2019.  The offensive numbers might strike some as modest (3-11-14), but he was tied in his rookie defenseman class in goals, was 12^th in assists, and was tied for ninth in points.  His plus-13 rating was tied for fourth in that group.  Not bad for a seventh-round draft pick (195^th overall in 2012).  It left the impression that he could be an offensive defenseman to complement the contributions of John Carlson or Dmitry Orlov.  That has not yet happened this season.  Djoos’ two points (both assists) are not a matter of significant concern yet, but he has only three shots on goal in 109 minutes of ice time.  This despite getting favorable zone starts (55.88 percent at 5-on-5; source: NHL.com).  His ice time has been whittled a bit, going from an average of just over 17 minutes in his first two games to an average of 12:35 in his last six games and only 12:04 in Monday’s win over Vancouver, the second lowest of the season so far.  Djoos is without a point in two career games against the Oilers.

In the end…

Let’s be frank here.  The Caps should light this team up like Bourbon Street on Mardi Gras.  Washington can, and has, corralled McDavid to a point (one goal in five career games, but six points), and the Oilers have yet to show any significant level of secondary goal scoring, especially to the extent it doesn’t involve McDavid setting it up.  At the other end, the Caps can, and should, make the Oilers pay.  Their scoring offense (4.25 goals per game, first in the league) has the power to overwhelm a defense that ranks in the lower third (3.57 goals allowed per game/24^th), and the power play (38.7 percent/1^st) can make things difficult for the home team (good at home on the penalty kill, but 76.2 percent overall/19^th).  The trick for the Caps will be not to let the Oilers get off early and get all frisky and confident.  Veteran teams know how to do that.  This decision rests on which Capitals team shows up.

Capitals 5 – Oilers 2

The Peerless Prognosticator is ON THE AIR!!! -- Game 8: Capitals at Canucks, October 22nd

The Peerless Prognosticator is ON THE AIR!!!

If it is late October, it is time for the Washington Capitals to head west on their annual western Canada tour.  On Monday night the Caps open their annual journey out west when they take on the Vancouver Canucks at Rogers Arena.  This will be the Caps’ 48 visit to Vancouver, and they will be looking to improve on their record of 18-23-1, with five ties in British Columbia.

Vancouver will enter this contest having won four of their last five contests, three of them against quality opponents – the Tampa Bay Lightning, the Pittsburgh Penguins, and the Boston Bruins.  Going into Sunday’s games the Canucks were second in the Pacific Division, one point behind the Anaheim Ducks. 

The Canucks are not an especially productive offensive team, ranking 18^th in scoring offense.  Bo Horvat is tied for the team lead in goals scored through eight games (five).  Horvat has been a steadily more productive goal scorer in his four seasons preceding this one.  Starting with his rookie season in 2014-2015 in which he had 13 goals, he has improved to 16, 20, and then to 22 goals last season.  He opened this season with two goals in his first three games (both of them power play goals), but in doing so he was a minus-7.  He has three goals in his last four games, in each of them going plus-1 to drag himself up to minus-3 overall.  Two of his five goals this season are game-winners.  Horvat is 2-3-5, minus-3, in six career games against Washington.

Before this season is through, Alexander Edler is likely to become the all-time franchise leader in games played by a Canucks defensemen.  He had dressed for 766 games over his 13-year career in Vancouver, needing just 16 more games played to pass Harold Snepsts for the top spot in Canucks’ history.  His 84 goals with the Canucks are second among defensemen in franchise history, trailing only Mattias Ohlund (93), while his 339 points are more than any defenseman in Canucks history.  He has yet to record a goal this season, but he does have five assists to lead the club in that category.  Edler is 4-4-8, even, in 12 career games against the Caps.

Goaltending duties have been split down the middle between Anders Nilsson and Jacob Markstrom so far, just over two minutes of ice time separating their respective workloads thus far.  Nilsson has had the better numbers, a goals against average of 2.25 and a save percentage of .925, compared to 3.23 and .903 for Markstrom.  Nilsson is in his second season in Vancouver, his fifth team in his sixth NHL season.  The 31 games he has played for the Canucks is his high-water mark in games played for any of those five franchises (St. Louis, Edmonton, Buffalo, and the New York Islanders being the others).  He opened this season with wins in his first three appearances, stopping 83 of 88 shots along the way (.943 save percentage), but allowed four goals on 32 shots in a 4-1 loss to the Winnipeg Jets last Thursday.  He is 1-3-1, 3.30, .890 in six career appearances against the Caps.

Jacob Markstrom is in his sixth season in Vancouver and is one of eight goalies in team history to reach the 50 win mark (50-56-14).  He has been hot and cold in four appearances so far this season, starting the year with an impressive 33-save performance in a 5-2 win over the Calgary Flames on Opening Night, following that up with a pair of five-goal outings against the Flames and Carolina Hurricanes before rebounding with a 30-save performance against the Boston Bruins in a 2-1 win on Saturday.  Both of his wins have come on home ice, his two losses coming on the road.  He has yet to beat the Capitals in his career, going 0-6-0, 3.44, .895 in six appearances.

1.  Only the Anaheim Ducks have averaged fewer shots per game so far (23.3) than the Canucks (25.1).

2.  Vancouver has had only two home games so far, but even with that, their two power play chances on home ice – the lowest total in the league – is a really low number.  They are one of three teams without a power play goal on home ice, Arizona and Florida being the others.

3.  The Canucks are one of six team that have yet to allow a power play goal on home ice, killing ten straight shorthanded situations to start the season.

4.  Vancouver blocks shots.  Their 145 blocked shots as of Sunday are second in the league to Anaheim’s 146.  And, they are adept at takeaways, their 75 recorded so far being second only to the Toronto Maple Leafs’ 76.

5.  The Canucks are poor in the shot attempt category, their 42.26 percent shot attempts-for at 5-on-5 ranking 30^th in the league, ahead of only the Anaheim Ducks (40.44 percent).

