The Peerless Prognosticator is ON THE AIR!!! -- Caps vs. Hurricanes, March 11th

The Peerless Prognosticator in ON THE AIR!!!

The Washington Capitals host the Carolina Hurricanes this evening in game that features two teams with entirely different perspectives on the playoffs. The Capitals – winners of six straight games – are playing for seeding and fighting for the top spot in the Eastern Conference, while the Hurricanes are simply fighting…

GRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRROOOM-BRUM-BRUM-BRUM-BRUM-BRUM…

What is heaven’s name is that?!

"YEEEEEEEEEEE-HAW! HOWDY, COUSIN!"

I’m sorry, I know Fearless and Cheerless, but you are…

"RECKLESS, CUZ!"

I can believe that…what’s with the car?

“Like it?...I done did it up just like the Mark Martin Go Daddy Hendricks Motorsports Number 5 car.”

Uh, sure…and what’s with the jacket?...Go Daddy, Carquest, Quaker State, Delphi…”

“Sponsors, cuz…”

Yours?

“No, his. Not a NASCAR fan, are ya, cuz?”

No, but I take it you are…uh, what’s with the smiley patch?

“Uh, had some extra room on the jacket, and I ran out of sponsors, so…”

I see…well, the Hurricanes won’t be coming to town with smiley faces tonight, because – as we were about to point out before we took a trip to Talladega – the Hurricanes are fighting for their playoff lives. With 72 points in 67 games, Carolina is on the outside looking in at Buffalo and the Rangers tied for the last two playoff spots in the East, two points ahead of the Hurricanes.

Carolina finds itself in this position because they have not been able to get any traction in their schedule…

“Might want to change tires for that, cuz.”

As we were saying, the Hurricanes are having trouble gaining any traction in their schedule. Since the All Star Game they are 5-7-4 and have won consecutive games only once in that span, wins over Florida and Buffalo last week. The overall numbers look like this for Carolina:

A team in Carolina’s position needs to have its big guns step up at this time of year, which brings us first to Eric Staal. The big center leads the Hurricanes in scoring, but he hasn’t had much of a line lately. In 16 games since the All Star break, Staal is 4-6-10, minus-3. Only one of the four goals came at even strength, and he has only one multi-point game in this span. It is not the sort of production a playoff contender needs from its top scorer. What the Caps will have to watch for, though, is Staal on special teams. He leads the team with 10 power play goals (three of them coming since the All Star break) and two shorthanded goals. He is 20-27-47 in 46 career games against the Caps, including 2-1-3 in four games this season.

Carolina is trying to capture some old magic in bringing Cory Stillman back for a second tour with the Hurricanes. The price to bring him back from Florida – Ryan Carter and a fifth round draft pick – wasn’t steep. But Stillman has contributed points in four of the six games in which he has played (2-3-5, plus-2). At age 37, Stillman might not be the player he was when he helped the Hurricanes to a Stanley Cup in 2006, but he does have that experience that playoff teams look to have on hand at this time of year. He has had a fair amount of success against the Caps over his career. In 44 career games he is 12-26-38, including 5-10-15 on the power play and three game-winning goals.

Caps fans are familiar with blueliners Joe Corvo, Joni Pitkanen, and Tim Gleason for the Hurricanes. One defenseman they might not have paid much attention to is Jamie McBain. In his first full year in the NHL (he played in 14 games last season), McBain is getting more than 19 minutes of ice time a night and is third on the team in scoring among defensemen (5-20-25). He has only a goal and an assist in six career games against the Caps, but given that he doesn’t log quite the big minutes of a Corvo, a Pitkanen, or a Gleason (all over 20 minutes average ice time), the fact that he has 19 blocked shots is worth noting.

