The Peerless Prognosticator is ON THE AIR!!! -- Game 55: Panthers at Capitals, February 9th

The Peerless Prognosticator is ON THE AIR!!!

If it is Saturday, it must mean hockey.  The Washington Capitals continue their season-long six game home stand on Saturday night when they host the Florida Panthers at Capital One Arena.  This will be the 10^th Saturday night game for the Capitals this season, their fifth on home ice, where they are 1-1-2 in such games (5-0-0 in Saturday road games).  

The Caps will be facing a team that looks a lot like themselves in terms of their performance in the new year.  The Panthers started the 2019 portion of their schedule with a seven-game losing streak (0-5-2); the Caps had a seven-game slump of their own in January (0-5-2).  Washington has won three of four since that losing streak and will look to extend their current winning streak to three, while Florida has won five of seven since their losing streak.

Florida has not lit up the scoreboard like a pinball machine over their recent seven-game run, but they have clamped down on opponents, outscoring them by a 22-15 margin.  Four of those goals scored have come from an unlikely source.  Frank Vatrano is one of those “unheralded player makes good” stories.  Undrafted as an amateur, he was signed as a free agent by his home state Boston Bruins (he was born in East Longmeadow, MA) out of the University of Massachusetts in March 2015.  He worked his way into the Bruin lineup the following November and scored eight goals in 39 games as a rookie.  However, between injuries and a series of reassignments and recalls, he never found a consistent spot in the Bruin lineup.  In February 2018 he was traded to Florida for a third-round draft pick.  He has found a home, not to mention a regular spot in the lineup with the Panthers, for whom he has recorded 22 goals in 67 games since the latter stages of last season.  In the Panthers’ 5-2-0 run he has four of the team’s 22 goals, and he has seven goals in his last 13 games.  In four career games against Washington, Vatrano has yet to record a point and has a “even” rating.

Aleksander Barkov is tied with Vatrano for the team lead in points (eight) over this seven-game run.  He seems to have cornered the “Byng-Selke” double, having received votes as most gentlemanly player in each of the last three seasons (finishing second in 2016 and third last season), and getting Selke votes as the league’s top defensive forward in each of the last four seasons (finishing fourth last season).  His Selke finish last season was, no doubt, buoyed by his league-leading five shorthanded goals.  Something else of note about his performance last season, he cast off any shyness when it came to shooting the puck.  His 256 shots on goal ranked 19^th in the league, but more than that, it was an almost 50 percent increase in shot volume from his previous high (171 shots on goal in 2015-2016).  His shots on goal are off by almost a shot on goal per game this season, but his efficiency is up (to 15.0 percent from 10.5 percent last season).  Barkov is 3-6-9, plus-3, in 13 career games against the Capitals.

Nine players in NHL history have appeared in 700 or more consecutive games at some point in their careers.  Three of those players have active streaks.  Defenseman Keith Yandle tops that active group with 767 straight games played since his last absence from the lineup (March 22, 2009 with the Arizona Coyotes).  Since he started that streak, Yandle leads the league’s defensemen in games played (767), is second in assists (382, to Erik Karlsson’s 432), third in points (465), and second in power play points (209, to Karlsson’s 213).  In one of the odd ironies that pop up if you wait long enough, Yandle is playing for a club that passed on him in the 2005 draft one pick before he was taken in the fourth round by the Coyotes.  Florida picked defenseman Matt Duffy with the 104^th overall pick before Yandle went with the 105^th pick.  Duffy never played a game in the NHL and last played pro hockey in 2014-2015 with the Quad-City Mallards of the ECHL.  Yandle, who will not turn 33 years old until next September, looks as if he will be going on for some time to come.  In 23 career games against the Caps, Yandle is 1-13-14, minus-2.

1.  Only the Ottawa Senators, among Eastern Conference teams, have allowed more goals on the road this season (113) than the Panthers (103).

2.  Florida has the second-worst save percentage in the league on the road at 5-on-5 (.885).  Only San Jose is worse (.882).  At the other end, their shooting percentage in road games (6.6) is fifth-worst in the league.

3.  The Panthers are one of two NHL teams that have yet to allow 40 shots on goal in a road game.  Vancouver is the other.

4.  Being loose with the puck is a feature of Panther road games.  Their 322 giveaways is most in the league on the road.

5.  The Panthers do not put themselves a man short often on the road and do not spend a lot of time killing penalties.  Their 75 shorthanded situations faced on the road is fourth-fewest in the league, and only Ottawa and Toronto have spent less time shorthanded (108:58 and 115:42, respectively) than Florida (117:53).

1.  About that shorthanded ice time.  The Caps have spent more time killing penalties on home ice than any other team (158:37).  And, their 97 shorthanded situations faced on home ice are most in the league.

2.  On the other hand, the Caps have had 101 power play chances at home, second in the league (Nashville has 102).  And, their time with the man advantage at home (170:04) is second to Nashville (173:22).

3.  John Carlson has more points on home ice this season (27) than the other seven defensemen to dress combined (26).

4.  Only Ottawa, among Eastern Conference teams, has allowed more shots on goal on home ice (1,008) than the Caps (949).

5.  The Caps can get slopping obeying the rule book.  They have been charged ten or more penalty minutes in 21 games this season.  Only Edmonton and Philadelphia have done so more often (22 times apiece).

The Peerless’ Players to Ponder

Florida: Roberto Luongo

If Roberto Luongo gets the nod on Saturday, he will be appearing in his 1,029^th career game, tying Patrick Roy for second place in games played by a goaltender in NHL history, with only Martin Brodeur ahead of him (1,266).  He stands almost 200 games ahead of his nearest active pursuer in games played – Henrik Lundqvist (843) – and is the active leader in wins (482), losses (380), extra time losses and ties (120), goals against (2,468, the only active goalie with more than 2,000), shots against (30,448, the only goalie with more than 25,000), saves (27,980, the only goalie with more than 25,000). Despite the volume of rubber faced, Luongo is third among active goalies in save percentage (.919), trailing only Ben Bishop (.919) and Tuukka Rask (.922).  His 77 shutouts leads all active goaltenders (77), and he has played almost 10,000 more minutes (58,976) than the next active goalie in line (Lundqvist: 49,381).  More recently, he has improved of late after stumbling out of the Christmas break.  After going 0-4-0 (one no decision), 4.85, .832 in five appearances to end December and open January, Luongo is 3-2-0, 2.19, .921, in his last five appearances.  What Luongo has not yet done is win a game on the road in 2019 (0-4-0).  It has been an issue for Luongo.  Among 32 goalies with at least 750 road minutes played, Luongo is 31^st in goals against average (3.78) and last in save percentage (.881).  In 39 career games against the Caps, he is 21-12-3, 2.38, .924, with two shutouts. 

Washington: Jonas Siegenthaler/Christian Djoos

Consider two players this season:

• Player A – 28 games, 0-4-4, plus-6, 18 shots on goal, 13:13/game, 49.40 percent shot attempts-for at 5-on-5
• Player B – 25 games, 0-4-4, plus-7, 12 shots on goal, 14:00/game, 48.36 percent shot attempts-for at 5-on-5

Player A is defenseman Christian Djoos, while Player B is Jonas Siegenthaler.  Djoos has been out since mid-December with a leg injury in his sophomore season, while Siegenthaler has appeared in all of his games as a rookie since early November (20 of his 25 total since Djoos went out of the lineup).  Djoos is about to return to the club, and a decision is going to have to be made at some point who gets a sweater in Washington, who gets one in Hershey, or if the Caps carry eight defensemen.  It will not be easy, given that neither have been a noteworthy liability, the Caps with a 16-9-3 record with Djoos in the lineup (5-2-1 when he skated at least 14 minutes) and a 14-8-3 record with Siegenthaler in the lineup (8-3-1 when he skated at least 14 minutes).  According to capfriendly.com, the Caps have less than $500,000 in current cap space, so salary management is going to play a role here, as is the fact that Djoos is not waiver-eligible. Even as it seems likely Siegenthaler will be the player left standing in the game of Musical Chairs, his time in Hershey could be brief.  Not all the action at this time of year is on the ice.

