The Peerless Prognosticator is ON THE AIR!!! -- Game 72: Capitals at Lightning, March 16th

The Peerless Prognosticator is ON THE AIR!!!

When last the Washington Capitals skated on the ice sheet at Amalie Arena in Tampa, they were celebrating a Game 7 win over the Tampa Bay Lightning in the Eastern Conference final that sent the Caps to the second Stanley Cup final appearance in team history.  The win, a 4-0 shutout, completed a comeback from a 3-2 deficit in games, the third straight series in which the Caps found themselves behind in games at some point.  The rest, as they say, is history.  The Caps went on to win their first Stanley Cup, and the Lightning went home to ponder what might have been.

On Saturday night, we will get a glimpse of what might be as the Caps, the hottest team in the league, face off against the Lightning, with by far the league’s best record, in what might be a preview of a repeat of last season’s conference final.  Washington will go into the game with an 8-1-0 record over their last nine games since February 24^th, the best record in the league over that span.  On the other side, the Lightning are pursuing a record.  With 54 wins in 71 games, they are on a pace to finish the season with 62 wins, which would tie the 1995-1996 Detroit Red Wings for most in NHL history and make them only the third team in NHL history to finish a regular season with 60 or more wins (the 1976-1977 Montreal Canadiens had 60 wins).

There is nothing the Lightning do poorly.  It starts with having the best scoring offense in the league (3.82 goals per game).  The league had 13 players with 80-plus points through Thursday’s games, and the Lightning had three of them – Nikita Kucherov (115/1^st), Brayden Point (86/T-8^th) and Steven Stamkos (81/13^th).

Kucherov and Stamkos are names well known to hockey fans, Point somewhat less so.  It does not mean that his production should be considered surprising, though.  Now in his third NHL season, the former third-round draft pick (79^th overall in 2014), has displayed consistent and significant improvement in production.  He started in impressive fashion, finishing among the top ten in his 2016-2017 rookie class in goals (18/T-9^th) and points (40/8^th), despite appearing in only 68 games.  He improved on those numbers last season, finishing 32-34-66 while dressing for all 82 games.  His 12 game-winning goals led the league.  This season, he already has set a new career best for goals scored (38), assists (48) and points (86) in 69 games and could become only the fourth player in Lightning history to finish a regular season with at least 100 points (Kucherov has done it twice, including this season, and Vincent Lecavalier and Martin St. Louis each did it once).  He does score points in bunches.  With 11 games this season with three or more points, he trails only Winnipeg’s Mark Schiefele (13) and teammate Kucherov (17).  Point is 3-3-6, minus-3, in six career games against the Capitals.

Victor Hedman is not having quite the season he had last year (17-46-63, plus-32), but he is having a fine season nevertheless (9-36-45, plus-15, in 63 games).  If he records five more points, it will be his third straight season with 50-plus points, a club that has a single member among defensemen at the moment, San Jose’s Brent Burns.  Although he turned just 28 years old in December, Hedman is already arguably the best defenseman in Lightning history.  He has 25 more goals (91) than any defenseman in franchise history (Dan Boyle: 66), is more than 100 assists clear (318) of the second place blueliner (Boyle: 187), and has more than 150 points more (409) than the runner up in team history (Boyle: 253). The odd part of Hedman’s numbers this season is that the Lightning are an unremarkable team when he scores goals (5-4-0), but much better when he is setting up others (24-1-1 in the 26 games in which his points came only on assists).  Hedman went through a season-long six game streak without a point from February 12^th through February 25^th, but since then he has points in six of eight games and is 2-6-8 over that stretch.  In 33 career games against the Caps, Hedman is 2-11-13, minus-6.

In his first 56 appearances last season, goaltender Andrei Vasilevskiy went 40-12-3, 2.45, .925, with seven shutouts.  His path seemed clear toward backstopping the Lightning to a championship, but the tunnel was one of those wall paintings of a tunnel that Wile E. Coyote would run into in Road Runner cartoons.  He finished the regular season with a record of 4-5-0, 3.74, .884, and one shutout in his last nine appearances.  His postseason was similar, if not quite as severe, going 8-2, 2.20, .927 over the first two rounds, but then going 3-4, 3.16, .906 in the conference final against the Caps.  This season, Vasilevskiy has been brilliant once more as the regular season rolls toward its finish.  Of 38 goalies with at least 1,750 minutes played, he ranks fourth in goals against average (2.27), second in save percentage (.929), and is tied for second in shutouts (six, with Ben Bishop). 

The difference so far this season is his getting a lighter workload.  Through March 14^th last season, Vasilevskiy had appeared in 57 games and logged 3,352 minutes, both among the top five goalies in the league at the time.  This season, he has appeared in 45 games and logged 2,724 minutes.  The reason for the lower games and minutes played is a 14-game absence for a fractured foot in November/December, but it might prove to be a blessing in disguise if he is fresher for the postseason than he was last year.  He is 13-1-2, 1.77, .943, with three shutouts in his last 16 appearances.  Vasilevskiy is 3-4-2, 2.46, .920, with one shutout in nine career appearances against the Caps.

1.  Tampa Bay has not lost consecutive games in regulation since early November.  Since then, they are 41-8-3.

2.  The Lightning are the only team in the NHL that is a top-five team in both scoring offense (3.82 goals per game/1^st) and scoring defense (2.62/4^th).

3.  Tampa Bay is the only team in the league in the top-five on both sides of special teams.  Their 29.0 percent power play and 85.8 percent penalty kill are tops in both categories.

4.  The Lightning have 29 wins at home.  That is equal to or better than seven teams’ totals wins.  They have two losses in regulation in their last 23 games on home ice (19-2-2).

5.  Tampa Bay has lost only two one-goal decisions in regulation this season, both on the road (at Buffalo, 2-1, on November 13^th; and at Nashville, 3-2, on November 19^th).

1.  Over their 8-1-0 run, the Caps have outscored opponents, 37-21, tying them with Pittsburgh for the best goal differential over that period (plus-16).

2.  In that nine-game run, no team has more even strength goals than the Caps (30), and they also rank tied for fifth in power play goals scored (six).

3.  The Caps’ shot attempts-for differential at 5-on-5 ranks second in their 8-1-0 run (plus-130, second to Calgary with plus-134).  Their shot attempts-for percentage at fives ranks first (58.06).

4.  Washington has not scored fewer than three goals in any of their last nine games in going 8-1-0.  Only once in their last eight road games have they scored fewer than three goals, two in a 5-2 loss to Buffalo on February 23^rd.