Cam Ward seems a lock to get the call in this game in goal for Carolina. And he’s been all over the place with his play lately. Despite the fact that since the All Star Game Ward has a respectable 2.67 goals against average and a .919 save percentage, he is only 6-6-4 over that span. He has had some fine games – a 41-save effort in a 2-1 win over Florida and a 33-save effort in a 4-1 win over Pittsburgh. But he also allowed four goals on 25 shots in a 4-1 loss to New Jersey and four on 27 shots in a tough 4-3 loss to Montreal. Ward has goals against and save percentage numbers in his career against the Caps that are consistent with his recent performance – 2.59 and .920. But his win-loss mark is much more consistent with that kind of performance. He brings a 13-7-4 record against the Caps in to this game, although he lost his only decision this season, a 3-2 decision on December 26th.

The Peerless’ Players to Ponder

Carolina: Joe Corvo

The job title says, “defenseman.” And although plus/minus has its deficiencies as a measure of individual player effectiveness, it can’t be good when a “defenseman” has been a minus player in each of the past four seasons and is worst among the team’s defensemen in this statistic this season. Joe Corvo leads the Hurricanes in scoring among defensemen (10-24-34), but his minus-12 is evidence that he isn’t as gifted in his own end as in the offensive side of the game. More to the point for this contest, Corvo is a minus-8 on the road this season and is minus-8 in 17 games since the All Star Game. Corvo’s big contributions have been on the power play (he has either scored or assisted on 20 of Carolina’s 45 power play goals this season). Trouble is, that plays into the teeth of the Capitals’ strength, their penalty kill. Can Corvo contribute on defense? The game might hinge on the answer.

Washington: Marcus Johansson

Marcus Johansson has quietly put together a respectable rookie year – 9-11-20, his nine goals ranking seventh on the team. His 3-5-8 scoring line over his last 15 games is respectable for what amounts to a third-line center. But he has been getting time on the top line with Nicklas Backstrom on the shelf with an injury. That means more ice time (on Wednesday he skated almost five minutes more than his average) and more responsibility. He did not seem as out of place in the role as he did in brief stints earlier in the season skating with Alex Ovechkin. And that is part of the learning process, which has another seminar scheduled for tonight.

Keys:


1. Ready!...Fire…Aim!...Fire!...Fire Again!...Fire Some More!! Carolina is dead last in the league in shots allowed per game (that is, “most”). Allowing 33.5 shots per game puts undue pressure on their goaltenders. The Caps have averaged almost 33 shots a game in their last five. You have to think the Caps will get their chances. If Carolina manages to hold the Caps under 30, it would be a surprise, but it also would be a signal that they are getting the better of the play.

2. First in War, First in Peace, Just Get the First Goal. Carolina has the fourth best record in the NHL when scoring first (21-2-4). Not much analysis goes into this…don’t let them score first. But not an easy task for a club that has allowed the first goal in 40 of 68 games.

3. Keep Away. If Braden Holtby gets the call in goal, it would not be a surprise. He won his last two outings in impressive style, and he is 4-0-1, 0.62, .977 in his last five appearances. But keep in mind, too, that he has faced only 27.6 shots per 60 minutes. The Caps have done a pretty good job around him keeping teams from piling up shots. Carolina is not a team that ranks high in shots (30 a game, good for a tie for 17th), so if they start inching over 30, or if they are getting, say, more than 12 in the first or second period, it might be a problem.

In the end, this is as close to a rivalry as it gets in the Southeast Division. Carolina is the closest opponent on the map, but it’s hard to say that these teams have the nastiness in the rivalry that teams in the Northeast of Atlantic seem to have for one another. Still, there is no lack for motivation here. Carolina is up against it, sitting in ninth in the Eastern Conference and on the wrong side of that squirrely tie breaker with seventh and eighth place Buffalo and the Rangers that deducts shootout wins from the overall win total. The Caps, meanwhile, have the motivation of keeping pace with the recently struggling Philadelphia Flyers (who won last night to open up a four-point lead) in the chase to finish on top in the East.

That’s what should make this a playoff-like game, so long as the Caps show up to play. If they don’t, a desperate team might make the start of their weekend rather unpleasant. But that’s not going to happen, is it?