UPDATE:  Siegenthaler has been re-assigned to the Hershey Bears.

In the end…

These teams are at similar places in terms of recent performance.  What this game might turn on is the venue.  While the Caps have struggled at times on home ice this season, they are tied with Nashville for the eighth-most points earned on home ice this season (36).  Meanwhile, Florida has the fifth-worst road record in the league.  Another reason why the Caps need to make hay while the sun shines on this long home stand.

Capitals 4 – Panthers 2

A TWO-Point Night: Washington Capitals -- Game 54: Capitals 4 - Avalanche 3 (OT)

The Washington Capitals escaped what could have been a demoralizing loss, weathered a two-goal comeback, and prevailed over the Colorado Avalanche in overtime, 4-3, at Capital One Arena. 

First Period

The Caps came into the game with the seventh-best record in the league when scoring first in games (19-7-0), so it was a good sign when Andre Burakovsky put the Caps on top in the seventh minute of the first period.  Michael Kempny got the play started when he kept a loose puck from exiting the offensive zone at the left point.  He fed it to Burakovsky, who circled around the top of the left wing circle before sliding the puck to Matt Niskanen at the top of the zone.  Niskanen moved the puck to T.J. Oshie at the top of the right wing circle.  After stepping up to draw the defense to his side, Oshie fed the puck in front where Burakovsky was crossing.  He re-directed Oshie’s feed past the right pad of goalie Semyon Varlamov, and the Caps had a 1-0 lead at the 6:31 mark.

Washington scored again on a power play late in the period, or so they thought.   Nicklas Backstrom gathered a loose puck in a manner reminiscent of Lars Eller’s Stanley Cup winning goal last spring, fishing it out from behind Varlamov and snapping it into the back of the net, but video replay showed that a referee’s whistle blew the play dead before Backstrom got the blade of his stick on the puck, and the goal was overturned.

-- Washington had a 12-9 edge in shots on goal, but Colorado out-attempted the Caps, 29-21.

-- The Caps had 14 blocked shots in the first period, eight skaters recording at least one and led by John Carlson (three).

-- Lars Eller was the only Capital winning a majority of his faceoffs (4-for-6), the team going 7-for-18 overall (38.9 percent).

Second Period

Colorado scored in the first minute to tie the game, Nathan MacKinnon taking a rebound off the back wall and banking the puck off the right skate of goalie Pheonix Copley at the near post and over the goal line.  The Caps challenged the play as being offside, but the referees, after consulting the video, declined to overturn the original ruling, and the Caps were put on a penalty kill as a result.

Washington regained the lead in the ninth minute of the period.  On a power play, an Alex Ovechkin drive was muffled, but not controlled by Varlamov.  The puck dribbled behind him, and as it was edging to the goal line, Evgeny Kuznetsov poked it home as he was being upended by Patrik Nemeth, the Caps up by a 2-1 margin 8:38 into the period.

-- Colorado had a 16-15 edge in shots for the period, but it was Washington with a 29-27 edge in shot attempts

-- John Carlson matched his first period total with three more blocked shots in the second period.

-- The Caps won 11 of 20 faceoffs in the second period (55.0 percent).

Third Period

The Caps extended their lead in the first minute of the third period on an odd goal.  A Jakub Vrana shot was stopped and leaked out to the right wing wall where Matt Niskanen jumped on it.  Wasting no effort, he snapped a shot at the Colorado cage where Varlamov got his blocker on it.  However, the puck deflected off the bottom of the blocker and into the far side of the net to give the Caps a two-goal lead 34 seconds into the period.

Colorado got that one back less than five minutes later with Gabriel Landeskog stretched out and poked the puck into the slot where Mikko Rantanen collected it, turned, and snapped a shot past Copley to make it 3-2 at the 5:10 mark.

Things got interesting mid-way through the period.  Ian Cole laid out Evgeny Kuznetsov in open ice, and Tom Wilson was having none of it.  He tore into Cole, raining Thor’s Hammer on and about Cole’s head and shoulders to remind him that taking such liberties have consequences.  Cole was assessed a major penalty for interference, a fighting major, and a game misconduct.  Wilson got an instigator and a fighting major.  Unfortunately, the Caps could not convert was would be an abbreviated major power play.

Failing to take advantage of that opportunity would haunt the Caps later.  Colin Wilson tied the game with less than three minutes in regulation when, as he was approaching the goal line extended to Copley’s right, he snapped a shot that ramped up off Copley’s stick and through the pads to make it a 3-3 game with 2:07 left.

Overtime

It was a back-and-forth affair in the extra session, and the game came down to a bit of justice and the sort of goal Caps fans will recall from happier times.  The game-deciding play started in odd fashion.  Dmitry Orlov shoved one Avalanche player into another behind the Capitals’ net, freeing the puck out in front to Alex Ovechkin.  He turned up ice and spotted Kuznetsov breaking out.  Taking the stretch feed from Ovechkin, Kuznetsov skated in alone on Varlamov and slipped the puck between the pads to end the contest 4:12 into the overtime.

Other stuff…

-- Evgeny Kuznetsov’s power play goal was his 27^th as a Capital, tying him with Joe Juneau for 30^th place on the franchise all-time list.

-- The two-goal game was Kuznetsov’s 11^th as a Capital and his second this season, the first one coming on Opening Night against Boston.

-- With an assist to go with his two goals, Kuznetsov recorded his second three-point game this season and first since he went 1-3-4 in a 5-2 win over the Vegas Golden Knights on October 10^th.  It was the 20^th three-point game in his career, tying him with Calle Johansson and Sergei Gonchar for 10^th place on the all-time franchise list.

-- Ovechkin springing Kuznetsov with a long stretch pass up the middle for a breakaway goal through the five-home in overtime.  Remind you of anything? ...

-- Ovechkin earned the primary assist on both Kuznetsov goals, his fourth two-assist game this season and 102^nd of his career, second in franchise history (Nicklas Backstrom: 144).

-- Matt Niskanen had a goal and an assist, his fourth two-point game this season and 28^th as a Capital.  Those points Niskanen recorded were his first points on home ice since he had an assist in a 6-3 win over the New Jersey Devils on November 30^th.  He snapped a 14-game streak without a point on home ice.

-- The 42 shots on goal recorded by the Caps is a season-high on home ice and the third game this season in which they had 40 or more shots on goal.  All three of those games have come in the last 15 days (44 in a 6-3 loss in Toronto to the Maple Leafs and 40 in a 4-3 win over Calgary Flames).  They are 2-1-0 in those games.

-- Brooks Orpik was the only Capital without a shot on goal (or a shot attempt, for that matter), but he did have five blocked shots.

-- Pheonix Copley ended a personal four-game losing streak (0-3-1).

-- Andre Burakovsky can smile.  His goal was his second in his last 20 games and his first in a home ice win since the win over New Jersey on November 20^th.