5.  Over their last seven games, the Caps are 22-for-24 on the penalty kill (91.7 percent).

The Peerless’ Players to Ponder

Tampa Bay: Ryan McDonagh

After seven-plus seasons as a New York Ranger in which he was a largely dependable defenseman who drew the tougher matchups in the defensive end and contributed in the offensive end (averaging 8-30-38 per 82 games as a Ranger), he was shipped to the Tampa Bay Lightning at the 2018 trading deadline with J.T. Miller for Vladislav Namestnikov, Brett Howden, Libor Hajek, a 2018 first round draft pick, and a conditional 2019 second round draft pick.  His first experience with the Lightning did not go especially well.  McDonagh was 2-1-3, plus-1, in 14 games to close the regular season, and then he went 0-5-5, plus-2, in 17 postseason games. 

This season, he has returned to something resembling his profile with the Rangers – 8-28-36, plus-32 (second among all skaters), in 71 games.  That plus-minus number is interesting.  McDonagh was a minus-4 in a 6-5 win at home over Philadelphia back on December 27th.  Since then, he has had only two “minus” games in 17 home contests (both a minus-1).  However, in those 17 home games he has only two goals and two assists.  One cannot say his offensive production has been missed, given that Tampa Bay is 13-2-2 in those contests.  McDonagh is 2-17-19, plus-13, in 27 career games against the Caps.

Washington: Dmitry Orlov

The Capitals have had a lot of success recently, but it seems to have passed Dmitry Orlov by.  When last season ended, Orlov seemed on the brink of becoming a solid two-way defender for the Caps for years to come.  This year, while his assist total has remained solid, his goal scoring from the blue line has dried up.  The three goals he has this season in 71 games ties his lowest total for any of his six full seasons in the NHL, and he has not finished a season with fewer than six goals since he posted three in 54 games in the 2013-2014 season. 

Orlov went 16 games without a goal to start the season before recording a pair in a 5-2 win in Minnesota against the Wild on November 13^th.  He then went another 30 games without a goal before potting one in an 8-5 loss in Chicago to the Blackhawks on January 20^th.  He is now on a 23-game streak without a goal overall, and he has gone 46 straight games at home without a goal dating back to last season.  And, his ice time has been an indicator of success, or lack of it.  In the 26 games in which Orlov skated at least 22:20 this season, the Caps are 13-8-5, but in the 12 games in which he skated under 20 minutes, Washington is 9-3-0.  Orlov is 0-5-5, plus-1, in 17 career games against Tampa Bay.

In the end…

This is the first meeting of the clubs this season, but it will be the first of three meetings in the space of two weeks.  It almost has that playoff feel about it.  The Caps have had more than their share of success in Tampa, though.  They go into this game 5-1-2 in their last eight games there, outscoring the Lightning by a 27-22 margin.  And does not include the three wins in four games in Tampa during the postseason over which they outscored the Lightning, 16-7, capping it off with the 4-0 shutout that sent the Caps to the Stanley Cup finals.  Memories are long in hockey, especially when one comes out on the losing side of the ledger in high-stakes games.  As if Tampa was not simply good enough to make the Caps’ evening difficult on Saturday night, there might be some message sending they would like to provide to the visitors.  We think the Caps will mark it “return to sender.”

Capitals 4 – Lightning 3

The Peerless Prognosticator is ON THE AIR!!! -- Game 71: Capitals at Flyers, March 14th

The Peerless Prognosticator is ON THE AIR!!!

The Washington Capitals continue the Pennsylvania leg of their four-game road trip on Thursday night with a visit to Philadelphia to face the Flyers at Wells Fargo Center.  The Caps will be looking to repeat the result they achieved on March 6^th, when they beat the Flyers, 5-3, on that ice sheet.  From the other side, the Flyers will be trying to keep their flickering playoff hopes from being all but extinguished with a dozen games left in the season.

The Flyers have done their best to keep those dim playoff hopes from winking out, going 6-1-1 over their last seven games since February 23^rd.  Over those eight games, the Flyers outscored their opponents, 33-22.  The 13 standings points they have earned in that span are one off the league best in that span, a total shared by four teams (although the Flyers have played one fewer game than all four of those teams).

What the Flyers have done in their successful run of late is get dependable goal scoring from a core of players.  Of the 33 goals scored by the team over those eight games, four players have four or more and account for more than half the total (17).  James van Riemsdyk leads that group with five, while Travis Konecny, Travis Sanheim, and Sean Couturier have four apiece.  Couturier, who until last season had never recorded more than 15 goals in any of his first six NHL seasons (all with the Flyers), has demonstrated that last year’s 31-goal season was no fluke.  He goes into this game with 28 goals in 67 games and is on a pace (33) to set a new personal record.   His record over his last 27 games has been amazing – 13-23-36, plus-20, since January 8^th, and he has not had consecutive games without a point in that span of games.  It might the helpful to watch Couturier closely when the Flyers have a power play.  He has five of his six power play goals this season on home ice.  In two games against the Caps this season, Couturier is without a goal, but he does have four assists.  He is 6-13-19, plus-10, in 27 career games against the Caps.

Claude Giroux leads the team in points in their eight-game run (3-9-12).  Giroux has spent more time in a Flyers uniform – 807 games – than all but three players in franchise history (Bobby Clarke: 1,144 games and Bill Barber: 903 games).  His next goal (his 235^th) will tie Rod Brind’Amour for tenth place on the Flyers’ all-time goal scoring list.  Only Clarke stands ahead of him in assists (852) as a Flyer (Giroux has 516), and Giroux is fourth in points (750) in Flyers history.  If this season pales some compared to last year, it is because he had a career year in 2017-2018. He had his first 30-goal season (34), his first season with more than 65 assists (68), and posted his first 100-point season (102).  As it is, Giroux has already reached the 20-goal mark for the seventh time in his 12-year career and is on pace to finish with 87 points, which would be his fourth season topping 85 points.

Carter Hart is expected to return to the Flyers’ net Thursday for the first time in three weeks after suffering an ankle injury in a 5-1 loss to the Montreal Canadiens.  Including that game, the Flyers are 6-2-1.  In Hart’s absence, Brian Elliott and Cam Talbot combined for a 2.71 goals against average and a .919 save percentage, slightly better than the 2.79 and .917 that Hart has compiled in his 22 appearances to date.  However, Hart is the goalie of the future, especially given the fact that Elliott will turn 34 years of age next month, and Talbot will turn 32 years old in June.  Both are unrestricted free agents after this season.

Hart is going to be trying to get back on the ice a more efficient and effective goaltender than he was leading up to his injury hiatus.  In his last five appearances, including the one in which he was injured, he was 2-3-0, 4.50, .876, and was pulled ten minutes into his last appearance before the one in which he was injured after allowing three goals on nine shots against Tampa Bay.  If there is one thing that can be said of Hart, it is that as a rookie, he has not leaned on the friendly confines of home ice to build a disproportionately fine record.  However, he has been sheltered to an extent by his coaches so that he does not get a lot of road action.  He is 10-4-1, 2.76, .919 at home this season , while he is 3-4-0, 2.89, .911 on the road.  This will be Hart’s first appearance against Washington.