1.  The Capitals are running more than a full goal ahead of last year’s scoring offense, 4.14 goals per game so far compared to 3.12 goals per game last season.

2.  The Caps have improved their faceoff winning percentage to 45.9 percent, but they remain 29^th in the league, ahead of only Colorado (43.2 percent) and Montreal (42.6 percent).

3.  Washington ranks fourth overall in credited hits (188), trailing Montreal (192), Carolina (192), and Vegas (211).

4.  Only Philadelphia and Toronto have scored more second period goals (14 apiece) than the Caps (12) so far.

5.  Overtime has not been kind to Capitals special teams.  No team has a larger negative ice time differential between power plays and penalty kills than the Caps in the extra session (minus-2:38).

The Peerless’ Players to Ponder

Vancouver: Loui Eriksson

Loui Eriksson is the grand old man for the Canucks, the oldest player on the roster at age 33.  He is now in his 13^th NHL season, his third in Vancouver.  With age has come a certain vulnerability to injury, Eriksson having missed 49 games in the two seasons preceding this one after an eight-year stretch in which he missed a total of 25 games and appeared in every game five times.  His production has dropped off considerably since joining the Canucks, going 21-29-50 in 123 games after posting a 30-goal season in his last year in Boston in 2015-2016.  His ice time this season has been tightly managed, averaging just 12:08 per game, lowest among any Canuck forward appearing in more than three games.  He is one of eight forwards to appear in all eight games for Vancouver so far, but the only one of that group without a goal, and he is without a point in his last six games.  Eriksson is 3-4-7, minus-5, in 17 career games against Washington.

Washington: Evgeny Kuznetsov

Not many Capitals pad their stats against the Vancouver Canucks, but Evgeny Kuznetsov comes as close as any.  Since 2005-2006, Kuznetsov is second on the team in points against the Canucks with 11 in nine games (4-7-11).  His plus-10 is best among the Caps since 2005-2006. Kuznetsov goes into this game having recorded at least one point in six of the seven games he played in so far, and his 1.71 points per game ranks sixth in the league.  Only Auston Matthews and Patrice Bergeron have more multi-point games so far (seven and five, respectively) than Kuznetsov (four), and over the past two seasons he has as many multi-point games (27) as Sidney Crosby.  He has been on fire dating back to last season.  In his last 49 games, regular season and playoffs, he is 27-45-72, a 45-goal, 120-point scoring pace.

In the end…

Road trips are for bonding, for sorting things out, for simplifying, for finding consistency, for exhausting every sports cliché one can think of.  The Caps are looking for their first road win after an overtime loss in Pittsburgh and a whomping in New Jersey, so bonding or not, a win would be nice.  A winning streak would be better.  To do that, they will have to have better 60-minute efforts than they have displayed in most game so far in the young season, and they start this road trip in a particularly inhospitable place.  The Caps are just 2-6-1 in their last nine visits to Vancouver.  So hey, they’re due.

Capitals 4 – Canucks 3

Washington Capitals: That Was The Week That Was - Week 3

The Washington Capitals caught a break in the schedule in Week 3 in which they faced a pair of struggling teams.  It ended up being harder than it had to be to earn three of a possible four standings points, the team looking to establish consistency and a more focused effort as they wrapped up a home stand.

Record: 1-0-1

It was a light week on the schedule with two games, and the Caps had the good fortune of playing teams with a combined 2-6-2 record as they took the ice in DC.  The New York Rangers came to Washington on Wednesday, the third straight week-opening game on home ice on a Wednesday this season for the Caps.  The Rangers had two wins going into the contest, neither of them in regulation.  They would not get a regulation win in this one, either, but neither would the Caps.  Washington gave up a third period lead on a power play goal before salvaging the decision with a Matt Niskanen overtime goal to give the Caps a 4-3 win. 

In the second game of the week the Caps took on the winless Florida Panthers and promptly soiled the bed, allowing four goals in the first period.  They came back to tie the contest in the second period before falling behind once more just before the second intermission.  The Caps scored late in regulation on a power play goal by Nicklas Backstrom, but after a scoreless overtime, they failed to punch through in the trick shot competition, and the Panthers had their first win of the season on the 6-5 decision.

Offense: 4.50/game (season: 4.14/game, rank: 1st)

The Caps did not lack for offensive firepower in Week 3; they finished the week at the top of the scoring offense rankings.  Seven different skaters recorded goals for the week, bringing the total to 13 skaters with goals so far this season through seven games.  Last year, the Caps did not have their 13^th skater record a goal until Game 11.  Matt Niskanen, Devante Smith-Pelly, and Brett Connolly all recorded their first goal of the season in Week 3. John Carlson and Alex Ovechkin each had two-goal weeks. 

Carlson had a particularly productive week, going 2-2-4.  He tied for the league lead in goals scored by defensemen for the week (with Minnesota’s Matt Dumba), while his four points trailed only Winnipeg’s Josh Morrissey and Florida’s Keith Yandle with five apiece.  Carlson, with ten points overall, trails only Toronto’s Morgan Rielly (14 points) in scoring among defensemen.

Evgeny Kuznetsov continues to impress.  He had three assists for the week and has recorded at least one point in six of seven games, shutout with the rest of his teammates only in the 6-0 loss to New Jersey on October 11^th. His 12 points is tied for seventh in the league scoring tables, and the seven games in which he recorded those points is fewer than every player with whom he is tied or trails save for Evgeni Malkin, who has 12 points in six games thus far.

Defense: 4.00/game (season: 3.86/game, rank: 29th)

The Capitals did not have a bad week on defense in some respects, but here is where we learn the difference between “efficiency” and “effectiveness.”  The Caps allowed 62 shots on goal, which was right in line with their season average (31.9 shots against per game at week’s end).  It would have been an even better week in this regard but for those 18 shots on goal that the Caps allowed to the New York Rangers in the second period of the game to open the week, but those things do happen from time to time.  The 5-on-5 shots attempts tilted in the Caps’ favor, too.  The Caps allowed only 76 5-on-5 shot attempts for the week.  The result was a week in which the Caps had a shot attempts-for percentage of 53.94, a number supported with a 56.06 percent mark when tied and a 52.68 percent in close situations (source: NHL.com).