Caps 3 – Hurricanes 2

A TWO-point night -- Game 68: Caps 5 - Oilers 0

Finally!

It took 44 games, but the Washington Capitals finally scored two power play goals in a game, which might have been the most important factor in beating the Edmonton Oilers, 5-0, last night. The first of them – and the game’s first goal – came off the stick of Alex Ovechkin, the result of a nice slap pass from Jason Arnott to Ovechkin lurking on the weak side five minutes into the second period. It was Ovechkin’s first power play goal at Verizon Center this season.

Eric Fehr got the second power play goal – and second of the game – five minutes later when he batted home a rebound of a John Carlson drive from the top of the Edmonton crease.

Those two goals were prelude to a three-goal third period in which Ovechkin started things off by picking Kurtis Foster’s pocket at the Oilers’ blue line, circling in with Marcus Johansson on a two-on-none break, and after a couple of back-and-forths with Johansson, roofing the puck over a sprawling Nikolai Khabibulin.

Eric Fehr got his second of the game when Khabibulin chose…poorly. With a loose puck skittering into the Oiler zone and Jason Chimera speeding after it, Khabibulin chose to charge out to try to reach the puck before Chimera. He couldn’t get there before Chimera chipped it ahead, and with Khabibulin out near his own blue line, Chimera found Fehr, who had only to wrist the puck past Ladislav Smid (or “Schmeeeeeed,” if you are Joe Beninati) into the Oilers’ empty net.

Alexander Semin closed out the scoring when he saucered a pass to Marco Sturm on a 2-on-1 break, then took the return pass and stuffed it past Khabibulin with 5:30 left, setting off the goal horn for the fifth time – the most goals the Caps scored at home since December 21st (a 5-1 win over New Jersey).

-- The five goals were as many goals the Caps scored in regulation time at home as they scored in their previous five games, combined.

-- Ovechkin’s two-goal game was his first multi-goal game since recording a hat trick against Toronto on January 22nd. It was his first multi-goal game on home ice since the home opener on October 9th.

-- Eric Fehr’s two goals made it his first multi-goal game on home ice this season (he had a pair in Pittsburgh on New Year’s Day (well, night).

-- Five power plays. As many as in the previous three games, combined. Only the fifth time they received that many opportunities in their last 29 games.

-- An amazing start to the game, an unbroken 7:02 of time elapsed before a stoppage in play. But…there were only six shots on goal in that sequence (Edmonton: 4, Washington: 2). Lots of skating.

-- Fehr was the picture of efficiency – two goals on two shots, three hits, and a takeaway in 13 minutes of ice time. He was really playing for a sweater full time.

-- Brooks Laich kicked ass and took names in the circle, winning 15 of 21 draws. He also just kicked ass with a team-high five hits.

-- When Dennis Wideman picked up the second assist on the Semin goal, it marked his 200th point in the NHL.

-- Marco Sturm got his first point as a Cap with his assist on Semin’s goal, and it forged a personal tie. He now has 238 career goals and 238 career assists.

-- Does it really matter who is in goal lately? Over the six game winning streak Caps goalies have allowed eight goals on 171 shots, a .953 save percentage.

-- Braden Holtby earned his first NHL shutout, stopping all 22 shots. That’s 4-0-1 in his last five appearances, 0.62 GAA, .977 save percentage and a shutout. Pretty good, ya think?

-- Managing minutes…only Dennis Wideman and John Carlson skated more than 20 minutes. At this time of year, that might be a godsend to the other guys who didn’t have to bear a big ice time burden.

-- Speaking of Wideman, in his 23:34 of ice time he had an assist, was plus-1, had three shots on goal (seven attempts), three hits, and seven blocked shots. That trade is looking like a steal at the moment.

-- Jeff Schultz is not having the year he had last year, and his ice time reflects that. But in 13:33 last night he was plus-2, a couple of shots on goal, and a hit. Better still, you hardly noticed him. That’s the kind of defense he has to play. If you’re not noticing Schultz, the other team isn’t scoring when he’s on the ice.