1.  The Flyers have a winning record at home this season at 18-13-4, but they are under water in goal differential, scoring 107 goals but allowing 111 at Wells Fargo Center.  Part of their problem is that in the East, only Columbus has lost more games by three or more goals on home ice this season (ten) than the Flyers (seven, tied with Montreal and Pittsburgh).

2.  The Flyers have a weakness on the penalty kill on home ice.  At 77.0 percent, they rank 24^th in the league and have the third-worst penalty kill in the East, better only than Pittsburgh (74.7 percent) and Detroit (74.5 percent).

3.  Philadelphia leads the league in faceoff winning percentage on home ice (56.9 percent), two full pints better than Toronto (54.9 percent).

4.  If a shorthanded goal is going to be scored, chances are that the Caps will score it.  The Flyers have allowed five shorthanded goals at home this season while scoring only one (Michael Raffl, on February 9^th against Anaheim).

5.  The Flyers remain an ornery team in one respect.  No team in the NHL has logged more misconduct penalties on home ice this season (three ten-minute and two game misconducts).

1.  When the Caps allowed the Penguins five goals on Tuesday night it broke a string of four games against Metropolitan Division teams on the road in  which the Caps allowed opponents three or fewer goals.  After allowing 13 goals in their first two road games against Division opponents, the Caps have averaged allowing 2.56 goals per game in Metropolitan Division road venues.

2.  The Caps have taken 126 minor penalties on the road this season, third-most among Eastern Conference teams (Tampa Bay: 131; Carolina: 130).

3.  Only the New York Rangers among Eastern Conference teams has spent more time shorthanded (202:27 in 33 games) than the Caps 196:16 in 35 games).

4.  Scoring road power play goals does not seem to be a prerequisite for playoff eligibility.  The Caps have scored 16 power play goals on the road this season.  Five teams have scored fewer, and two of them are playoff eligible (New York Islanders: 15; and Nashville: 14), while the lurking Flyersand Montreal have 13 apiece.

5.  The Caps have steadily improved their possession numbers over the second half of the season so that they now rank 14^th in shot attempts-for percentage at 5-on-5 (49.18).

The Peerless’ Players to Ponder

Philadelphia:  Travis Konecny

Sean Couturier has been a man on fire lately, but in terms of goal scoring on home ice this season, he is the only player with more goals at Wells Fargo Center (15) than Travis Konecny (14).  He is one of those players who flies under the radar for this club.  Consider that over his three NHL seasons, only Claude Giroux and Jakub Voracek have appeared in more games (233 and 230, respectively) among forwards than Konecny (220).  His 57 goals in that span is topped only by Voracek (58), Giroux (68), and Couturier (73) among active Flyer forwards.  Only Couturier has more game-winning goals (12) among active forwards over the last three seasons than Konecny (nine).  Only Giroux has more overtime goals (four) than does he (three).  And, he has done this while averaging less than 15 minutes a game (14:44), eighth among 19 Flyer forwards appearing in at least 50 games over the last three seasons.  He comes into this game on a nice run of late, going 11-9-20, plus-8, in his last 22 games overall.  Konecny is 6-5-11, plus-5, in his last 12 games on home ice.  In nine career games against Washington, Konecny is 2-0-2, plus-1.

Washington: Nicklas Backstrom

Nicklas Backstrom recorded the first multi-point game of his career in Philadelphia on November 23, 2007, posting a pair of assists in regulation before potting the game-winning goal 1:55 into overtime to stop a five-game losing streak and make Bruce Boudreau a winner in his NHL coaching debut.  It also happened to be Backstrom’s 20^th birthday.  Nicklas Backstrom has since been among the most consistent players in the NHL, and he is on the brink of hitting some marks that bear that out.  He has 18 goals and with two more would hit the 20-goal mark for the fourth straight season and sixth time in his career. His next assist will be his 50^th, the sixth straight time and ninth time in 12 seasons he will have reached that mark.  Backstrom needs three points to hit 70 points for the sixth straight season and ninth in his career. 

Over the 12 seasons in which he has been in the NHL, Backstrom ranks 11^th in points per game with 0.98 points per game played (minimum: 250 games).  That is more than John Tavares (0.94), more than Joe Thornton (0.92), more than Jonathan Toews (0.87), more than Tyler Seguin (0.86).  That 0.98 points per game is just a tick better than what he is averaging this season (0.97), despite getting largely second line responsibilities.  No player in that span has more assists than Backstrom (639) over his 12 seasons in the league.  He goes into this game 5-6-11, plus-5, over his last eight games and has four multi-point games in that run.  Backstrom is 18-35-53, plus-13, in 43 career games against the Flyers.

In the end…

The trick for any successful team is to keep a loss from becoming a losing streak.  This is something that the Caps have been very adept at over the last seven weeks.  Washington has not lost consecutive games since the All-Star Game break and has gone 14-5-1 in that stretch.  The key to that here might be to button up a defense that allowed four goals (plus one into an empty net) after not allowing as many as four goals in any of its previous six games (a total of nine).  That will be a tall order against a club that has 53 goals scored in its last 14 home games, seven of those games finishing with four or more goals for the Flyers.  It does not get easier.

Capitals 5 – Flyers 3

A NO-Point Night: Washington Capitals -- Game 70: Penguins 5 - Capitals 3

The Washington Capitals and the Pittsburgh Penguins renewed their rivalry on Tuesday night at PPG Paints Arena in Pittsburgh. The Caps dominated for most of the game, but a two-minute collapse in the second period was enough to do them in, 5-3, breaking their winning streak at seven games.

First Period

The Capitals enjoyed a power play before the game was a minute old, but nothing came of it, and for good (meaning: “bad”) measure, they took a penalty of their before their own power play expired.  The Caps killed off the ensuing power play, and the teams resumed their full strength version of animosity.

There was a scary moment not long after when T.J. Oshie and Brian Dumoulin were tangled up behind the net, Oshie went down, and the back of Dumoulin’s skate clipped Oshie in the jaw.  Oshie stayed down for a seven count, but he got up, and the teams resumed their mutual annoyances.  The period hummed on with the low crackle you might find if you walked past a power transformer, until the last minute.  And then…

Jakub Vrana fed Oshie cruising down the middle in the neutral zone.  Gaining the offensive blue line, Oshie laid off the puck to Vrana just inside the blue line.  Vrana fed the puck to a trailing Nicklas Backstrom, who fed it right back to Vrana.  Collecting the feed at the top of the right wing circle, Vrana settled the puck and then wristed a shot over goalie Matt Murray’s left shoulder to make it 1-0 at the 19:27 mark.  Michal Kempny almost snuck a shot through Murray’s pads on a rush in the dying seconds of the period, but 1-0 is how the teams would go to intermission.