But limiting shots doesn’t help when you are letting opponents pounce on rebounds and work their will from in close.  The Rangers and Panthers combined for four 5-on-5 goals against the Caps for the week.  They were scored from a combined distance of 46 feet, three of them from almost the same spot on the ice, from just off the left pad of the Capitals goaltender.  The fourth was scored from the top of the crease.  Hard to miss the net from those distances.  Part of it might have been rebound control, part of it might have been being too loose too close to their own net, but either way, efficient numbers did not lead to effective results.

Goaltending: 3.79 / .871 (season: 3.80 / .879 / 1 SO)

Goaltending was neither efficient nor effective in Week 3.  Braden Holtby started both games for the week but finished only one.  He was relieved after 20 minutes of work against Florida after allowing four goals on 11 shots in the first period of the Caps 6-5 Gimmick loss to the Panthers.  It made for a bad week for Holtby, who has struggled in the early going.  He has had two appearances in each of the three weeks to date and has yet to post a weekly save percentage over .900.  Week 3 was his worst week to date, posting a .837 save percentage.  It has been a rough early going for Holtby, who ranks 35^th among 46 goalies in even strength save percentage (.899; minimum: 50 even strength shots faced).

Pheonix Copley relieved Holtby in that loss to Florida, and he stopped 18 of 19 shots to give the Caps a chance to come back, which they did to force extra time.  He was tagged with the loss, though, when he managed only one save on four shots in the freestyle competition.

Power Play:  3-for-7/42.9 percent (season:  38.5 percent, rank: 1st)

The power play has been the most consistently successful part of the Caps’ play through three weeks.  Week 3 was the third straight week in which the Caps finished over 35 percent.  It was their best week so far, efficiency-wise, with their 42.9 percent power play.

What was the surprising thing about the power play this week was how ineffectual the Rangers were in denying shots by Alex Ovechkin.  With as many games as these two teams have played against each other and as much film that exists (there are people in Ittoqqortoormiit, Greenland who, when asked what “The Office” is, reply, where Alex Ovechkin scores his power play goals”).  Ovechkin scored two power play goals on four shots, half the total of shots on the man advantage the Caps unleashed on Ranger goalie Henrik Lundqvist. 

The effort against Florida was more pedestrian, by Caps standards, scoring one goal on three shots on three power plays in all.  Overall, the Caps scored three goals on 11 shots in 11:16 of power play time, seven different skaters recording at least one power play poing.  Not a bad week.

Penalty Killing: 7-for-11 / 63.6 percent (season: 72.4 percent, rank: 24th)

The other side of the special teams divide is not going well for the Caps.  Week 3 was the third straight week to open the season that the Caps could not exceed 80 percent on the penalty kill, and it was their worst week to date.  Worse, they performed poorly against teams that do not inspire much fear with their power plays, the Rangers finishing the week ranked 19^th in power play efficiency (18.2 percent) and the Panthers finishing tied for 25^th (11.1 percent).

The two power play goals scored by the Rangers were variations on a problem that plagued the week – scoring from in close, Jimmy Vesey pouncing on a loose puck just off Braden Holtby’s right pad and Chris Krieder redirecting a shot from Neal Pionk from the top of the crease.  Same against Florida, Evgenii Dadonov burying a centering feed from the low slot, Jonathan Huberdeau putting back a rebound from the top of the crease.  Opponents had too much room down low and time to maneuver themselves in a position to get on loose pucks.

Making it worse was the Caps putting themselves too often in the position of having to defend man advantages, going shorthanded 11 times in Week 3, seven times against Florida.  That they allowed only 12 shots on goal in 14:52 of shorthanded ice time was the only positive as one could find, but it was too many chances and too much freedom in front of the net to be successful.

Faceoffs: 67-for-131 / 51.1% percent (season: 45.9 percent, rank: 29th)

That the highest level of examination it was a pretty good week with a 51.1 percent winning result.  Look closer, and it was quite uneven in the circle.  The good part at the next level was the Caps being plus-17 in the differential between offensive zone faceoffs taken (53) and defensive zone draws (36).  A goo thing, too, since the Caps were 52.8 percent in the offensive zone (28-for-53) but only 44.4 percent (16-for-36) in the defensive zone.

Drilling down to the individual level, four Caps took at least ten draws for the week, and the unevenness showed itself there, too.  Nicklas Backstrom had a fine week overall at 64.3 percent, but while he was 12-for-15 in the offensive zone (80.0 percent), he was just 4-for-12 in the defensive end (33.3 percent).  Lars Eller was more consistent in that regard, finishing 53.8 percent in the offensive zone and 71.4 percent in the defensive end.   The best that could be said for the weeks of Evgeny Kuznetsov (37.1 percent overall) and NIc Dowd (29.4 percent) is that the week is over.

Goals by Period:

That four-goal period the Panthers planted on the Caps in the second game of the week did wonders for that first period goals against number, and not in a good way.  While the Caps did dig their way back to the rim of that hole, they could not quite see their way clear of it. By the end of the week, only Philadelphia and Los Angeles allowed more first period goals (11 and 10, respectively) than the Caps (nine, but in one fewer game than the other two teams).  On the goals allowed by period side, at least the Caps have shown consistency (nine, nine, and eight goals by period).  They just need to be consistently better.

On the goals scored side, that three-goal second period in the comeback against Florida helped propel the Caps to the third highest middle period goal total for the season (12), trailing only Philadelphia and Toronto (14 apiece).

Year over Year:

It is one thing to look at this club through Stanley Cup lenses and conclude that they are lacking in results so far, but the Caps did end the week with a 3-2-2 record overall, one point better than their 3-3-1 record after seven games to start the 2017-2018 season.  In most other respects they are slightly ahead of last season’ performance through the same number of games. In fact, it was almost spooky the degree to which the Caps were tracking last season’s performance through their first six games. 