-- Only Jason Chimera and Karl Alzner failed to record a shot on goal. Oddly enough, neither attempted a shot on goal.

In the end, one has to temper one’s happiness with the result with the fact that it wasn’t exactly the 1984 Oilers out there. But that’s what good teams are supposed to do against weaker opponents – get a lead and stand on their throats. Holding the Oilers to 12 shots over the last two periods while building a lead is how you do that. It was as complete a win as the Caps have had in a while.

Meanwhile, Braden Holtby is giving the Caps a lot to think about. He looks entirely at home in the Caps’ crease, a far different goaltender than he was in his five-game stint in November. In his bifurcated 2011 portion of the year (three games in January, two in March) he has yet to allow a power play goal, thus denying opponents a chance at gaining some momentum and at the same time giving his own guys a lift. And last night, when he stoned Andrew Cogliano on a breakaway, he might have given the Caps the lift that led to a goal at the other end moments later.

It would be a leap to say Holtby is “playoff-ready” at this level, but he is making a strong case that he is squarely in the mix of goaltenders fighting for the number one spot for the future. Ovechkin’s breakout might have the more immediate impact on the team, but the way Holtby played and has played recently might be the bigger long-term story coming out of last night’s game.

No Nicky?

Well, the bad news came...

It will mean that Nicklas Backstrom will miss tonight's game against the Edmonton Oilers, but we couldn't get over the use of the term, "keep it completely quiet" by Coach Bruce Boudreau.  Ah, but apparently Backstrom is quite the cut-up in the locker room with his Señor Wences impersonations...

Players were asking him to knock it off.

It really isn't a laughing matter, though, what with Backstrom being the first line center and having never missed an NHL game -- 313 regular season games, 28 playoff games.  He's been there for every one of them.

Hope it's "s'alright" soon.

The Peerless Prognosticator is ON THE AIR!!! -- Caps vs. Oilers, March 9th

The Peerless Prognosticator is ON THE AIR!!!

The Washington Capitals return home tonight after a successful swing through the Sunshine State, where they won two games in two tries, to host the Edmonton Oilers…

“Hey, cuz…”

Yes, Cheerless?

“I wrote me a song.”

You wrote a song?

“Yeah, a tribute to our guests tonight.”

You wrote a tribute to the Edmonton Oilers? You realize that Wayne Gretzky doesn’t play there any more, don’t you?

“Who?”

Never mind…ok, let’s hear it.

“Ahem…Cheerless Prognosticator’s tribute to the Edmonton Oilers…

Come and listen to a story about a man named Lowe
A poor team exec, his team was growin’ kinda slow,
Then one day he was starin’ at the wall,
And up through the draft came a guy named Taylor Hall.


Phee-nom that is…franchise player.


Well the first thing you know ol Lowe, he’s got a grin,
The fans now said "Playoffs?...Man, we’re in! "
Said "Spring’s the time that’s when we wanna play "
So they loaded up the arena and jumped into the fray.


Rexall Place. No swimmin’ pools, no movie stars.


Well now it’s time to say good by to Lowe and all his kin.
And they would like to thank you folks fer kindly droppin’ in.
You're all invited back again to this locality
To have a heapin’ helpin’ of their hospitality.


Alberta that is. Set a spell, Take your skates off.


Y'all come back now, y'hear?. Please? Please? It’s really a nice place. I don’t care WHAT Nylander thinks! Or Pronger! We coulda had Jagr!”

Very nice…but Edmonton is visiting tonight without their prized number one overall draft pick from last June’s draft, Taylor Hall. The rookie will miss the rest of the regular season as the result of an ankle injury sustained in what was his first NHL fight, a bout with Columbus’ Derek Dorsett. It wasn’t quite fair…Hall, no NHL fights. Dorsett, 31 fights (12 of them this season, a number that has since grown to 15). And it was Hall who went after Dorsett after taking a hit along the boards…not smart.