-- The teams halved 18 shots evenly, but the Caps dominated the shot attempts, 24-13, a product of tilting the ice to a severe angle toward the Pittsburgh end in the last half of the frame.

-- Vrana and Oshie led the team in shots on goal with two apiece, while Alex Ovechkin had five shot attempts (two blocked, three misses).

-- The first period was one of those periods in which one wonders…physical game or generous scoring, because the Pens were credited with 16 hits, the Caps with 13.

-- Another period of no Caps over 50 percent on draws.  They did have three players – Backstrom, Lars Eller, and Tom Wilson – at 50 percent, though.

Second Period

The Caps found themselves behind the eight-ball early, Ovechkin charged for a high-sticking minor barely 90 seconds into the period, although it looked as if it might have been a case of his stick lifted into the Penguin player.  The Penguins could not, however, convert that opportunity. 

There would be no more excitement until the teams reached the mid-way point of the period.  It was then that Jakub Vrana wrong-footed a shot from the right wing circle that Murray got a piece of, but the puck popped up and over his back, settling on the ice behind him.  He just managed to get his skate on it enough to kick it all the way into the net, and the Caps were up, 2-0, 10:24 into the period.

And thus we had the two-goal lead, the most dangerous lead in hockey.  Well, the shortest, anyway.  The Caps gave up the lead on goals 47 seconds apart.  Jake Guentzel got one, and Sidney Crosby got the other.  They do that, and the game was tied 13:24 into the period.

Nicklas Backstrom then took a tripping penalty, and Pittsburgh had their third power play of the evening.  The third time was the charm, Crosby getting his second goal of the night to put the Penguins up, 3-2, 14:25 into the period.  There was no further damage, but there was much damage for the Caps to repair as the teams went to the second intermission.

-- Three goals in 1:48 negated 32 minutes of pretty fine play by the Caps to open the game.  It seems that happens a lot between these teams.

-- Weird stat through two periods.  The Caps had five blocked shots.  Four of them were shot attempts by Evgeny Malkin.

-- Tom Wilson had almost a third (seven) of the Caps 24 credited hits through 40 minutes.

Third Period

There teams skated without incident over the first four minutes of the period, but Tom Wilson and Erik Gudbranson disagreed on whether fries should go ON the sandwich or be a side, and they went to their respective penalty boxes at the 4:06 mark.

Then, after hitting the post or crossbar for the 3,928^th time in this game, the Caps took a too-many-men  on the ice penalty to put the Penguins on a power play 10:33 into the period.  The Pens converted the man advantage, courtesy of Phil Kessel, at he 11:56 mark.

The Caps were beneficiaries of a Pens too-many-men penalty put the Caps on a power play late, and the Caps inched back to within a goal.  An Alex Ovechkin drive was kicked out by Murray, but into the left wing circle where John Carlson was camped out.  Carlson wasted no time swatting the puck behind Murray before the goalie could square up, and it was 4-3 at the 14:02 mark.

Pittsburgh wrapped up the scoring with an empty net goal by Jared McCann in the last minute, putting an end to the Caps’ winning streak at seven games, 5-3.

Other stuff…

-- Alex Ovechkin’s assist on the John Carlson goal was his 1,200^th point in the NHL.  He became the 49^th player in league history to reach that mark and tied former Cap Dino Ciccarelli on the all-time list.  He is third among active players in points, trailing only Joe Thornton and Sidney Crosby.

-- Jakub Vrana’s goal was his 20^th, the first time in his career he reached the 20-goal mark.  He is the 66^th player in Caps history to record at least one 20-goal season for the club.

- Sidney Crosby’s power play goal broke a string of 18 straight power plays killed off by the Caps over five-plus games.

-- Washington out-shot Pittsburgh, 41-30, and they out-attempted the Pens, 74-46.  That’s right… 74-46.

-- The teams combined for 76 hits, the Pens with 42 and the Caps with 34.  Sixteen of the 18 Penguin skaters were credited with at least one.

-- Nicklas Backstrom was the only Cap taking at least two faceoffs who was over 50 percent on draws (9-for-16).

-- Evgeny Kuznetsov was charged with one giveaway.  It sure seemed like more.

-- Alex Ovechkin had 13 shot attempts, five shots on goal, and eight hits.  He showed up to play.

-- Jakub Vrana’s two-goal night was his fourth as a Capital. 

-- This was the fifth time in his last nine appearances in Pittsburgh that Braden Holtby allowed four or more goals to the Penguins.

In the end…

It is said often that hockey is a 60-minute game.  That is usually invoked when a team gives up a late lead to lose.  But sometimes, the critical lapse comes buried somewhere in the middle of the game.  Over the first 58 minutes, until they pulled their goalie, the Caps played well enough to win and even dominated in places in 56 of those minutes.  But there was that two-minute stretch in the second period when the Pens wiped out a 2-0 Caps lead and took the lead for themselves.  If it was against the St. Louis Blues or the Nashville Predators, a Caps fan might be disappointed, but they might also shrug it off with a “that happens.”  That it happened in Pittsburgh against the Penguins it what makes it sting, and it shows that this rivalry still matters.  Remember than when these teams meet again next month when the stakes are higher, as we suspect they will.

The Peerless Prognosticator is ON THE AIR!!! -- Game 70: Capitals at Penguins, March 12th

The Peerless Prognosticator is ON THE AIR!!!

The Washington Capitals embark on their penultimate road trip of the season this week, and where better to start it than a trip to Pittsburgh to take on the Penguins?  Tuesday’s meetings of the clubs will be the fourth and final meeting of the regular season.  In the three games to date, the Caps have a 1-1-1 record, all three games settled by a single goal.  If history is a guide, the game in Pittsburgh will feature wide open offense.  In the last six games in Steel City, the winning team had six or more goals four times (the Penguins in each instance), and the teams combined for 55 goals, the Pens enjoying a 31-24 margin.

If the Caps are going to end this trend, this club seems best positioned to do it, going into the contest on a seven-game winning streak and allowing only 14 goals in the process.  Meanwhile, Pittsburgh is slowly cementing their place in the postseason.  The Pens are 5-1-1 in their last seven games, including a win over the Boston Bruins on Sunday night that ended the Bruins’ points streak at 19 games, pushing them into third place in the Metropolitan Division and four points clear of the ninth-place Montreal Canadiens in the Eastern Conference playoff race.

Pittsburgh has been a good, if not especially dominant team on home ice this season.  They are one of 11 teams with 20 wins on home ice, but their 20-12-2 record is tied for 12^th in standing points earned with four other teams.  The 117 goals scored on home ice ranks ninth in the league.  Of that goal total, Jake Guentzel has 18, far and away the leading goal scorer for the club on home ice this season (five more than Phil Kessel).  He certainly has a knack for finding the back of the net, dating back to his days at the University of Nebraska-Omaha, where he posted 42 goals in 108 games over three seasons.  He moved up to record 23 goals in 44 games over two seasons with the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguins in the AHL.