Last year… 3-2-1

This year… 3-2-1

Last year… SO win over OTT, 3-goal win over NJD, blowout win over MTL

This year… OT win over NYR, 3-goal win over VGK, blowout win over BOS

Last year… OT loss to TBL, 1-goal loss to PIT, blowout loss to PHI

This year… OT loss to PIT, 2-goal loss to TOR, blowout loss to NJD

Last year… 22 GF/22 GA

This year… 24 GF/22 GA

Last year… 30.0% PP/76.9% PK (STI: 106.9)

This year… 39.1% PP/72.7% PK (STI: 111.8)

Last year… SAT%/5-on-5: 46.20

This year… SAT%/5-on-5: 45.68

That they earned a point in Game 7 was an improvement over last season when they were shut out by the Toronto Maple Leafs, 2-0, in their seventh game.

In the end…

That the Caps have played with such unremarkable results through three weeks and find themselves only one point out of first place in the Metropolitan Division speaks to either the parity in the division or its weak play in the early going, or perhaps a bit of both.  Still, consider that last season the Caps were three points off the pace in the division (with one more game played than this season through three weeks).  The Caps did not look good in Week 3, especially given the quality of competition, despite underlying numbers that did look pretty good.  If a shot by Dmitry Orlov in overtime of the Panthers game hits the post and goes in instead of ricocheting out, this conversation looks a bit different.  It reflects the thin margins there are in the league between winning and losing, between good weeks and not so good weeks.  Week 3 tends to tilt more to the latter. All things considered.

Three Stars:

• First Star: John Carlson (2-2-4, even, 2 power play points, 27:45 average ice time (first in the league for the week), two goals tied for league lead among defensemen)
• Second Star: Nicklas Backstrom (1-2-3, plus-1, 23:05 average ice time, 64.3 percent on faceoffs)
• Third Star: Lars Eller (0-3-3, plus-1, 56.5 percent on faceoffs, four credited takeaways with no giveaways)

The Peerless Prognosticator is ON THE AIR!!! -- Game 7: Panthers at Capitals, October 19th

The Peerless Prognosticator is ON THE AIR!!!

The Washington Capitals wrap up their three-game home stand on Friday night when they host the Florida Panthers.  The Caps are 3-1-0 on home ice so far and have outscored opponents by an 18-9 margin in the four games.  It will be the Caps' last home contest before they embark on a four-game road trip that will take them through western Canada and to Montreal before returning for a November 3^rd game against the Dallas Stars at Capital One Arena.

The Panthers will be taking the ice for only the fifth time so far this season, and they will be looking for their first win.  Regulation losses to the Columbus Blue Jackets and the Vancouver Canucks in south Florida were sandwiched between Gimmick losses to the Tampa Bay Lightning in the season opener and to the Philadelphia Flyers last Tuesday, both of those extra time losses coming on the road.

It is not as if the Panthers have been blown out of games.  In addition to the two trick shot losses, the two regulation losses were also by a single goal in each.  It’s a matter of just lacking enough scoring (the Panthers rank tied for 17^th in scoring offense at 3.00 goals per game) and lacking just enough defense and goaltending to keep opponents from scoring (they rank tied for 22^nd in scoring defense with 3.50 goals allowed per game).

The offense, such as it is, has balance – nine players have goals so far – but no one has put a lot of crooked numbers on the score sheet.  Three players lead the club with two goals apiece.  Two of them would be expected among the team’s leaders.  Aleksander Barkov (2-1-3 so far) is gaining wide acceptance as one of the best two-way forwards in the league.  Last season he set career highs in assists (51) and points (78), and he led the league in shorthanded goals (five).  It was also the first of his five seasons in the league in which he averaged more than 20 minutes of ice time, his 22:04 only one second less than Anze Kopitar’s 22:05 in average ice time among the league’s forwards.  He also finished fourth in voting for the Selke Trophy as the league’s top defensive forward and finished third for the Lady Byng Trophy for gentlemanly play.  Since 2005-2006 Barkov is the only player in the league to appear in at least 50 games, average at least 22 minutes per game, record at least 75 points, and be charged with fewer than 15 minutes in penalties in a single season.  He was 27-51-78, plus-9, in 79 games with only 14 penalty minutes last year.  He is 3-5-8, plus-3, in 12 career games against Washington.

Evgenii Dadonov spent his first three seasons in Florida playing only intermittently, going 10-10-20, minus-5, in 55 games played over those three seasons.  Last year was an awakening.  He exploded for 28 goals and 65 points in 74 games.  Of his total, 21 goals were scored in his last 40 games.  However, while scoring came easier to him last season, getting loads of ice time did not.  In 22 games in which he skated more than 20 minutes, Florida was just 7-12-3.  The thing to look for in Dadonov this season is whether that 28-goal season was an outlier.  This is a player who, in 155 games in the AHL, recorded only 33 goals, about a 17-goal pace over 82 games, and he had 17 of those 33 goals in his first pro season, with the Rochester Americans in 2009-2010.  Dadonov is 2-2-4, minus-4, in nine career games against the Capitals.

The third Panther with two goals so far qualifies as an unexpected entry.  Frank Vatrano was an undrafted free agent signed out of the University of Massachusetts by the Boston Bruins in March 2015.  He made his way into the Bruin lineup for 108 games over the next three seasons (20-11-31, minus-9) before he was traded to Florida for a 2018 third round draft pick last February.  He has found Florida a bit more to his liking in brief exposure so far.  In 19 games, covering the end of last season and the beginning of this season, Vatrano has seven goals on only 37 shots (18.9 percent shooting) in 19 games, a 30-goal pace over 82 games.  But as we said…”brief exposure.”  Both of his goals this season came in the Panthers’ 6-5 Gimmick loss to the Philadelphia Flyers last Tuesday.  He has yet to record a point against the Caps in three career games against them.

1.  This is Florida’s 25th NHL season and only the second in which they averaged three or more goals per game (3.00 per game through four games).  The only full season in their history in which they averaged more than three goals per game was in 1995-1996, when they averaged 3.10 goals per game and went to the Stanley Cup final.