So now, the Oilers come to Verizon Center without their top goal-scorer and point getter, and this is not a team that was burning bulbs out on the scoreboard with Hall in the lineup. Here is the evidence…

Hall’s absence means Sam Gagner takes over as the Oilers’ top scorer. Gagner is a former first round pick, himself, taken with the sixth overall pick by the Oilers in the 2007 draft. He, like Hall, stepped right into the Edmonton lineup in the season following his draft, finishing 13-36-49 in 79 games. That rookie season remains his high-water mark for scoring. He seems stuck in the 40’s as a scorer, having compiled totals of 41, 41, and so far 42 points in his succeeding seasons. At the moment he is on a bit of a hot streak – 3-5-8 in his last nine games, including a three-point effort against Colorado on March 5th. Nominally a center, Gagner has struggled with other responsibilities for such a position. He has won only 43.8 percent of his faceoffs (he leads the team in draws taken), and he is a minus-15 (worst on the team). He does not have a point in three career games against Washington.

Andrew Cogliano is one of those players you have to keep an eye on. He has comeback a bit from the backsliding he exhibited after a fine rookie season in 2007-2008 (18-27-45). He followed that up with 38 and 28 point seasons (playing in every game in each; he has not yet missed an NHL game in his career), but stepped back up a bit this season with 11 goals and 17 assists in 67 games (a 13-21-34 pace). He does have three game-winning goals so far and has two goals in his last three games. He has a goal in three games against the Caps in his career.

Caps fans will recognize Kuris Foster from his year in Tampa Bay last season and perhaps for his brief stay in Atlanta over a couple of seasons to start his NHL career. Foster is tied for the team lead among defensemen in goals and leads the club in power play goals, three of his five coming with the man advantage. He has not been shy about unleashing his impressive shot – he has 162 shots on goal, good for seventh in the league among defensemen. He had eight shots on goal against Columbus last week, but even with that barrage he has not been successful in finding the back of the net. He has not scored a goal in his last six games. And his shot hasn’t led to other opportunities, or at least opportunities his teammates could take advantage of; he has no assists in his last eight games. He has a goal and five assists in eight career games against the Caps.

The Peerless’ Players to Ponder

Edmonton: Nikolai Khabibulin

Talk about your odd injuries. Nikolai Khabibulin played in a game against the Minnesota Wild recently and stopped a shot on his stick side. No big deal, a save any goalie makes hundreds of times. But Khabibulin “felt something hit me in the eye.” After suffering disturbances to his vision he had tests that revealed bleeding behind his eye – seems it was an ice chard from the shot that did him in. He had to keep from having his blood pressure increase to prevent the condition from getting worse, so he has been more or less incapacitated since the condition was revealed. He is expected to return tonight against a team he has faced 21 times in his career to an 8-6-3, 2.12, .914 record.

Washington: Alex Ovechkin

The Caps are facing a team tonight that has an awful penalty killing record on the road (29th at 73.3 percent). The Caps do not the greatest power play at home, by any means – 26th in the league. A part of that is Alex Ovechkin’s record with the man advantage at home… no goals in 34 home games. One has to think this streak cannot go on forever, and tonight is the best opportunity he might have to end it.

Keys:


1. Be special. Edmonton struggles on special teams – 29th overall on both the power play and penalty killing. The Caps cannot let the Oilers beat them on special teams. “Plus-two” on special teams (that’s right, scoring more than one power play goal) should be the goal here.

2. No peeking. The schedule gets tougher for the Caps after this game with six straight games against teams in the playoff hunt. The temptation is to look ahead and take a game like this – against a team without its big star playing out the schedule – for granted. Do that, and it’s a recipe for “boo stew.”

3. Eye Test. Nikolai Khabibulin is likely to return to the net tonight after missing a stretch with that eye injury. Make him look for the puck. Shoot early, shoot often, and – as much as making him look around – he can’t stop what he can’t see. Get in his face. Crowd him. He’s been out and is likely rusty, especially given the nature of the off time due to the injury. Setting a high tempo in shots is something he might not be up for.