Guentzel has not missed a beat with the big club, putting up 72 goals in 191 games over three seasons.  His 34 goals this season shattered the career-best he recorded last season (22).  He has been clutch, too, posting another 23 goals in only 37 postseason games with the Pens, seven of those being game-winners.  He will bear watching in this games, since the Pens are 9-2-2 in the 13 games in which he scored a goal on home ice this season.  That includes a pair of goals against the Caps in a 7-6 overtime win in the Pens’ season opener on October 4^th.  Guentzel is 2-4-6, even, in eight career games against Washington.

Injuries have plagued the Penguin defense this season.  Of the 69 games played by Pittsburgh to date, only three defensemen have dressed for 60 or more games, and only one – Jack Johnson – has dressed for all of them.  Johnson is among the more controversial free agent signings in recent years, if by “controversial,” one means “what were they thinking?”  What would possess a team to sign a 31-year old defenseman to a five-year/$16.25 million contract, coming off an 11-point season (in 77 games) with a career plus-minus rating of minus-109 and iffy performance metrics?  Surely, Pens fans had issues with the deal. 

One thing that Johnson could provide, and has provided, is durability.  In each of his first 11 seasons he averaged more than 20 minutes per game and more than 23 minutes per game in the 711 games in which he appeared.  Last season, his last of seven seasons with the Columbus Blue Jackets, was the first in which he dipped below 20 minutes per game (19:33).  But he remains a comparatively weak possession player, continuing an uninterrupted string of seasons in his NHL career under 50 percent in shot attempts-for percentage at even strength and in minus relative Corsi-for at even strength for the 12^th time in 13 seasons.   And, his plus-minus at the game-to-game level is a confirming indicator of success in that the results are unsurprising.  Pittsburgh is 20-0-2 in the 22 games in which he was a plus player, 3-15-4 in the 22 games in which he was a minus player.  Johnson is 5-9-14, minus-4, in 27 career games against the Caps.

Matt Murray fits squarely in the middle of the rankings of NHL goaltenders this season.  His 2.77 goals against average ranks 17^th among 35 goalies with at least 1,750 minutes played, and his .917 save percentage ranks ninth in that group.  Those numbers square with his career 2.63 goals against average and his .917 save percentage.  But he has had his ups and down.  Six times in 38 appearances he allowed five or more goals, while 11 times he has allowed one or fewer, including four shutouts that ties a career high. 

If Murray gets the call for this game, it will be his 150^th NHL game, and he will become the eighth goaltender in Penguin history to reach that mark.  He already ranks fourth on the all-time franchise list in wins (91), despite this being only his fourth season with the club.  That .917 career save percentage ranks first in franchise history among Penguin goalies with at least 50 games played, and his 2.63 goals against average ranks third in that group, behind Marc-Andre Fleury (2.58) and Brent Johnson (2.61).  Murray has been hot over the last month, going 8-2-2, 2.37, .932, with one shutout in 12 appearances.  On the other hand, his home record this season leaves something to be desired.  He is 10-8-0, 3.26, .902, with two shutouts on home ice this season.  In ten career appearances against the Capitals, Murray is 6-4-0, 3.62, .885.

1.  Pittsburgh has had some odd struggles with numbers at home.  The 106 goals allowed is sixth-most on home ice this season, and they have been out-shot at home, 1168-1117.

2.  The Pens have an odd special teams double.  They have the fifth-worst penalty kill on home ice this season (75.3 percent), and no team has allowed more shorthanded goals against on home ice (seven).  On the latter number, they also have seven shorthanded goals scored on home ice, second most in the league.

3.  Pittsburgh has taken 11 major penalties on home ice this season.  Only Boston has taken more on home ice (16).

4.  Has Pittsburgh become a “heavy” team, or are they getting the benefit of generous hometown scoring?  Whether one or the other, they have been credited with 1,163 hits this season on home ice, most in the league, and by a wide margin (Vegas has 1,101 in one more game played).

5.  No team has recorded fewer one-goal decisions on home ice this season than the Pens.  They have done so nine times (tied with Columbus and Los Angeles) and have posted a 5-2-2 record in those games.  They have won four of their last five one-goal decisions at home, two of them in overtime.

1.  The Caps have 11 decisions by one goal on the road this season, tied for fifth-fewest in the league.  They are 9-0-2 in those games, including a 7-6 overtime loss to the Pens in October.  They are one of four teams this season not to have lost a one-goal decision in regulation on the road.

2.  Washington could stand to be tighter with the puck on the road.  They have been charged with 377 giveaways away from home, second-highest total in the league (Florida: 399).

3.  Only Tampa Bay has a better shooting percentage on the road this season (11.0 percent) than the Caps (10.9 percent).

4.  Only Los Angeles and Dallas have had fewer power play chances in road games (84 apiece) than the Caps this season (85).

5.  Washington has 94 even strength goals scored in 34 road games, the second-highest total of even strength goals scored on the road this season (Toronto: 97).  Only Carolina and Nashville have more empty net goals scored on the road (eight and nine, respectively) than the Caps (seven, tied with three other teams).

The Peerless’ Players to Ponder

Pittsburgh: Phil Kessel

Phil Kessel is one of the top goal scorers of his era.  Since he came into the league in the 2006-2007 season, he is one of ten players with 350 or more goals, tied for ninth on the list with Chicago’s Patrick Kane (352).  Only three players over that span have more seasons with at least 30 goals than Kessel (six): Alex Ovechkin (13), Sidney Crosby (eight), and Jarome Iginla (seven).  The odd part of all of that goal scoring prowess is that Kessel has never had a 40-goal season, hitting 37 goals twice, in 2011-2012 and in 2013-2014, both with Toronto.  The strangeness extends to his stay in Pittsburgh.  He is on a pace to finish this season with 26 goals, which would make three seasons in four that he did not reach the 30-goal mark. 

But dig a bit deeper into those numbers.  What he has sacrificed in his goal totals, he has more than made up for in his power play assists.  His next power play helper will be his 20^th this season and would give him three straight seasons with 20 or more power play assists.  Before that streak, he never had more than 17 power play assists in 10 seasons.  That puts him in a position to finish the season with at least 70 points (he has 68), which would be the fifth time he topped that number and the third with the Penguins.  He has had some problems lately, though, going 1-10-11, minus-8, over his last 18 games.  When he scored a goal against Columbus last Thursday, it snapped a 16-game streak without a goal.  Kessel is 11-21-32, minus-7, in 46 career games against the Capitals.