2.  How close does Florida play to the margin?  They have dressed eight defensemen so far this season, and only one – Mark Pysyk – is a “minus” player (minus-3).  Not what one might expect of a team with no wins in four games.

3.  Speaking of defense, it is a bit of an offense-challenged group so far.  Jacob MacDonald has the only goal among the eight defensemen to play so far, and Keith Yandle is the only defenseman with a power play point (one assist).

4.  “Grittership” really isn’t the Panthers’ thing.  They rank 27^th in credited hits (87), 30^th in blocked shots (30), and their takeaway-to-giveaway ratio of 0.72 is rather weak.

5.  Florida is “playing” better than it is “performing,” at least in terms of shot attempts.  Their shot attempts-for percentage at 5-on-5 (53.61) is ninth-best in the league.

1.  What a difference a year makes…

Last year… 3-2-1 through six games

This year… 3-2-1 through six games

Last year… SO win over OTT, 3-goal win over NJD, blowout win over MTL

This year… OT win over NYR, 3-goal win over VGK, blowout win over BOS

Last year… OT loss to TBL, 1-goal loss to PIT, blowout loss to PHI

This year… OT loss to PIT, 2-goal loss to TOR, blowout loss to NJD

Last year… 22 GF/22 GA

This year… 24 GF/22 GA

Last year… 30.0% PP/76.9% PK (STI: 106.9)

This year… 39.1% PP/72.7% PK (STI: 111.8)

Last year… SAT%/5-on-5: 46.20

This year… SAT%/5-on-5: 45.68

…or not.

2.  Caps home power play: 9-for-17/52.9 percent/rank: 2^nd.  Caps road power play: 0-for-6/0.0 percent/rank: T-25^th (last).

3.  Washington’s plus-3 first period goal differential is tied for best in the East (with Tampa Bay and New Jersey through Wednesday’s games).

4.  The Caps’ third line of Andre Burakovsky, Lars Eller, and Brett Connolly is a combined 1-for-31 shooting so far this season (Eller has the only goal), a 3.2 shooting percentage.  Hopefully, “playing” better in terms of possession and the eyeball test, as they did against the Rangers on Wednesday, will translate into results.

5.  Washington is 25^th in shot attempts-for percentage at 5-on-5 (45.68), but they have a 5-on-5 PDO of 995, which ranks 19^th.  That’s a little illustration of what might be a “skills premium” (Anaheim is a big one…dead last in SAT% (40.21) but second in PDO (1058)...or maybe that’s just weird blind luck). Things like this don’t always travel in sync.

The Peerless’ Players to Ponder

Florida: James Reimer

Roberto Luongo suffered a knee injury mid-way through the Panthers’ 2-1 Gimmick loss to the Tampa Bay Lightning on Opening Night, an injury that resulted in his being placed on injured reserve and whose status is uncertain for the next week or two.  That leaves the number one goaltending chores to James Reimer, now in his ninth season after having been drafted in the fourth round of the 2006 entry draft by the Toronto Maple Leafs for whom he played 207 games over his first six seasons.  Reimer came to Florida from the San Jose Sharks (who obtained him from Toronto in a February 2016 trade) in July 2016 as a free agent.  His role in that span has been nominally Luongo’s backup, but he appeared in 43 games in his first season in Florida in 2016-2017 and in 44 games last season, quite a bit of work for a “backup.”  His numbers have been doing a slow leak over the last few seasons.  Since 2015-2016, when he went 17-14-7, 2.31, .922 in 40 games split between Toronto and San Jose, his goals against average rose to 2.53 and then to 2.99 last season, while his save percentage dropped, first to .920 and then to .913 last season.  It is early, but in three appearances so far those numbers have inched downward again (3.62/.885).  He has never been much of an October player, though, posting a 2.93 GAA and a .909 save percentage in October games over his career.  Reimer is 4-4-2, 2.16, .937 and one shutout in ten career appearances against Washington.  Those goals against and save percentage numbers against the Caps are the best he has against any Eastern Conference team he faced over his career.

Washington: Jakub Vrana

Who is the only Capitals forward with a personal SAT over 50 percent at 5-on-5?  Bet you didn’t have “Jakub Vrana” (51.38 percent) as the answer (well, maybe you did, since he’s the “player to ponder” here).  The number in this measure that jumps out is his shot attempts at 5-on-5 for which he has been on ice.  He has been on ice for more 5-on-5 shot attempts (93) than any other Capital through six games.  However, the aggregate is made up of individual games, and his number is weighted quite a bit by the game against Toronto in which he was on ice for 21 5-on-5 shot attempts and only 7 shot attempts against.  Oddly enough, perhaps, the two games in which he was over 50 percent (against Pittsburgh being the other), the Caps lost.  His worst game (39.39 percent) was in the 5-2 win over the Vegas Golden Knights.  Fancy stats can be wacky stats sometimes.  Vrana has yet to record a point against the Panthers in three career games.

In the end…

You do not want to be the club against which your opponent gets their first win of the season.  If Detroit beats Tampa Bay on Thursday night (the Red Wings, the only other winless team, are 0-4-2), the Caps will be in that situation on Friday.  Washington played well in spots against the New York Rangers on Wednesday, but it has been since the win over Vegas that the Caps put together a solid 60-minute effort.  Perhaps it is a variation of the hangover effect, not being able to muster a full measure of focus and attention for what might be viewed as “lesser” opponents.  That can be a dangerous attitude against a team that hasn’t been out of any game so far and that has played the Caps tough in recent meetings.  What makes this a bigger game for the Caps is that this is the getaway game before the western Canada tour, and it sure would be better to start that trip with a 4-2-1 record than a 3-3-1 record.

Capitals 4 – Panthers 2

The Peerless Prognosticator is ON THE AIR!!! -- Game 6: Rangers at Capitals, October 17th

The Peerless Prognosticator is ON THE AIR!!!