In the end…

This could have been a disastrous game for the Caps.  They blew a two-goal lead to a team that has been struggling and played with fire in allowing the game to go to a 3-on-3 overtime where Colorado’s offensively-skilled forwards can wreak havoc.  But the Russian troika came through in the end, Dmitry Orlov with a timely hit to free the puck, Alex Ovechkin picking it up and spotting a streaking teammate, and Evgeny Kuznetsov sending Caps fans home in a happier mood than it seemed they might when Colorado tied the game late.  But while there were ragged spots, not to mention quick whistles that negated goals and scoring chances for the Caps than might have made this a blowout, the team played a decent game against an opponent that almost slipped out with a win.  Two points are two points.  Take them, and move on.  Before the referees blow another whistle...

The Peerless Prognosticator is ON THE AIR!!! -- Game 54: Avalanche at Capitals, February 7th

The Peerless Prognosticator is ON THE AIR!!!

The Washington Capitals, winners of two of their last three games, try to make it consecutive wins for the first time in four weeks when they host the Colorado Avalanche at Capital One Arena on Thursday night.  The Caps, having played three straight one-goal games since returning from the All-Star Game break and bye, are 2-6-2 since winning three in a row from January 6 – 10.

If the Capitals have struggled over the last four weeks, the Avalanche are in free fall.  They will take the ice on Thursday in the midst of a four-game losing streak and are 7-16-4 since they ran off a six-game winning streak in late November that left them at the time with a 15-6-4 record, one point behind the Nashville Predators for the best record in the Western Conference.

That 7-16-4 record since November 29^th is the worst in the league since then, a product of the league’s most porous scoring defense (103 goals allowed).  And that starts with goaltending, which frankly, has been nothing for a highlight reel.  The appearances have been roughly split between two former Capital netminders, Semyon Varlamov with 16 appearances and Phillpp Brubauer with 13 (Pavel Francouz had two in that span, both of them losses).

Varlamov is 4-8-3, 3.50, .879, with one shutout in that span, and in only eight of his last 14 appearances has he allowed fewer than four goals.  It is not as if he is being pelted with rubber, either.  Varlamov has faced 28.8 shots per 60 minutes in his last 16 games after facing 31.9 shots per 60 minutes in his first 16 games, over which he posted a .927 save percentage.  Varlamov, now in his eighth season in Colorado after spending his first three NHL seasons in Washington, is second in franchise history among goaltenders, specifically Patrick Roy, in a variety of statistics:

• Games: 372 (Roy: 478)
• Wins: 176 (Roy: 262)
• Combined losses: 184 regulation and extra time (Roy: 205)
• Shots faced: 11,366 (Roy: 12,994)
• Saves: 10,404 (Roy: 11,924)
• Shutouts: 20 (Roy: 37)
• Save percentage: .915 (Roy: .918, minimum: 50 games)

In seven career appearances against Washington, Varlamov is 3-4-0, 2.31, .937.

Grubauer is in his first season with the Avalanche after establishing himself as perhaps the best backup goaltender in the game with the Caps.  He went to Colorado for the chance to contend for a number one spot, but things have not gone according to plan.  Unlike Varlamov, whose recent play is a substantial deterioration from his season start, Grubauer has struggled from the start in his underlying numbers, although his numbers are off even more lately.  After a 6-1-2, 3.06, .904 start in nine appearances, he is 3-6-1, 3.81, .877 in 13 appearances in the Avs’ 7-16-4 run.  His struggles have become only more acute of late.  In each of his last three appearances, all of them losses, he allowed at least five goals and stopped only 68 of 84 shots (.810 save percentage).  In his only appearance against the Caps to date, he dropped a 3-2 overtime decision on November 16^th.

Meanwhile, the top line in hockey (according to some) continues to drive offense for Colorado.  The trio of Gabriel Landeskog (14 goals), Mikko Rantanen (13 goals), and Nathan MacKinnon (nine goals) accounts for almost half (36) of the Avalanche’s 78 goals in their slide since late-November.  That this trio scores often, and that the team depends on them to produce are obvious observations.  Another, less obvious factor important to their and the team’s success has been their durability.  The three have combined to dress for all 52 games this season.  That is a bit unusual for this group in that over the five previous seasons that MacKinnon and Landeskog have played for the Avalanche, they have a total of three seasons between them in which they appeared in all 82 games (MacKinnon twice and Landeskog once), and never together in the same season.  Rantanen did not appear in an entire season’s worth of game in any of his three full NHL seasons preceding this one.

Here is the important thing to note about this trio.  In each of Colorado’s 22 wins this season, at least one of this threesome recorded a goal; 18 times in those 22 games at least two of them recorded goals.  In 14 games this season, none of the three recorded a goal.  Colorado is 0-12-2 in those games.  The moral is that while Colorado does not always win when they do score (22-10-6 when at least one of them records a goal), they never win when they don’t.  MacKinnon is 4-8-12, plus-1, in ten career games against the Caps; Landeskog is 5-7-12, even, in 12 career games against Washington; and Rantanen is 2-4-6, even, in four career games against the Capitals.

1.  Despite their 7-16-4 record in their last 27 games, Colorado is minimizing shots on goal.  The 804 allowed is the fifth-fewest in that span through Tuesday’s games.

2.  While the Avs have prevented shots, it has not mattered on their penalty kill.  Their 70.9 percent kill rate is worst in the league in their 27-game slide.  And, they have to deploy that penalty kill often, the 86 shorthanded situations faced being tied for seventh over that span.

3.  The penalty kill performance has been weak, but the power play has had its own issues.  In this 27-game stretch, Colorado has had more power plays, by far (112), than the team with the next highest total (Carolina: 97 in two more games played), 26 more power plays than shorthanded situations.  However, they have only 21 power play goals (18.8 percent) while allowing 25 power play goals.

4.  Only the Ottawa Senators have more major penalties (14) than Colorado (10, tied with Boston) in the Avs’ 27-game slump.

5.  Either Colorado plays games with extremely abnormal puck protection, or there are some odd scoring conventions in the games they play.  In their 7-16-4 stretch, the Avalanche have, again by far, the lowest combination of giveaways (178, second-fewest in the league in that span) and takeaways (147, fewest in the league).  The combined 325 turnovers is 14 fewer than the Vancouver Canucks (188 giveaways/151 takeaways).

1.  Do power play chances matter to the Caps?  To a point, yes.  In 17 games in which Washington has four or more power play opportunities this season, they are 12-5-0.  However, they are 3-3-0 when getting five or more chances.

2.  Minimizing shorthanded situations…good or bad?  The Caps are 9-5-1 when holding opponents to two or fewer power play chances.

3.  Suppressing shots on goal…good or bad?  The Caps are 3-4-1 when holding teams to 25 or fewer shots.

4.  Failure to get shots on goal…good or bad?  Washington is 9-5-0 when recording 25 or fewer shots on goal of their own.  By the way, only once this season did the Caps and their opponent record 25 or fewer shots.  The Caps had 19, and the Islanders had 25 in a 2-0 loss to New York on January 18^th.

5.  Let’s talk shorthanded goals.  Since 2005-2006, the Caps are 54-16-8 in games in which they recorded at least one shorthanded goal. 

The Peerless’ Players to Ponder

Colorado: Carl Soderberg

Carl Soderberg gets lost in the glow of the Avalanche top line, but one should not overlook the fact that with 17 goals, he has already established a new career high in just 52 games and at the age of 33 to boot.  Soderberg was something of a late bloomer, drafted in the second round of the 2004 entry draft by the St. Louis Blues, but not getting his first full NHL season until the 2013-2014 season with the Boston Bruins at age 27.  It was in that season that he established his previous career high in goals (16, matched last season with Colorado).  The odd part of his offensive contributions this season seems to be summarized by the adage, “it is better to give than to receive.”   Colorado is 8-5-2 in games in which Soderberg recorded at least one goal, but they are 9-2-2 in games in which he recorded at least one assist.  He has been more productive of late in goal scoring, posting seven in his last 13 games, including a hat trick, and an odd one at that (even strength, shorthanded, and empty net), including the game-winner in a 6-3 win in Toronto over the Maple Leafs on January 14^th.  Soderberg is 2-8-10, minus-1, in 14 career games against Washington.