Washington: Braden Holtby

In one respect, goaltender Braden Holtby has had a bounceback year from last season.  Last year, he had an even strength save percentage of .914, the worst of his career.  So far this season, he has an even strength save percentage of .920.  It is not at the level he produced in his first seven seasons, over which he did not have a season with an even strength save percentage under .928, but it is an improvement.  On the other hand, his shorthanded save percentage of .840 is his worst since 2011-2012, and in that season he faced only 25 shots while shorthanded. 

There is something else to consider over the arc of his career as the season is winding down.  Holtby is unbeaten in four decisions in March so far.  He has stopped 94 of 100 shots, that .940 save percentage being his best March of his career since his first season (.962 in six games) and a considerable improvement over the .897 save percentage he posted last March, the worst of his career.  It is part of a longer run of solid play for Holtby, who is 8-4-1, 2.31, .925, with one shutout over his last 13 appearances.  He could use some of that high-end performance in this game.  The Pens are the only team in the league against which Holtby has suffered ten regular season losses in regulation.  He is 9-10-3, 2.96, .911, with two shutouts in 23 career games against Pittsburgh.

In the end…

We should be long past the whole “Ovechkin vs. Crosby” angle in this series, but that is always going to be the headline theme as long as Alex Ovechkin and Sidney Crosby skate for these teams.  But so often, these contests, both in the regular season and in the playoffs, turn on the efforts of the support players.  Consider that over the last two seasons, John Carlson is tied with Ovechkin for the team lead in points against Pittsburgh (seven), and even as an unlikely a source as defenseman Christian Djoos is tied for fifth on the team in points against the Pens (four).  On the other side, one should not overlook those such as Patric Hornqvist (five points), Bryan Rust (four) or Justin Schultz (three) in the seven games played between the teams.  Winning is a team effort in which the stars shine, but also a product of contributions up and down the roster.  Both of these teams share that trait.  It is one of the things that makes this rivalry so compelling.

Capitals 4 – Penguins 3

A TWO-Point Night: Washington Capitals -- Game 69: Capitals 3 - Jets 1

The Washington Capitals hosted the Winnipeg Jets on Sunday night.  It was a hard-fought matchup between teams that resemble one another.  However, the Caps rode a tight penalty kill, a favorable video review, and fine goaltending from Pheonix Copley to take a 3-1 decision to wrap up the home stand.

First Period

The Caps opened the game dominating the Jets, pinning the visitors in their own end for much of the first four minutes.  The pressure paid off when the Caps worked a passing drill to the right of goalie Connor Hellebuyck.  The Caps worked the puck to the top of the offensive zone, where John Carlson found Nicklas Backstrom.  Blake Wheeler was hesitant to come out to challenge Backstrom, and Backstrom took advantage, stepping up and snapping a shot off the post to Hellebuyck’s glove side and in to make it 1-0, 4:35 into the period.

It took Winnipeg less than two minutes to tie the game, Matthew Perreault starting and finishing a play, skating the puck deep into the offensive zone and feeding Jack Roslovic to the right of goalie Pheonix Copley.  Perreault continued around the Caps’ net and came out the other side wide open to take a return feed from Roslovic for a one-timer that beat Copley before he has a chance to scramble across the blue paint.  Winnipeg had it tied, 1-1, at the 6:23 mark.

The Caps then put themselves in a hole, Brett Connolly taking a tripping penalty at the 14:28 mark, and then taking a too-many-men penalty 26 seconds later, giving Winnipeg a two-man advantage for 1:34.  The Caps got out of the first part of that two-man disadvantage, in no small part due to a Matt Niskanen block of a Patrik Laine shot off his left hand that sent him to the locker room.  The Caps then successfully ran off the second part of the two-man disadvantage without further incident.  That would be how the teams went to the first intermission.

-- Winnipeg outshot the Caps, 8-5, but the Caps out-attempted them, 17-13, despite being shorthanded for 2:26 in the period.

-- Nicklas Backstrom won four of five draws, the only Capital over 50 percent for the period.  The Caps finished the period 10-for-18.

-- No Capital had more than one shot, and Niskanen led the team with three shot attempts.

-- The Caps did not register a shot on goal over the last 8:10 of the period.  They did have six missed shots in that span.

Second Period

The Caps went shorthanded for the third time in the contest in the seventh minute of the second period, Carl Hagelin going off for a holding penalty.  The Caps killed that off, and shortly thereafter, Hagelin drew a tripping penalty from Matthew Perreault to send Washington to their first power play of the evening.  It did not go well, but at least the Jets did not get a shorthanded goal.  The Caps did fail to record a shot on goal.

Hagelin, who had a busy second period, took another penalty in the 13^th minute to send the Jets on their fourth power play of the night.  It would end up being a case of having the Jets just where the Caps wanted them.  Upon killing the penalty, the puck ended up on Nic Dowd’s stick inside the Caps’ blue line.  As Hagelin exited the penalty box, Dowd flipped the puck into space and out of the zone, letting Hagelin grab it for a breakaway.  Behind the Winnipeg defense, Hagelin skated in an snapped a shot that tricked through Hellebuyck’s pads to make it 2-1 at the 14:32 mark.  That would be the margin at the end of the period.

-- The Caps were out-shot, 15-4, in the middle period and out-attempted, 23-6. 

-- Through two periods, the Caps had yet to have a player record more than one shot on goal.  Alex Ovechkin had only one shot attempt (blocked).  Two defensemen – Matt Niskanen and Michal Kempny – led the team with three shot attempts apiece.

-- Four Caps went to the second intermission without having recorded a shot attempt: Nick Jensen, Jakub Vrana, John Carlson, and Evgeny Kuznetsov.

-- NIcklas Backstrom went 4-for-7 on faceoffs and finished the second period, as he did the first, as the only Capital over 50 percent on draws (8-for-13).

Third Period

The Caps got their second power play of the evening just 18 seconds into the third period, courtesy of a Patrik Laine hooking penalty.  It went as well as the first one, the Caps failing to record a shot on goal.

Things got tense midway through the period when a Brandon Tanev shot made its way to the Capitals’ crease.  Adam Lowry and Bryan Little poked at the loose puck, Little pushing Copley into the net as the puck just before the puck crossed the goal line.  Referee Jean Hebert waved the goal off immediately for goaltender interference.  Winnipeg head coach Paul Maurice challenged the call, but upon review it was upheld, and the score remained 2-1, Caps.

That would be the biggest scare for the Caps until the 17:25 mark, when Dmitry Orlov was sent off for a tripping call.  Winnipeg pulled Hellebuyck shortly thereafter to gain an additional, 6-on-4 advantage.  It was a frantic penalty kill that featured what looked like a lay-up shorthanded goal, Tom Wilson sending the puck from behind the net to Lars Eller closing on the empty cage.  But Eller had his stick disturbed at the last moment, and play continued.  The Caps went on to kill the penalty, but they struggled to get the puck out of their end.  Finally, Wilson and Eller connected, Eller finishing the play with a shot from the neutral zone into the empty net.  The Caps skated off with a hard-fought 3-1 win.