If it’s Wednesday, it must be Washington Capitals Hockey.  And so it is, for the third straight week the Caps will host an opponent on a Wednesday night.  Week 3’s offering is the New York Rangers, a team that will be playing in the back-half of a back-to-back set of games when they visit Washington. They host the Colorado Avalanche on Tuesday night.

The Capitals will be looking to end a two-game losing streak.  It does not sound like much, but until the Caps lost consecutive games going into this contest, they did not lose consecutive regular season games in regulation since Games 66 and 67 of the 2017-2018 season last March.  The last time they lost three consecutive games in regulation was a four-game streak in early March 2017.

The Rangers’ problems are more immediate.  They have one win on their resume going into Week 3 action, albeit an impressive one, beating the San Jose Sharks in overtime on October 11^th.  On the other side of the ledger are four regulation losses, one of them a ghastly 8-5 loss to the Carolina Hurricanes, a game they led at one point, 2-0, barely six minutes into the contest.

The Rangers’ immediate problem is that they struggle to score.  Two weeks in, and they ranked 23^rd in the league in scoring offense (2.40 goals per game through Monday), and no skater had more than two goals.  Jesper Fast has only one goal so far, but he leads the team in total points through two weeks (1-3-4).  Fast is a capable player in many respects, but if he is involved in a third of your team’s points, there are scoring issues.  What Fast is, is probably a bottom-six forward on a good team, a player who has averaged 10 goals and 28 points per season in his three full years in the NHL coming into this season.  However, he is getting middle six time on this club (fifth among forwards in even strength time on ice per game – 13:57).  Fast is also a player who passes as a grizzled veteran for the Rangers.  Only three Rangers on the roster have played in more games for the club since the 2015-2016 season than Fast (223): Mats Zuccarello (246), Kevin Hayes (236), and Marc Staal (226).  Fast is 3-1-4, minus-3, in 16 career games against Washington.

Brett Howden is one of three rookies to dress for the Rangers so far this season and the only one to have scored a goal.  In fact, he is one of the quartet with two goals in the early going, alternating games with and without goals through five contests.  He was a first round draft pick of the Tampa Bay Lightning in 2016 (27^th overall) but did not make it out of the Lightning development system before he was traded to the Rangers with Vladislav Namestnikov, Libor Hajek a 2018 first round draft pick, and a conditional 2019 second round draft pick for Ryan McDonagh and J.T. Miller at the trading deadline last February.  Moving to a team lacking the depth the Lightning have provided Howden with an opportunity in what is his first pro season after spending five seasons with the Moose Jaw Warriors in Western Hockey League in Canadian junior.  The Rangers are hoping he can duplicate his goal-scoring ability displayed at Moose Jaw, where he recorded 109 goals in 248 games.  This will be his first appearance against the Capitals.

When defenseman Marc Staal dresses for his 50^th game this season he will tie Jim Neilson for fourth place on the all-time list of games played by Ranger defensemen.  With a 36-point season he would become the 16^th defenseman in Ranger history to record 200 points.  The latter goal will be difficult, for Staal has never posted as many as 30 points in a season in his 11 previous seasons in the NHL, all with the Rangers.  More a defensive defenseman, he has seen his ice time diminish somewhat over the last four seasons. In 2014-2015 he averaged 21:08 per game in 80 games.  That dropped to 19:41 in 77 games the following season, 19:11 in 72 games in 2016-2017, and to 18:32 in 72 games last season.  He is averaging just 16:46 through five games over the first two weeks of this season, the lowest average ice time of his career to date.  In 36 career games against the Caps, Staal is 1-9-10, plus-5.

1.  Since 2006-2006, the Rangers have earned precisely half of the standings points available in Washington, going 11-11-3 in 25 games in DC.

2.  Of the 31 current NHL franchises, the Rangers have been quite unsusceptible to losses in extra time.  Only the Colorado Avalanche (117 extra time losses) and the Vegas Golden Knights (7) have fewer losses in extra time in their respective franchise histories than the Blueshirts through Sunday’s games.

3.  Going into Week 3, only two teams in the league had fewer power play chances than the Rangers (12).  Dallas had 11, and Edmonton had 10 opportunities.

4.  The Rangers have yet to lead at either intermission in any game through the first two weeks.

5.  Only one team in the East has allowed more third period goals than the Rangers (8) through the first two weeks.  Detroit has allowed nine third period goals.

1.  Going into Week 3, only Toronto allowed more goals at 5-on-5 (16) than the Caps (15).

2.  Washington was second to the Dallas Stars through two weeks in home power play efficiency (53. 8 percent to 54.5 percent).  No team had more home power play goals (seven).

3.  Only eight Capitals skaters have been charged penalty minutes so far this season.  If you had Lars Eller and Jakub Vrana leading the team with four penalties taken apiece, raise your hand.

4.  Ten Capitals skaters have goals through five games.  Last season, the Caps didn’t have their tenth skater with a goal until Game 10.

5.  No team in the East has more players with at least ten shots on goal and a shooting percentage of at least 20 percent than the Caps (T.J. Oshie: 33.3 percent; Evgeny Kuznetsov: 23.5 percent; Alex Ovechkin: 21.1 percent).  Only one team in the league has more (Colorado has four).

The Peerless’ Players to Ponder

New York: Henrik Lundqvist

Alexandar Georgiev was the unfortunate victim in goal in that 8-5 debacle against Carolina.  The other four contests featured Henrik Lundqvist in net, and he might be the league’s most hard-luck player in the early going.  His 2.03 goals against average was eighth-best in the league through two weeks among 40 goalies with at least 100 minutes.  His save percentage of .938 was eighth among that group as well.  He has only one win to show for it in four decisions through two weeks, though, the 3-2 overtime win over San Jose in which he stopped 41 of 43 shots.