Washington: Alex Ovechkin

When Alex Ovechkin recorded an assist on T.J. Oshie’s goal to open the scoring in the Caps’ 3-2 win over Vancouver on Tuesday night, he passed Sergei Fedorov as the top Russian-born point producer in NHL history (1,180).  It put him one point closer to 1,200 in his career, and it serves to remind that he is once and always locked up with Sidney Crosby in one race or another.  Now, it is which of these two will be the first to join Joe Thornton as the only active players with at least 1,200 points in their careers.  Ovechkin holds a three-point lead on Crosby, but Sid, given the nature of his position and responsibility, which involves a larger playmaking element, might be in a position to draft Ovechkin and reach the finish line first.  Not that Ovechkin has been slacking off.  He has 13 points (eight goals, five assists) in his last 14 games.  However, Crosby has 23 points in his last 18 games (seven goals, 16 assists). 

It would not be padding stats to add to that point total in pursuit of 1,200.  The Caps are 25-9-3 in the 37 games in which Ovechkin has at least one point this season, 3-9-3 in the 15 games in which he does not.  The Avalanche is one of the few teams against which Ovechkin struggles a bit.  In 17 career games against Colorado, he is 7-5-12, plus-1.  His 0.41 goals per game against Colorado is his second lowest goals-per-game among the 30 teams he has faced (Los Angeles: 0.29 goals-per-game in 17 games), and his 0.71 points per game is lowest among any NHL opponent he has faced.

In the end…

Colorado is a mess.  Worst record in the league over the last ten weeks, one road win in the last two months (1-7-1).  They cannot stop opponents from scoring, and their special teams are disappointing.  Neither goaltender is putting the team on his back and dragging it out of their malaise, and they are essentially a one-line team that doesn’t win if that line doesn’t produce.  The Caps are hardly on a roll, but at least they do have wins in two of their last three games, while Colorado has two wins in the last month.  Depending on whether goalie Braden Holtby was injured more seriously than it seemed at the end of Tuesday’s win over Vancouver, this could be a rather high-scoring affair.

Capitals 5 – Avalanche 3

The Peerless Prognosticator is ON THE AIR!!! -- Game 53: Canucks at Capitals, February 5th

The Peerless Prognosticator is ON THE AIR!!!

The Washington Capitals wrap up the first half of their season-long six-game home stand on Tuesday night when they host the Vancouver Canucks at Capital One Arena.  The Caps split their first two games of the home stand, beating Calgary on Friday night by a 4-3 margin and dropping a 1-0 decision to the Boston Bruins on Sunday afternoon to snap a 14-game winning streak against the B’s.

The home stand now enters a different phase.  Whereas the Flames and Bruins are among the upper tier of NHL teams, the four opponents against whom they will complete their home stand are either desperately hanging on to a playoff spot of hopelessly out of contention.  Vancouver is one of the former group, a club that went to bed on Sunday night two points ahead of the Colorado Avalanche (Washington’s next opponent) for the last playoff spot in the Western Conference and three points ahead of four other teams.

Vancouver ran off a six-game points streak (5-0-1) in early December to reach the .500 mark in standings points (16-16-4).  In the 16 games since then, they have struggled to find any momentum, winning consecutive games only twice in that span.   However, they have managed to scratch out points by forcing extra time.  Four of those 16 games went to an extra session (one of them to a Gimmick), the Canucks splitting them in posting an 8-6-2 record over those 16 games.  Those 16 games included a six-game road trip in which they went 3-3-0, all three losses by way of shutout.  A six-game home stand that followed was kinder, if barely, the Canucks going 3-1-2.  Vancouver opened a four-game road trip on Saturday with a 5-1 win over the Colorado Avalanche and will face the Flyers in Philadelphia on Monday night before visiting the Caps on Tuesday.

Now in his fifth NHL season, Bo Horvat is the current leader in goals scored for the Canucks over those five years with 89.  Having posted 18 in 52 games so far this season, he seems well on his way to a fifth consecutive season of improvement in his goal totals, starting with 13 in 68 games of his 2014-2015 rookie season up to 22 goals in 64 games last season.  He has been especially productive on the road, where he has recorded a dozen of his 18 goals in 27 road games through Sunday.  He has been in something of a slump lately, though.  He has only one goal in his last 14 games, and he has not scored a goal on the road since he potted one shorthanded in the last minute of regulation to tiethe Nashville Predators and send the game to overtime.  Nashville won, but the goal did gain a standings point for the Canucks that could prove valuable down the road, so to speak.  Horvat is 2-4-6, minus-4, in seven career games against Washington.

When people think of the Vancouver Canucks, no doubt the first players who come to mind are the Brothers Sedin – Daniel and Henrik – who retired after last season, each playing their entire respective 17-year careers with the Canucks.  A player who gets lost in the conversation is defenseman Alexander Edler, who is in his 13^th season in the NHL, all with Vancouver.  He is the all-time franchise leader in games played by a defenseman (795), second in goals (89), second in assists (265), first in points (354), first in shots on goal (1,755), and eighth in penalty minutes (531).  Edler is in the last year of a six-year/$30 million contract and has been the object of trade speculation.  On the other hand, his side has expressed interest in remaining with the club.  What makes the situation difficult for player and team is that he remains a productive defenseman in the offensive end, leading the club’s blueliners in goals (five, tied with Ben Hutton), assists (15, tied with Troy Stecher), and points (20).  He is also averaging a team-high 23:30 per game.  That must be weighed against the fact that he is somewhat injury prone.  He missed 15 games earlier this season with a sprained knee ligament, and he has not played in as many as 75 games in any season since he dressed for all 82 games for the only time in his career in 2011-2012.  Edler is 4-4-8, minus-2, in 13 career games against the Caps.

Four goalies have dressed for the Canucks this season, but when Anders Nilsson was traded to the Ottawa Senators with forward Darren Archbald on January 2^nd for goalie Mike McKenna (who was waived two days later and claimed by Philadelphia), center Tom Pyatt, and a sixth-round draft pick, the number one goaltending duties fell to Jacob Markstrom.  Since the trade, Markstrom has appeared in nine games, posting a 4-3-2, 2.74, .909 record, which is consistent with his career numbers with Vancouver and the Florida Panthers (2.82/.908).  Markstrom is 0-6-0, 3.44, .895 in six career appearances against the Caps.

However, the Canucks will be playing their third game in four nights when they visit Washington, and that raises the possibility that they will face Thatcher Demko, who has one appearance so far this season (second of his career), a 36-save effort in Vancouver’s 4-3 win over the Buffalo Sabres on January 18^th.  Demko, a highly-thought of prospect, has never faced the Caps.

UPDATE: Demko was injured in warm-ups before the game in Philadelphia last night.  Vancouver, which does not have a goaltender under contract in the AHL (Richard Bachman was lost for the season to an Achilles tendon injury), recalled prospect Mike DiPietro from the Ottawa 67's in the Ontario Hockey League, permitted under NHL rule covering such situations.

1.  Vancouver leads the league in penalty minutes per game (9:56), due in no small part to a whopping ten misconduct penalties, three more than the next team in line (Florida: 7).

2.  The Canucks are the only current playoff-eligible team in the league with a sub-.500 record in one-goal games (10-7-6/.435).