Other stuff…

-- John Carlson’s assist on Nicklas Backstrom’s first period goal was his 50^th assist of the season, becoming the third defenseman in Caps history to record consecutive 50-assist seasons.  He joins Larry Murphy (1986-1987 and 1987-1988) and Scott Stevens (1987-1988 and 1988-1989), hall of famers both, in that club.

-- Carl Hagelin scored his second goal as a Cap.  So far this season, he had one goal on 28 shots in 16 games for Pittsburgh, one goal on 36 shots in 22 games for Los Angeles, and now, two goals on 16 shots in eight games with Washington.

-- In addition to three different players recording goals, the Caps had eight different players post a single point.

-- Lars Eller and Matt Niskanen finished with three shots on goal apiece.  Twelve other skaters finished with a single shot on goal for the Caps.

-- Nicklas Backstrom won only one of eight faceoffs in the third period to finish 9-for-21.  Every Cap taking at least one draw finished under 50 percent.

-- Three players led the team in hits, none of them Brooks Orpik.  John Carlson, Dmitry Orlov, and T.J. Oshie had four apiece.

-- This was just the fourth game this season that Orpik was not credited with a hit.  Two of them have come this month (March 1^st vs. the New York Islanders).

-- The Caps were out-shot, 34-18, and they were out-attempted, 58-38.  They did not have a power play shot on goal in four minutes of power play time.

-- The Caps faced five Winnipeg power plays in this game and shut out the Jets with the man advantage.  That is 11 shorthanded situations faced in the Caps’ last two games.  That is the most the Caps have faced in consecutive games this season except for Games 16 and 17, against Arizona and Minnesota, in November, when the Caps faced 12 such situations, each opponent getting six chances.

-- Pheonix Copley won his fifth straight decision.  In posting that 5-0-0 record he has a goals against average of 2.92 and a save percentage of .908.

In the end…

Winnipeg was wrapping up a four-game road trip, but this was also a team than hung eight goals on Carolina in their last contest and scored 15 goals in the first three games of this trip.  In that context, this was a good test for the Caps, especially in paying attention to defensive details, and they passed.  Not with flying colors, perhaps, given the dominance Winnipeg had in shots and shot attempts, but the Caps were good when they had to be, especially on the penalty kill. It was a good way to end the weekend at home, just the springboard one would want to have as they head out on the road for the coming week.

Washington Capitals: That Was The Week That Was - Week 23

If Week 22 featured explosive offense, Week 23 featured tending to business better in the defensive end of the ice for the Washington Capitals.  It was a week in which the Caps looked more like a team whose attention has been stirred as they head into the last month of the regular season.

Record: 3-0-0

Last week, the Caps won three or more games for a week without a loss for the first time since Week 11.  Now, they have two such weeks in a row, the first time they put together consecutive weeks without a loss since Weeks 8 and 9 over which they also went 6-0-0.

The three wins in Week 23 came at the expense of three Metropolitan Division teams and extended the Caps’ winning streak against teams in the Metro to five games.  The two wins to start the week came on the road, giving the Caps 20 road wins this season.  The 3-0 win over New Jersey to end the week left the Caps with 20 wins at home for the year.  It is the 13^th season, and the fifth consecutive season, that the Caps have won 20 games both at home and on the road.

And now that we are into the last 15 games of the season, one can start to look forward to matchups in the postseason.  At the end of the week, with Washington having pulled in front of the New York Islanders once more, they would draw the Carolina Hurricanes in the first round if the standings hold.  But with a narrow two-point lead and the Islanders holding a game in hand, the Caps are also facing the prospect of facing the Pittsburgh Penguins (currently third in the Metropolitan Division) in the first round.

Offense: 3.33/game (season: 3.38/7th)

The Caps did not have quite as prolific a week on the offensive side of the puck as they did in Week 22, but what they lacked in totals, they made up for with a pleasant surprise or two (or three).  At the top of the pleasant surprise list was Andre Burakovsky.  He had a goal in each of the three games for the week, his longest streak of consecutive goal-games since he put together a four-game streak in January 2017.  In two of those three games this week, Burakovsky recorded a goal having played less than ten minutes.  That brings his total of games scoring a goal while skating under ten minutes to four, tied for third-most instances in the league (Austin Wagner has six, and Tyler Ennis has five).  It also brought his total for the season to 11 goals, the fourth straight season in which he reached double digits, not as small a feat as it might seem since he has never averaged as much as 14 minutes a game in any of his five seasons and is averaging just over 11 minutes a game this season.

In another surprise, Travis Boyd tied for the team lead in points for the week with three, all of them assists, to draw him to within a point of a 20-point season.  His total of 19 points have come in only 42 games so far.

Next, there was Carl Hagelin recording his first goal (his first point) as a Capital.  It might have fitting that he would get that goal against a team – the New York Rangers – for whom he played four seasons and 266 regular season games.  Hagelin added an assist in the following game against the Philadelphia Flyers.

Nicklas Backstrom had the other multi-goal week for the Caps, bringing his total to four over his last six games after going a dozen games without one.  He, Boyd, and Burakovsky tied for the team lead in points (three).

Defense: 1.67/game (season: 3.09/20th)

The Caps appear to have re-discovered the art of playing defense, or at least they did in this week.  They did not face elite offenses (Philadelphia ranked 12^th at week’s end in scoring offense, the Rangers 23^rd, and the Devils 24^th), but they did not let those opponents get much traction either.  They held those three opponents to a total of 79 shots (26.3 per game), and none of them recorded more than 30 shots. 

The stinginess extended to shot attempts at 5-on-5, where the Caps held a 149-113 advantage (56.9 percent).  They had a positive shot attempt differential in all three games, extending their streak of such games to six and posting a cumulative differential of plus-105 (59.6 percent).  That might not be a coincidence that the six-game streak with positive shot attempt differential coincides with a six-game winning streak. 

What is also noteworthy about the streak is the shot attempts allowed side of the differential.  Twice in three games this week, the Caps held opponents under 40 shot attempts at fives.  That makes five times in six games that they have done so after doing it only once in their previous 22 games, and in that instance they allowed Columbus 39 attempts.

Goaltending: 1.63 / .937 / 1 shutout (season: 2.94 / .907 / 4 shutouts)

Braden Holtby got all the minutes in goal in Week 23, and he did not disappoint.  He was .900 or better in save percentage in each of the three games, extending his streak of .900-plus games to five, tying his longest such streak of the season.  It is part of a longer run of good play in which he has a .925 save percentage over his last 13 games after posting a .905 save percentage over his first 36 games this season.