Lundqvist is coming off consecutive disappointing seasons, by his standards.  Over seven seasons, from 2009-2010 through 2015-2016, Lundqvist never had a goals against average over 2.50 or a save percentage under .920.  He was a Vezina Trophy finalist twice, winning once (2011-2012, a season in which he was also a first-team league all-star and a Hart Trophy finalist).  He was the only goalie over that seven-year period with a cumulative goals against average under 2.30, a save percentage over .920, and at least 30 shutouts.  The last two years were a different story.  Two years ago he was 31-20-4, 2.74, .910 with two shutouts, and last year he was 26-26-7, 2.98, .915, with two shutouts.  It calls into question whether Lundqvist, who will be 37 years old before season’s end, can sustain his performance level, not to mention whether the Rangers’ performance in front of him can catch up to his superb numbers so far.  In 38 career games against the Caps, Lundqvist is 21-12-5, 2.66, .909, with four shutouts.

Washington: Andre Burakovsky

Andre Burakovsky was a hero of Game 7 of the Eastern Conference semifinal against the Tampa Bay Lightning last spring.  His two goals helped complete a comeback for the Caps, who fought off elimination twice in the seven-game series to advance to the Stanley Cup final.  Since that two goal performance, though, Burakovsky is 0-4-4, minus-4, with just seven shots on goal in ten games covering both the Cup final last spring and the first five games this season.  What is distressing about his start this season is that last season he “played” better than his production, his individual shot-attempts-for on ice at 5-on-5 of 52.49 percent being best on the team (source: NHL.com).  However, that measure has fallen off a cliff in the early going, his 37.62 percent being third-worst among the 20 skaters to dress so far. 

It is a confounding set of developments given that he finished the 2017-2018 regular season rather strong with six points and a plus-10 in his last eight games.  He has not yet taken that next big step forward, and although he is still just 23 years old, he has more than 250 regular season games on his resume.  The skill he has displayed intermittently needs to be expressed on a more consistent basis.  In 13 career games against the Rangers, Burakovsky is 1-2-3, minus-3.

In the end…

These are two teams that have played a bit sluggishly to start the season, and both have suffered one blowout loss, but there are differences.  The Caps opened their season with a difficult schedule (five playoff teams from last season, including their opponent in the Stanley Cup final), a pair of back-to-backs, and they have had absences from their top right wing (Tom Wilson/suspended) and a to—four defenseman (Michal Kempny/concussion).  The Rangers’ schedule, on the other hand, has been uneven in terms of quality of competition, having faced two playoff caliber teams (San Jose, Nashville) and three teams of questionable postseason potential (Buffalo, Carolina, and Edmonton).

Washington has not put things together on a consistent basis since their Opening Night 7-0 win over the Boston Bruins.  New York hasn’t raised their level of play in front of Henrik Lundqvist to the level he has displayed to date.  Can the Caps put a solid 60 minutes together against a long-time nemesis?  Can Lundqvist continue his fine start in spite of the lackluster play in front of him?  Like so many other meetings between these teams over the last decade, it is another battle pitting the Caps ability to solve Lundqvist against his ability to stave off the waves of Cap scorers.

Capitals 3 – Rangers 1

Washington Capitals: That Was The Week That Was - Week 2

Week 2 for the Washington Capitals featured a return match with their finalist foe from last spring, a matchup against a team they have dominated in recent years, and a chance to measure themselves against this year’s “it” team.  It was a muddled result, but a familiar one.

Record: 1-2-0

Last season, the Washington Capitals followed up a winning Week 1 with a below-.500 Week 2.  And so it was again to start the 2018-2019 season.  A 1-0-1 week was followed up with a week that started well, went south, and then went sideways.  Consider, though, that the Week 2 opponents finished fifth (Vegas), 15^th (New Jersey), and seventh (Toronto) in the league standings last year.  Combine that with the Week 1 opponents, who finished fourth (Boston) and tenth (Pittsburgh), and it was a stout lineup of opponents to start the season.  When you then add that everyone is coming for the defending champs, a 2-2-1 record through five games is not the worst of all worlds.

Offense: 2.33/game (season: 4.00/game, rank: T-7th)

The Caps started Week 2 where they left off in Week 1, threatening to burn out the goal lamp from overuse.  The five goals they scored against the Vegas Golden Knights in the first game of the week was the third straight game in which they scored five or more goals and the fourth straight regular season game doing so, dating back to Game 82 last season.  The Caps had not scored five or more goals in four consecutive regular season games since they did it in sweeping a four-game home stand in early February 2017, shutting out Los Angeles and Carolina by identical 5-0 scores, beating Detroit, 6-3, and wrapping up that home stand with a 6-4 win over the Anaheim Ducks.

On an individual level, Evgeny Kuznetsov continued his torrid start.  He followed up a 2-1-3, plus-1 effort in Week 1 by going 2-4-6, plus-1, in Week 2.  In his last 82 games he is 31-54-85.  Alex Ovechkin was the other Capitals with two goals in Week 2, bringing his total to four in five games.  It isn’t quite like last year’s nine goals in five games start, but it does resemble the five-game goal streak (one in each game) with which he started the 2015-2016 season, the last one in which he posted 50 goals.

John Carlson had a pair of assists and finished the week third among defensemen in scoring (2-4-6). Nicklas Backstrom went 1-2-3 for the week to join the other three among the top-30 point-getters in the league through Week 2.

Defense: 4.00/game (season: 3.80/game, rank: T-24th)

Looking at the three opponents in Week 2, if the Caps were going to allow something north of 35 shots on goal and six goals to an opponent, one might have thought Toronto or Vegas were the likely culprits, not the New Jersey Devils.  But the Caps allowed 36 shots on goal in the 6-0 loss to the Devils in the middle game of the week.  The odd part of that result was that so few shot attempts were blocked by the Caps, just eight of 62 attempts, and only two of them by defensemen (one each by Brooks Orpik and John Carlson).  The Caps actually did a creditable job in holding down attempts by one of the most prolific offenses in the league, holding the Toronto Maple Leafs to only 57 shot attempts and only 28 of those on goal.