3.  The Canucks get scoring balance from their defense.  All eight defensemen to dress for Vancouver this season have points, and all but Alex Biaga (team-low 14 games played) have goals.

4.  Six of those eight defensemen have a “plus” rating, but Ben Hutton (minus-11) and Erik Gudbranson (minus-19)…yeesh.

5.  Vancouver has the worst shot attempts-for percentage at 5-on-5 of any team in the Western Conference (46.86 percent).

1.  The Caps seem to have lost their scoring touch at home, at least the consistent part of it.  In eight home games since New Year’s Eve, over which the Caps are 2-4-2, they have been held to one goal twice and shut out twice.  On the other hand, they have scored four or more goals three times.

2.  Only to teams in the league have more losses in regulation time when scoring two or fewer goals than the Caps (four) – Dallas has lost five such games and Arizona six.

3.  The Caps have only six losses in regulation this season when out-shooting opponents.  Only Anaheim has fewer (four).  On the other hand, the Caps have out-shot opponents only 19 times in 52 games (10-6-3).

4.  If Alex Ovechkin records a goal against Vancouver, he will join Mike Gartner (19), Peter Bondra (10), and Bengt-Ake Gustafsson as the only Caps to have scored ten or more career goals against the Canucks.

5.  John Carlson is the only Capital defenseman in team history to have appeared in at least five games against Vancouver and average more than a point per game (4-9-13 in 12 games).

The Peerless’ Players to Ponder

Vancouver: Elias Pettersson

At 6’2”/176 pounds, Vancouver rookie Elias Petterson has the type of “frame” that folks might project into a sturdy player down the road.  However, he has had injury issues this season that makes one wonder if he needs to grow into that frame a bit faster.  He lost six games to a concussion in October and another five games in January to a sprained knee.  Nevertheless, he has had a spectacular rookie season, leading all rookies in goals (23 to 12 for Tampa Bay’s Mathieu Joseph and Carolina’s Andrei Svechnikov), assists (23, tied with Buffalo’s Rasmus Dahlin), points (46 to 28 for Dahlin), plus-minus (plus-14 to plus-12 for Pittsburgh’ Marcus Pettersson), power play goals (six to five for Ottawa’s Colin White), power play points (13 to nine for Dahlin and Detroit’s Dennis Cholowski), and game-winning goals (seven to three for Tampa Bay’s Anthony Cirelli and Dallas’ Miko Heiskanen). 

As much as it is his leading in so many categories, it is that he does so over such a wide number of players across the categories.  The one number that stands out, though, is the points-per-game number: 1.12.  If he keeps up this pace, he will be just the sixth rookie since the 2005-2006 season to finish a full season playing in at least 41 games and averaging more than a point per game.  It is an impressive list: Alex Ovechkin (1.31) and Sidney Crosby (1.26) in 2005-2006, Evgeni Malkin (1.09 in 2006-20007), Connor McDavid (1.07 in 2015-2016) and Mathew Barzal (1.04 last season).  And, if he maintains his 20-plus shooting percentage (27.7 at the moment), he would stand alone among that group to finish his rookie season averaging more than a point per game with a shooting percentage over 20 percent.  That kind of performance can make one very tolerant of his “prickly” (or not) personality.  This will be his first appearance against the Caps.

Washington: Tom Wilson

By the time the season was 42 games along, Tom Wilson, who missed the first 16 games of the season to suspension, had 13 goals in 23 games played, putting him within one goal of his career high of 14 set last season in 78 games.  “Top Line Tom” was not only getting in the heads of opponents and their fans as a physical hockey player, but as a productive one as well.  The Caps were 11-1-0 in the 12 games in which he recorded goals over that stretch.  However, he has slowed down of late, and it corresponds to the struggles that the Caps have had over the last month.  In ten games since January 10^th, Wilson has one goal and a pair of assists despite getting more ice time (19:18 per game compared to the 17:44 he averaged in his 23-game start).  Typically, that goal came in a Caps win, the 4-3 win over the Calgary Flames last Friday.  Wilson’s next goal will be his 50^th in the NHL.  He is 4-0-4, plus-7, in nine career games against Vancouver.

In the end…

The Capitals are entering a portion of their schedule where they have to take advantage of forces in their favor.  Their next four games are on home ice.  They are against opponents who, through Sunday, had a combined record of 87-91-26 and were a combined 16-20-4 in their last respective ten-game segments.  Vancouver has the best recent record of that group (5-3-2), but they will dress two goaltenders who have a combined “zero” career wins against the Caps, and one of them has appeared in only two NHL games. It will likely be the first time that the Caps get a look at Elias “Death Stare” Pettersson, but the Caps have stared down tough opponents before.

Capitals 5 – Canucks 2

Washington Capitals: That Was The Week That Was - Week 18

Even with only one game on the schedule, Week 18 was a “week” for the Washington Capitals.  It was a good week, it was a perfect week, it was a week unlike any other preceding it this season (that “one game” thing).

It makes writing a summary easy, because if you want to know how the week went, you can go here. 

Just some thoughts…

-- That they won their only game of the week against the best team in the West – the Calgary Flames – would have been impressive enough.  That they did it without their captain (Alex Ovechkin was suspended under league rules for opting out of the All-Star Game) and losing their third-line center (Lars Eller) to injury having skated barely six minutes for the night made it more impressive.

-- The ornery manner in which the Caps finished the game against Calgary impressed as well.  Brooks Orpik, while a physical defenseman, does not often engage in fights.  Going into the game he had 15 regular season and two postseason fights in a 16-year career.  But he went toe-to-toe with Matthew Tkachuk (seven fights in four seasons going into this game) for a scrap in which he was viewed by some as winning a narrow decision.  What precipitated the dust-up might have been Nicklas Backstrom drilling Johnny Gaudreau into the back wall at the buzzer, perhaps some payback for an earlier collision.  Even goalie Braden Holtby waded into the scrum of players at the end, evening out the 6-on-5 advantage in skaters that the Flames had.  This was the “playing to the final horn” (and beyond in this case) that has been absent for the Caps disturbingly often this season.

-- There are times when it seems that Evgeny Kuznetsov can flip a switch and turn into “Uber (or the Russian translation) Hockey Player.”  There are also times that Caps fans wish he would flip that switch more often.  Nevertheless, it was in the “on” position against the Flames, the game-winning power play goal in the last minute and an assist earlier in the game to his credit.  What might have been at least as impressive was his ice time.  After skating 6:29 in the first period, head coach Todd Reirden leaned heavily on him after losing Lars Eller to injury.  Kuznetsov skated 10:00 in the second period and 8:07 in the third. Those two periods combined almost equaled his season average ice time (18:54).  The 24:36 in total ice time was a season and career high for a regular season game.

-- More evidence of playing to the final horn.  Calgary went into the game with a plus-39 goal differential in the third periods of games this season, by far the best in the league.  The Flames left the arena holding that same plus-39 goal differential, scoring a game-tying goal 12 minutes into the period, but yielding the Kuznetsov game-winner in the last minute.  The Caps thus avoided losing what would have been a league-leading fourth game in regulation when leading after two periods.

-- While it is nice to get that win coming out of the All-Star Game break and the bye, one should avoid getting too happy about it.  The Caps won their first game coming out of last season’s break, too, a 5-3 win over the Philadelphia Flyers.  However, the Caps staggered through a five-week post-ASG stretch in which they went 8-8-2 and did not win more than two consecutive games at any point in that stretch before peeling off a four-game winning streak in mid-March on their way to a 12-3-0 finish to the regular season.  Another reminder that it is a long season.

The Peerless Prognosticator is ON THE AIR!!! -- Game 52: Bruins at Capitals, February 3rd

The Peerless Prognosticator is ON THE AIR!!!