If there was a hint of a blemish on Holtby’s week, it was in the progression of save percentages through the periods.  He was superb in the first periods of games, especially when you consider that he allowed a goal on the first shot he faced for the week, to Ryan Strome of the New York Rangers.  He then stopped the other 27 first period shots he saw, a .964 save percentage.  He was slightly less superb in the second periods of games, stopping 24 of 26 shots (.923), and he slipped a bit in the third periods of games, going 21-for-23 (.913).  The odd thing about the third periods of games is that he stopped all the shots he faced in the first and third games of the week, a total of only nine shots.  It was in the third period against Philadelphia in the middle game of the week, one that the Caps started with a 5-1 lead, in which he allowed both third period goals for the week on 14 shots.

Power Play: 2-for-12/16.7 percent (season: 22.0 percent/9th)

The difference between a very good power play week and an average one is often one goal, and that was the difference here.  But the Caps’ power play was better as the week went on.  Washington failed on four chances against the Rangers in the first game of the week, but they did go 2-for-8 against the Flyers and Devils to finish the week, and New Jersey was at week’s end the fourth-best penalty killing team in the league.

Alex Ovechkin and Nicklas Backstrom had the goals on the power play for the week, while John Carlson assisted on both.  Backstrom and Evgeny Kuznetsov also added assists to complete the scoring credits.

As a group, the Caps recorded 18 shots on goal in 19:07 of power play ice time, a respectable shots-per-minute mark.  Ovechkin recorded seven of the 18 shots on goal to lead the team; Backstrom and T.J. Oshie had three apiece. 

The odd part about the power play was that the Caps had three or more opportunities in all three games, the first time that they had at least three chances in three consecutive games since Games 40-42 in early January against Dallas, Detroit, and Philadelphia.

Penalty Killing: 9-for-9/100.0 percent (season: 79.2 percent/22nd)

Week 23 might have been the best penalty killing week of the season for the Caps, even if it did come against three teams in the bottom half of the power play rankings.  It was the first time that the Caps faced at least nine shorthanded situations and shut teams out since they went 9-fo-9 on the penalty kill in Week 9.  In the first two games of the week, the Caps killed penalties best by avoiding shorthandedness altogether.  They went shorthanded only twice against the Rangers to start the week and only once against the Flyers in the middle game of the week.

They were more undisciplined in the last game of the week against the Devils, but they cleaned that mess up smartly, shutting out the Devils on six power play chances.  What made this week more impressive was the sustained shot suppression on the part of the Caps’ penalty killers.  The Rangers had one shot in 3:10 in power play time.  The Flyers had no shots on goal in two full minutes of their lone power play.  Even the Devils, with their six power plays, had only six shots on goal in 11:42 of power play time.  All in all, the Caps allowed their three opponents only seven shots on goal in 16:52 of power play ice time.

Faceoffs: 59-for-147 / 40.1 percent (season: 45.8 percent/31st)

Overall, it was a poor week for the Caps in the circle, but not quite as bad as it was in the aggregate.  Not that a barely 40 percent week is good, but that number was dragged down by a 28.2 percent win rate in the neutral zone.  Still, the Caps lost all three zones in two games for the week and lost two of three zones in the other, the last game of the week against the Devils.  The Caps did manage to win 12 of 19 defensive draws in that game (63.2 percent) to push them over 50 percent for the week in the defensive end (52.0 percent/26 for 50).

Individually, Lars Eller had a good week, winning 18 of 33 draws (54.5 percent).  He was especially successful in the ends, finishing over 60 percent in both the offensive (61.5 percent) and defensive (63.6 percent) zones.  No other Capital taking at least ten draws won as much as 45 percent of the faceoffs they took, Nic Dowd coming closest, winning nine of 21 draws taken (42.9 percent).

Goals by Period:

Doubling up on opponents in goals scored for the week generally means things break down well by period, and this was true for the Caps, to a point.  They did allow a goal in the opening minute against the Rangers to open the week, the fifth straight game in which they allowed a goal in the game’s first four minutes.  But that would be the only first period goal the Caps would allow for the week.

The Caps packed all of their second period offense for the week in the middle game, scoring three times in a span of 3:05 against the Flyers.  It would be the third period of that game, though, that would be the smudge on an otherwise shiny period-by-period week.  The Caps, who took a 5-1 lead into the third period of that game, allowed a goal in the first ten seconds, and then the allowed another in the eighth minute of the period to make things more interesting than they needed to be.  But that would be it, and the Caps would go on to shutout New Jersey to complete the week’s sweep.

Year-over-Year:

This team has now surpassed last year’s on a year-over-year basis.  This year’s club has two more wins and four more points than did last year’s club. This is the sixth club in team history to reach 40 wins in 68 games and the third in four years to do it (the 2015-2016 team had 49 wins in 68 games; the 2016-2017 team had 44 wins in 68 games).

What has been most noteworthy about this team, perhaps, is the improvement in scoring offense.  Goals are up by more than 13 percent from the same point last season, and this team has the second-highest scoring offense in the shootout era (since 2005-2006), its 3.38 per game average trailing only the 2009-2010 juggernaut (3.82).  That improvement in offense drills down through shots on goal (up 5.5 percent over last year) and 5-on-5 shot attempts (up 2.2 percent), although this might be part of a broader increase in offense across the league.

The “grittership” numbers are up broadly as well – hits (2.9 percent), blocked shots (up 7.4 percent), and takeaways (up 12.8 percent), although faceoff winning percentage is down by 4.5 points from last season.  Penalties and penalty minutes are down, which is largely a “Tom Wilson” effect.  Last season, Wilson dressed for 64 of the Caps’ first 68 games and totaled 164 penalty minutes.  This season, he has 99 penalty minutes in 49 games.  But Wilson is also more disciplined in his games to date than at a similar point last season.  In his first 49 games last season, he had 127 penalty minutes, 28 more than he has at a similar games-played point.

In the end…

If Capitals Nation has been waiting for the team to pay more attention and display more focus, the last two weeks are encouraging.  The playoffs are in sight, and the Caps’ performance over the last two weeks in winning all six games at least gives the appearance that they are getting taking their defense of the Stanley Cup with the seriousness and resolve it requires. 

It is a good thing, too, because the Caps are about to be tested a bit more rigorously by the schedule with games against Winnipeg, Pittsburgh, Philadelphia, and Tampa Bay coming up.  The scent of playoffs is in the air.

Three Stars:

• First Star: Andre Burakovsky (3-0-3, plus-2, 2 game-winning goals, no charged giveaways)
• Second Star: Braden Holtby 3-0-0, 1.63, .937, 1 shutout)
• Third Star: Carl Hagelin (1-1-2, plus-3, 11:31 in shorthanded ice time (led all skaters))