In the end, this is one of those matchups that fans might think, “pfft…piece o’ cake.” And if the Caps don’t live up to that sentiment, it could get ugly. The Caps have shown an inability to get an opponent down and stand on their throats this season, giving up early goals and having to come from behind late. Stop tempting fate. End this early.

Caps 5 – Oilers 2

The Caps Aren't Worse...

...the rest of the Southeast Division is better.

Last season through 67 games, the Caps posted a 45-13-9 record, good for 99 points on their way to the Presidents Trophy.  In that record, the Caps were 15-2-0 against the Southeast Division.

Fast forward to this season.  After 67 games the Caps are 37-20-10, good for 84 points, 15 behind last year's pace.  But instead of posting a .882 winning percentage against the Southeast Division, the Caps are 12-6-2 (a .650 winning percentage, based on points available) thus far within the division.  Although this year's team is only four points behind last year's club against the Southeast at comparable points of the season, the Caps have played three more games so far this year against the Southeast through their 67-game total than last year's team played over the same number of total games.  The Caps are on a pace to earn 31 points against the Southeast this season.  Last season they earned 40 (19-3-2).

At this point last season, the four teams behind the Caps in the Southeast Division standings were all wallowing at 65 points or fewer.  This year, Tampa Bay is at 82 points, Carolina is at 71, and only fourth and fifth place Atlanta and Florida are at 65 points or fewer.  Tampa has improved significantly.  Carolina is back to being "Carolina," a team that seems to always challenge for a playoff spot despite the attempts of many to write them off.  Atlanta looked to be an improving team that has faded of late.  Only Florida seems not to have improved enough to make a dent in the division dynamics.

The Caps have had many struggles this season, many of their own making.  But one thing over which they have had no control and which has eaten into their ability to earn standings points this season is the improved play of the teams competing with them in the Southeast Division.  Perhaps it will make the Caps a more formidable post-season team for having gone through the test.

A TWO-point night -- Game 67: Capitals 2 - Lightning 1 (OT/Gimmick)

Caps fans might be forgiven for thinking the calendar rolled forward to May, but that’s the sort of thought that would have come naturally watching tonight’s game between the Washington Capitals and Tampa Bay Lightning. The Caps spotted the Lightning a first period goal, tied it late, then won it in the Gimmick to skate off with a 2-1 win and a two-point lead in the Southeast Division.

This one had everything. The Lightning couldn’t light the lamp early, but they rang the bell – goalie Michal Neuvirth’s bell. Twenty-one seconds into the game Nate Thompson launched a shot with such force off Neuvirth’s mask that it snapped the straps and knocked the mask off Neuvirth’s head. It was the first shot of the game.

Neuvirth finished the period, allowing only a power play goal when Sean Bergenheim deflected a Martin St. Louis drive, but he couldn’t answer the bell for the second period. Braden Holtby took over and slammed the door, stopping all 21 shots he faced, including a remarkable blocker/glove save on a Simon Gagne shot at what looked like a sure goal into an empty net.

Holtby’s heroics in goal gave the Caps a chance, and Alexander Semin took advantage of it when late in the third period he backed off defenseman Brett Clark with a hard rush down the left side. Semin almost lost control of the puck as he was readying a shot, and the split-second muff seemed to work to give Semin a shooting lane with Clark as a screen. He wristed the puck low to the far side of goalie Dwayne Roloson, and Roloson could not glove the puck down before it sped past him into the back of the net.

That was it, until Bettman’s Miracle, where Alex Ovechkin fed off the boos of the St. Pete Forum crowd and scored the only “goal” of the Gimmick. It was what Ovechkin might call a “sick” goal, coming when he skated wide left, circled to the middle, showed Roloson the puck as if he was going to deke left, pulled it back and roofed the puck, launching the water bottle into the air with the freshly killed Roloson carcass lying in the crease. At the other end, Braden Holtby saw three shots, he stopped three shots, and the Caps skated off with another point added to their division lead over the Lightning as they head home.