The Washington Capitals hit the ice for a Sunday matinee, hosting the Boston Bruins at Capital One Arena in a 12:30 start.  The Caps are fresh off a 4-3 win over the Calgary Flames, ending a seven-game losing streak and posting their first win on home ice in more than three weeks.  Meanwhile, the Bruins arrive in DC in a slump, losers of three in a row (the last two in extra time) and 2-3-3 in their last eight games, a slide that started with a 4-2 loss to the Caps in Boston on January 10^th.

That eight-game slump has been characterized by a clear divide in goaltending.  Tuukka Rask has both of the wins over those last eight games, posting a 2-0-2, 2.53, .917 record in five appearances (one no-decision).  At the other end, Jaroslav Halak is 0-3-1, 3.24, .850 in four games.  Rask has been hot of late, despite suffering a concussion in the Bruins’ 3-2 loss to the New York Rangers on January 19^th. He returned from that absence last Thursday, allowing three goals on 41 shots in a 3-2 overtime loss to the Philadelphia Flyers.  Nevertheless, Rask is 6-0-2, 1.90, .937, with one shutout in his last nine appearances.  If Rask gets the start, it will be conflicting forces at work, his recent success versus a long history of despair at the hands of the Caps.  He is 1-11-5, 3.30, .883, with one shutout in his career against Washington, including allowing five goals on 19 shots in 27 minutes of work in the Bruins’ 7-0 loss to the Caps on Opening Night, his only appearance against Washington so far this season.

As for Halak, what stands out about his play of late is that he gets so little work on the road.  He has only one road appearance among the eight he has had since shutting out Montreal in Montreal on December 17^th, a 4-0 Bruins win.  In that appearance he allowed four goals on 19 shots in a 4-3 loss to the Flyers in Philadelphia on January 16^th.  It is quite a turnaround from his early game log in which 12 of his first 19 appearances were on the road (nine of the Bruins’ last 11 games have been on home ice).  Halak is 9-10-0, 2.80, .900, with one shutout in 21 career appearances against the Capitals.

David Pastrnak is the latest entry in the “who is the next great goalscorer” sweepstakes.  He reached the 30-goal mark for the season – his third straight 30-goal season – when he potted a pair in the Bruins’ overtime loss to the Flyers last Thursday.  It was his first multi-goal game since November 26^th, breaking a string of 26 games without one (he did have nine goals over that span) after opening the season with five multi-goal games in his first 24 contests.  With his next goal he will become the fifth player in the league with at least 100 goals over the past three seasons, the others being Alex Ovechkin (119), Patrik Laine (105), Nikita Kucherov (101), and Connor McDavid (100).  Pastrnak is 3-4-7, minus-12, in 11 career games against Washington, that minus-12 being his worst plus-minus rating against any team in the league.

What the Bruins have not had much of in their eight-game slide is offensive contributions from the blue line.  Torey Krug is the only defenseman over that span to have recorded a goal, that being the goal to open the scoring in the Bruins’ 5-2 win over the St. Louis Blues on January 17^th, Boston’s last win coming into this game.  Krug has established himself as a reliable point-producer since his 2013-2014 rookie season in which he finished fourth in Calder Trophy voting as the league’s top rookie.  Starting with that season (14-26-40 – tops among rookie defensemen in all three categories – in 79 games), his 267 points ranks 12^th overall among defensemen, and he has posted consistently higher point totals over the four seasons preceding this one (39-44-51-59).  His 34 points in 40 games this season would put him on a pace for a fifth consecutive season of improvement, but he missed the first 11 games of the season with an ankle injury.  Krug is 0-4-4, minus-10, in 15 career games against the Caps.

1.  Boston has been shooting in bad luck in their eight-game slide.  Their 275 shots on goal are 13^th-most in that span, but their shooting percentage of 8.0 is third-worst in the league.

2.  No team in the Eastern Conference teams averages more penalty minutes (9:55 per game) than the Bruins (9:51).

3.  Boston has the third-fewest blocked shot total in the league (656), ahead of only Calgary (653) and Buffalo (632).

4.  A combination of statistics suggests that Boston can be a punishing team.  Only three teams in the league have more than 1,000 credited hits and more than 450 takeaways – Vegas (1,479/564), Carolina (1,330/554), and Boston (1,190/451).

5.  Despite their 2-3-3 record in their last eight games, the Bruins have the best shot attempts-for percentage at 5-on-5 over that span (57.24 percent).

1.  No team in the Eastern Conference has had more power play chances on home ice so far this season than the Caps.  Their 91 chances is tied with the Montreal Canadiens.

2.  On the other side, no team in the league has been shorthanded on home ice as often as the Caps (90), and only the Detroit Red Wings have allowed more power play goals on home ice (22) than the Caps (21, tied with three other teams).

3.  The Caps have the second-best shooting percentage on home ice among Eastern Conference teams (11.1).  Only Tampa Bay is better (13.4).

4.  Washington spends a lot of time chasing down pucks in the offensive end in one respect.  Only one team has more offensive zone faceoff losses on home ice than the Caps (307) – Boston (320).  The difference there is that Boston has 329 faceoff wins in the offensive end on home ice, while the Caps have only 262,

5.  Washington is 28^th in the league in shot attempts-for percentage at 5-on-5 on home ice (47.77 percent).

The Peerless’ Players to Ponder

Boston: Zdeno Chara

Defenseman Zdeno Chara broke into the NHL in the 1997-1998 season with the New York Islanders.  He dressed for 25 games that season but did not score a goal.  Nevertheless, since that season, no defenseman in the league has as many goals scored as Chara (198, two more than Shea Weber).  This season, though, the goal scoring has dried up some.  Since recording a pair of goals on October 25^th in a 3-0 win over the Philadelphia Flyers, Chara is without a goal, a streak of 22 games.  The last goal he scored on the road came in Game 2 of the season when he scored in a 4-0 win over the Buffalo Sabres, the only other game in which he has a goal this season (Chara scoring seems to have some relationship to Bruin shutouts this season). 

It is hardly surprising that as Chara nears his 42^nd birthday (March 18^th), his scoring has fallen off, but fallen off it has.  After posting nine straight seasons of 40 or more points between the Ottawa Senators and the Bruins (from 2003-2004 through 2013-2014, not including the abbreviated 2012-2013 season), he has not hit the 40-point mark in four seasons preceding this one and topped 30 points once (37 points in 2015-2016).   He has already missed 19 games this season to a knee injury, a likely contributor to his 3-4-7, even, scoring line in 32 games played.  While not quite the minutes eater he was earlier in his career, this season to date continues an unbroken string of seasons this century (since 1999-2000, in fact) in which he averaged more than 20 minutes per game (20:46 per game this season).  In 71 career games against the Caps, Chara is 7-19-26, plus-1.  Of note, Chara has scored only one regular season career goal in 34 games in Washington, that coming in a 4-3 overtime loss to the Caps on March 5, 2013.

Washington: Dmitry Orlov

Last season, Dmitry Orlov was second to John Carlson among Capitals defensemen in goals (10, to Carlson’s 15), points (31, to Carlson’s 68), and game-winning goals (two, to Carlson’s four).  He was a plus-10 and dressed for all 82 games.  He added another pair of goals and eight points in the postseason run to the Stanley Cup.  He was a solid top-four defenseman for last year’s champs.  This season, things have not gone nearly as well.  Orlov has appeared in all 51 games (the only Capitals defenseman to do so), but his 3-12-15, minus-11, scoring line his running behind last season.  He has struggled more since mid-December.  After recording an assist in a 4-3 win over the Buffalo Sabres on December 15^th to give him three points over a five-game span, Orlov is 1-2-3, minus-8, in 19 games.  That goal is his only goal over his last 34 games despite recording 38 shots on goal (2.6 percent shooting).  If Orlov is getting a lot of ice time, it might not be a good sign.  The Caps are 0-3-1 in the four games this season in which he skated more than 25 minutes.  In 16 such games in his career, the Caps are 5-7-4.  Orlov is 0-6-6, plus-6, in 17 career games against Boston.