Overall, though, it was a difficult week for the Caps in holding back opponents’ possession numbers.  Washington had a shot attempts-for percentage at 5-on-5 of just 43.40, 24^th in the league for the week.  They were simply awful in tied-game situations, ranking dead last at 36.07 percent.

Goaltending: 4.04/.874 (season: 3.81/.882/1 SO)

Well, there have been better weeks.  Braden Holtby won his fifth consecutive game against the Vegas Golden Knights to start the week (that streak including the last four games of the Stanley Cup final last spring) and stopped 29 of 31 shots in the process.  That performance might be less impressive than it looks, given that the Knights scored only two goals in each of their first three games to start the season, and as of the end of Week 2 had yet to score more than that number in any of their six games.

Pheonix Copley got his first start with the Caps in the middle game of the week, breaking a streak of 274 straight games started by either Holtby or Philipp Grubauer in goal for the Caps, dating back to February 15, 2015, when Justin Peters stopped 30 of 33 shots in a 5-3 win over the Anaheim Ducks.  Copley’s debut was not as successful as hoped.  He did not get a lot of help, facing 13 shots in the first period against the Devils and allowing two goals by Kyle Palmieri.  He ended the night having faced 36 shots, six of which got through in the 6-0 loss.

Holtby was not bad in his start against Toronto to end the week, and his week might have looked a lot better but for a late sequence in which the Caps rained pucks on the Toronto net, but were unable to solve Frederik Andersen, and then the Maple Leafs put the game away on a pretty tic-tac-toe scoring play with less than two minutes left in a 4-2 win.  Holtby has not been an especially consistent starter in his career.  From 2012-2013 through last season, he had a record in the Caps’ first five games of the year of 11-8-2, 2.66, .908, with one shutout.  Through five games this season, he is 2-1-1, 3.26, .896.  Slump or slow start?  The next couple of weeks will do much to sort that out.

Power Play:  3-for-11/27.3 percent (season:  36.8 percent, rank: 4th)

If your power play clicks at better than 25 percent for the week, and you go down for the season, it’s a good power play.  The week’s power play was the Oreo version, two sweet cookies (2-for-4 against Vegas to start the week, 1-for-3 against Toronto to end it), surrounding a nutritionally suspect filling (0-for-4 against New Jersey in the middle game).  That game against New Jersey was especially unsatisfying.  In 6:12 of power play ice time, the Caps managed only two shots on goal (Alex Ovechkin, Brett Connolly).  In the other two games the Caps had three goals on nine shots in 10:44, eight of those shots from Ovechkin (3), Kuznetsov (3), Carlson (1), and Nicklas Backstrom (1).  It was an encouraging result in a way, since all three opponents finished in the top ten in penalty killing last season.  As it was, the seven power play goals scored by the Caps in the season to date is topped only by the Toronto Maple Leafs, who have eight and have scored at least one in each of their games to date.

Penalty Killing: 8-for-10 / 80.0 percent (season: 77.8 percent, rank: 17th)

This was rough terrain for the Caps in Week 2.  As they did on the penalty kill, all three opponents for the week finished in the top ten power play efficiency last season.  The Caps were, for the most part, efficient in handling shorthanded situations.  The allowed only 11 shots on goal in 15:43 of shorthanded ice time, two of those shots getting through for goals.  It would be the penalty kill that did not kill that did in the Caps in the last game of the week.  Josh Leivo, an unlikely source of power play success for the Toronto Maple Leafs, potted a man advantage goal in the third period to break a 2-2 tie and propel the Leafs to the 4-2 win to put the Caps under .500 for the week.

Faceoffs: 85-for-183 / 46.4% percent (season: 43.8 percent, rank: 30th)

The Caps finished the week under 50 percent in the circle, but it was not as bad as all that.  As a group they were at 50.0 percent in the offensive zone and one under 50.0 percent in the defensive zone.  It was in the neutral zone where they took it in the teeth, going only 40.7 percent.  On the other hand, only Toronto was been successful on draws last season, winning 51.8 percent of their faceoffs (sixth), compared to 48.9 percent for Vegas (22^nd) and 47.0 percent for New Jersey (30^th).

Individually, it was a case of Evgeny Kuznetsov dragging down the group.  Five Caps took at least ten draws for the week, and only Kuznetsov was under 50 percent.  By a lot.  He won only 15 of 48 draws (31.3 percent), although that number was dragged down by his performance in the neutral zone (3-for-17/17.6 percent).

At the other end, Nicklas Backstrom was over 50 percent in all three zones and 55.1 percent overall for the week.  Nic Dowd was tops overall at 55.2 percent on 29 faceoffs.

Goals by Period:

The Caps did not finish games well in Week 2, their goals allowed by period deteriorating from two in the first periods to four in the second periods to six in the third periods of games.  It did not help that despite being consistent on offense in spreading the goals out, it was a light-scoring week.  Allowing almost as many third period goals (six) as the offense tallied all week (seven) is not conducive to a successful week.

In the end…

The Caps opened the season with five teams that qualified for the postseason last year, four of them having finished with more than 100 points, and one of them their opponent in the Stanley Cup final.  It was not an easy way to start the season.  That said, it was a disappointing week in one respect.  The New Jersey Devils are a team that the Caps have dominated in recent years (13-0-2 in 15 meetings preceding the loss this week), but could muster only a lackluster performance against them.  Against the Toronto Maple Leafs, the Caps’ offense was uninspired against Toronto, a team that allowed three of more goals in four straight games going into the game to end the week.  However, 2-2-1 through this five-game thicket is not the worst of starts, especially when missing their top line right winger (Tom Wilson, to suspension) and breaking in a new backup goalie.

Three Stars:

• First Star: Evgeny Kuznetsov (2-4-6, plus-1, 2-1-3 power play scoring, 4 takeaways (led team))
• Second Star: Alex Ovechkin (2-2-4, plus-1, passed Bobby Hull for 17^th place on all-time goal scoring list, 11 hits (led forwards))
• Third Star: Nicklas Backstrom (1-2-3, even, 55.1 faceoff winning percentage, 1 GWG, 1-2-3 on power play)