In the end…

In physics, it is Newton’s First Law of Motion (an object in motion stays in motion unless acted upon by an external force).  In gaming, it is “bet the streak.”  Someday, an external force will act upon the Capitals-Bruins rivalry.  Someday, the bettor betting the streak will lose.  But 14 games?  In a row?  Since 2014? 

Make it 15.

Capitals 4 – Bruins 2

A TWO-Point Night: Washington Capitals -- Game 51: Capitals 4 - Flames 3

The Washington Capitals ended their seven-game losing streak on Friday night, defeating the Calgary Flames, 4-3.  Without getting too far ahead of ourselves, it was a potential preview of a series that might be played down the road.  It was the sort of hard-fought game one would expect to see in the spring, not necessary on the first day of February.

 First Period

Nic Dowd got the Caps off and running early in the first period when he was running in tandem with Devante Smith-Pelly through the high slot, redirecting a drive by John Carlson past Calgary goalie Mike Smith on the glove side to give the Caps a 1-0 lead just three minutes into the contest.

The Dowd goal stood up for almost 15 minutes before the Flames answered.  Mikael Backlund weaved his way through the neutral zone and across the blue line into the Caps’ zone, getting position on defenseman Jonas Siegenthaler.  Shielding the puck with his body, he got goalie Braden Holtby to bite on a fake draw to his forehand, and then he slipped a backhand past Holtby’s left pad to tie the game at the 17:37 mark.

Washington restored the lead less than two minutes later when Dmitrij Jaskin struck in the last minute of the period.  The Caps worked the puck around the back of the Calgary net and out to the left point to Brooks Orpik.  His drive to the net was blocked in front, and from a scrum in front of Smith, Jaskin jumped in and stuffed the loose puck past Smith to give the Caps a 2-1 lead with 35.7 seconds left in the period.

-- Calgary had a 31-19 edge in shot attempts, even though the teams had 13 shots on goal apiece in the period.

-- Washington had 19 credited hits in the period, four by Tom Wilson and three by Brett Connolly.

-- Lars Eller led the team with four shots on goal for the period.

-- John Carlson had three blocked shots.

-- The Caps had none of their shot attempts blocked in the period; they blocked 13 Calgary shot attempts.

Second Period

It did not take the Capitals a full minute into the second period to extend their lead.  Matthew Tkachuk could not get a handle on a loose puck in the defensive zone, and it was poke out of his reach by Evgeny Kuznetsov to Tom Wilson, who slid it over to Jakub Vrana on the left side.  Vrana sent the puck back to Wilson, and from the top of the right wing circle, Wilson wristed a shot past Smith’s blocker on the far side to make it 3-1 just 54 seconds into the period.

Less than two minutes later, Calgary shaved the Caps’ lead back to one.  Calgary worked the puck from low to high, and a T.J. Brodie drive from the top of the zone was tipped twice, the latter by Garnet Hathaway and past goalie Braden Holtby at the 2:17 mark of the period.

-- The Caps evened up the shot attempts through two periods at 48 apiece and held a 29-20 edge in shots on goal.

-- Washington had a 29-11 advantage in credited hits through 40 minutes and a 21-7 edge in blocked shots.

-- The Caps had three power plays in the period and recorded five shots on goal in six minutes with the man advantage.  No goals, though.

Third Period

Calgary might be the best third period team in the league, bringing an 80-41 third period goal differential into this game.  The Caps almost weathered the storm, killing off two Flames power plays in the first half of the period.  But the Flames got the equalizer in the 13^th minute, Elias Lindholm redirecting a Johnny Gaudreau drive past Holtby at even strength to make it a 3-3 game.

That is how the score remained until the last minute.  On a late power play, Evgeny Kuznetsov snaked his way through the neutral zone an over the blue line, crossing right to left.  Kuznetsov launched a shot across his body that beat Smith on the blocker side, inside the near post and under the cross bar to give the Caps a 4-3 lead with 56.2 seconds left in regulation. 

The Caps kept the Flames off the board as the clock ticked to zero, and as Nicklas Backstrom planted Johnny Gaudreau into the glass as time expired, the teams squared off, Brooks Orpik and Matthew Tkachuk the headline matchup.  Peace settled over the land, though, and the Caps’ seven-game losing streak was over.

Other stuff…

-- The win was just the Caps’ second against the Flames in their last five meetings in Washington.

-- Washington had a season-high 40 shots on home ice.  Twice they had 39 shots on goal, both in losses, to Arizona on Veterans Day and in overtime to San Jose on January 22^nd.

-- Brooks Orpik’s five-minute major for fighting was his first major penalty this season.

-- Evgeny Kuznetsov had a goal and an assist, his tenth multipoint game of the season.   He joins John Carlson (15), Alex Ovechkin (14), and Nicklas Backstrom (11) in double digit multi-point games this season.

-- Lars Eller left the game with a lower-body injury and did not return.  Unfortunate, since in 6:07 of ice time he had an assist, four shots on goal, and won three of five faceoffs.

-- The Caps out-hit the Flames, 34-14.  Tom Wilson led the team with six.

-- Dmitrij Jaskin recorded his first goal since December 8^th and posted his first goal as a Capital on home ice.  He also had four shots on goal, four hits, and three blocked shots in 11:48 of ice time.  He earned the game’s second star.

-- Chandler Stephenson started the game on the Caps’ top line with Nicklas Backstrom and T.J. Oshie in Alex Ovechkin’s absence (suspension).  He did not have a shot attempt in 15:22 of ice time.

-- Fifteen of the 18 skaters recorded at least one blocked shot, John Carlson leading the team with four.

-- Braden Holtby won his first game on home ice in more than a month.  He last won at Capital One Arena on December 27^th, a 3-1 win over Carolina.

In the end…

If yo are going to start the post-All-Star Game portion of the season, there is hardly a better way to do it than to grind out a win against one of the best teams in the league, missing your leading scorer, and losing a key forward in-game.  That is what the Caps did in as focused an effort as they have displayed in weeks.  The Caps played the game in a manner familiar to fans who remember how they marched through last spring’s postseason.  It could be a preview of things to come, both as the regular season winds to its end and in terms of a potential opponent in the spring.  It certainly did have a playoff air about it.

The Peerless Prognosticator is ON THE AIR!!! -- Game 51: Flames at Capitals, February 1st

The Peerless Prognosticator is ON THE AIR!!!

Bye-Bye “Bye Week.”  The Washington Capitals return to the ice on Friday night with no interest in picking up where they left off, aiming to end a seven-game losing streak  (0-5-2) when they host the Calgary Flames at Capital One Arena.

It will be a tall order, even on home ice, to defeat the Flames.  Calgary has the second-best record in the league (33-13-5/71 points) just five points behind the league-leading Tampa Bay Lightning.  They also have the best road record among Western Conference teams (16-9-0/32 points).  More recently, the Flames are among the hottest clubs in the league overall, going 11-1-2 in their last 14 games, the best record in the league since Christmas.

Johnny Gaudreau leads the club in goals (13) and overall scoring (25 points) since Christmas.  Those 13 goals top the league in that span, while his 25 points rank second to Chicago’s Patrick Kane.  Gaudreau has already posted 29 goals this season in 51 games, one off his career high (30 in 79 games in 2015-2016).  He also seems a good bet, with 73 points in 51 games, to top his best season points-wise, 84 points in 80 games last season.  It is already a career year for Gaudreau in other respects – even strength goals (24, tying his total in 2015-2016), game-winning goals (six, tying he total from 2015-2016), shooting percentage (17.8 percent so far this season), ice time (20:22 per game) and plus-minus (plus-20).  Going into Thursday’s games, only Tampa Bay’s Nikita Kucherov had more multi-point games this season (24) than Gaudreau (22, tied with Colorado’s Nathan MacKinnon and Mikko Rantanen).  He has had 17 multi-point games in his last 31 contests.  In nine career games against the Capitals, Gaudreau is 1-8-9, plus-1.

Since the 2013-2014 season, four defensemen have recorded at least 80 goals and at least 275 points.  Brent Burns, Erik Karlsson, Dustin Byfuglien, and Calgary’s Mark Giordano are the foursome.  Giordano might be the least known (not to mention appreciated) of the group.  This might be Giordano’s best season of his career.  His 11 goals does trail his career high of 21 substantially, but his 41 assists in 49 games is already a career best, and his 52 points are four short of the career high of 56 he posted in 2015-2016. His plus-29 leads all skaters going into Thursday’s games, and his 1.06 points per game lead all league defensemen.  Giordano leads all defensemen in three-point games this season with seven, three more than his closest competitors.  And when Giordano posts points, which is often, it matters.  Calgary is 21-5-3 in the 29 games in which he recorded a point, 11-7-2 in the 20 games in which he did not.  Giordano is 3-6-9, plus-2, in 13 career games against the Caps.

Calgary has been successful largely through filling the opponent’s net with pucks.  At the other end, goaltending has been an issue.  David Rittich is sixth in the league in save percentage (2.47) among 46 goalies with at least 1,000 minutes played and tenth in save percentage in that group (.918).  Those numbers have slipped since Christmas, though.  But his is an odd profile.  In ten starts since Christmas, Rittich had a goals against average of 2.77, almost a third of a goal per game higher than his season mark, and his .909 save percentage of .909 in that span is nine points lower than his season mark.  Nevertheless, he is 8-0-2 in those ten appearances.  Rittich has not lost a game in regulation since dropping a 2-0 decision to the Dallas Stars on December 18^th.

Mike Smith has even worse numbers, not that they have been very good this season.  Overall, he ranks 35^th of 46 goalies with 1,000 minutes in goals against average (3.04), and his save percentage of .888 is next to last in that group.  Since Christmas, though, Smith’s goals against average (3.26) has slipped, while his save percentage (.888) has shown no improvement.  Still, he is 3-1-0 in that span.

1.  Going into Thursday’s games, no team has scored more goals since Christmas than Calgary (63, tied with San Jose).  Their shooting percentage also leads the league in that span (14.6).

2.  Over that same period, no team has fewer credited hits than the Flames (186, 15 fewer than the Toronto Maple Leafs).

3.  The Flames can be loose with the puck.  Their 244 giveaways is most in the league since Christmas.  Then again, so is their 167 takeaways.  Scoring quirks?  Or Turnover-palooza in Calgary games?

4.  What Calgary has not been is an especially dominant team in shot attempts.  Since Christmas, their 49.64 percent in shot-attempts for at 5-on-5 ranks 17^th in the league, although they are more impressive when behind (56.80 percent.sixth).  So, don’t sleep on this team with a lead.

5.  The Flames have not done a good job coloring within the lines.  Since Christmas, their 139 penalty minutes rank third in the league (tops among Western Conference teams), and they are the only club in that time to have been charged with a match penalty (Sam Bennett).

1.  The Caps are 8-7-2 in their last 17 home games since a 2-1 loss to Columbus on November 9^th.  Among Eastern Conference teams, only Detroit (7-8-3) and Ottawa (7-7-2) have worse records over that span on home ice.

2.  In those 17 home games, the Caps have scored 51 goals and allowed 51 goals.

3.  Over those same 17 home games, only three teams have fewer shots on goal on home ice than the Caps (505): New York Rangers (482), Los Angeles (481), and Ottawa (478).

4.  No team has suffered more shorthanded instances on home ice than the Caps in their 17-game run. Their 60 shorthanded situations faced are two more than the Colorado Avalanche over that span.

5.  The Caps have eight goals scored in their last four home games.  They lost all of them, including the one game in which they scored six of those eight goals, a 7-6 overtime loss to San Jose in their most recent home game (January 22^nd).

The Peerless’ Players to Ponder

Calgary: James Neal

In his first ten seasons in the NHL, James Neal never posted fewer than 21 goals, and he recorded that total on only 40 games with Pittsburgh in 2012-2013.  He was among the better goal scorers over that decade, his 263 goals ranking 15^th in that ten-year span.  But, he was expendable, having dressed for four different franchises over those ten years—Dallas, Pittsburgh, Nashville, and Vegas.  After spending one season with the Golden Knights in last year’s inaugural season, he signed a five-year/$28.75 million contract as a free agent with the Flames.  It has not worked out well.  He started cold (three goals in his first 14 games) and slipped into the deep freeze thereafter (two goals in his last 35 games).  With five goals in 49 games he will struggle to reach double digits in goals if he does not pick up his pace.  His ice time has slowly been pared back as a result.  He averaged 15:55 in ice time per game over his first ten games, dropping to 15:10 in his next ten, 15:07 in his third ten-game segment, 15:23 in his next ten, and 14:14 in his last nine contests going into Friday’s game in Washington.  And ice time seems to be an indicator of success.  Calgary is 12-8-3 in the 23 games in which Neal skated at least 15:50, 21-4-1 in the 26 games in which he skated less than 15:50.  Neal is 10-5-15, plus-4, in 21 career games against Washington.

Washington:  Chandler Stephenson

Chandler Stephenson has yet to establish much of a footprint as an offensive player with the Caps.  In two full seasons with the club he has recorded 64 shots on goal in 113 games.  No player having appeared in at least 100 games over the last two seasons have fewer shots on goal (by way of comparison, even Brooks Orpik has 72 shots on goal in 103 games).  However, Stephenson does have 11 goals on those 64 shots for a respectable 17.2 shooting percentage.  It is not shooting that matters for Stephenson at this career juncture.  This season the Caps are 13-8-3 in the 24 games in which he recorded at least one shot on goal, 13-6-3 in the 22 games in which he did not.  Ice time matters, though, perhaps as an indirect indicator (the Caps perhaps able to roll lines in leading situations).  Washington is 8-3-0 when Stephenson skated more than 14 minutes, 14-9-4 when skating between 10 and 14 minutes, and 4-2-2 when skating under ten minutes.  Stephenson is looking for his first point against Calgary, going 0-0-0, even, in four career games against the Flames.

In the end…

Calgary is a team that can make an opponent pay dearly for making defensive errors, but on the other hand, it is also a very top-heavy scoring team.  Of their 190 goals, 101 come from four players, all topping 20 goals (Johnny Gaudreau (29), Sean Monahan (27), Matthew Tkachuk (24), and Elias Lindholm (21)).  It is more balance than the Caps have, though, considering that Alex Ovechkin’s 37 goals represents 22.0 percent of the team’s total, and his 57 points means he has a hand in more than a third of the team’s 168 goals (33.9 percent).  Can the Caps slow down the Flames’ “Big Four” and get some goal scoring support of their own from other players (given Ovechkin's absence for this gaem)?  This is the fault line upon which this game could be decided.

Capitals 4 – Flames 3