Other stuff…

-- Uh, Coach? What were you thinking? Adam Hall? Dominic Moore? In the trick shot competition? Guy Boucher had the league’s leading goal scorer and second leading point-getter on the bench, and he had the league’s third leading point-getter on the bench. But neither Steven Stamkos nor Martin St. Louis took a turn in the Gimmick. As we noted from the Tampa press in the pre-game, Moore had been described as the best player for the Lightning for the past couple of weeks. Maybe this was a reward. Hall is not generally thought of as the sort of skill player who would shine in a shootout. But it might surprise you that Hall led the Lightning in shootout chances taken before he took the ice in this one (2-for-7), and Moore led the Lightning in goals (3-for-6). As for St. Louis and Stamkos? A combined 0-for-8 on the year.

-- Boucher sent Vincent Lecavalier out for the third round, where he failed. It was the fifth time he took a turn in the shootout this year, the fifth time he failed. Stamkos, St. Louis, and Lecavalier…0-for-13 combined. If there was a problem with the strategy, it might have been sending Lecavalier out. Victor Hedman (2-for-6) was the only other Lightning player left who has scored a shootout goal this season (Ryan Malone being out with an injury).

-- Braden Holtby played superbly, but the Caps defense as a whole, from the goalie on out played a spectacular game over the last two periods and overtime. Twenty one shots in total, only seven in the third period and overtime, combined. Quite an effort from a group that played an overtime game the previous night.

-- Before Nicklas Backstrom left the game late in the second period, he was having a nice game. Three shots on goal, two minutes of PK time, winner of all seven draws he took. Wouldn’t have been surprised if he got a point had he stayed.

-- Two power plays in regulation, 3:34 in power play time…no shots on goal. One power play in regulation, 1:16 of power play time…six shots on goal. They did everything but, as they say, put the puck in the net.

-- Ovechkin had one shot on goal in 21:41 of regulation ice time, three in 2:58 of overtime.

-- Brooks Laich and Jason Arnott might have been kicking themselves if this one ended differently. Laich had Roloson down and out on a mini-break but was too close-in to lift the puck over Roloson’s right pad. Arnott backhanded a puck under Roloson on another occasion, but the puck slid just wide of the far post.

-- The Caps were 14-for-21 on defensive zone draws. Easier to play defense when you’re not letting the other guys start plays in your zone.

-- Stamkos and St. Louis were held to a combined four shots on goal, and only two of them came with both John Carlson and Karl Alzner on the ice (Scott Hannan was on for Alzner for the other two).

-- That makes six straight games without a power play goal. Of course, the absence of chances makes scoring such goals quite difficult. The Caps had only 14 chances in those six games, five of them coming in the first of those games (a 6-0 loss to the Rangers). They are 3-for-40 in their last 14 games (7.5 percent), 14-for-135 over their last 43 games (10.4 percent, covering a span of games since the last time they had a multi-power play goal game).

-- Alexander Semin scored a goal, his 24th. Caps are 16-0-0 when Semin scores a goal.

-- The win makes the Caps the only team in the league to have won at least half the games in which they allowed the first goal (20-16-4).

In the end, it had the look and feel of a playoff game, although if it was a playoff game we might still be playing (there being no Gimmicks in the playoffs…yet). It was the fifth straight win for the Caps, and the eighth one-goal win in their last eight wins (the last two-or-more goal win coming in a 3-0 shutout of Pittsburgh on February 6th). Since a three-game losing streak in early February (All to Pacific Division teams), the Caps are 8-2-0. You can’t say that a switch has been flipped, not with the Caps scoring only 24 goals in the 8-2-0 run (seven of them coming in the first game of the ten, a 7-6 win over Anaheim). But the Caps have allowed only 24 goals in those ten games, half of them coming in the win over Anaheim and a 6-0 loss to the Rangers. Twelve goals in the other eight games is rather impressive.

Now the Caps get three games at home to try to add to their division lead and to climb past Boston and Philadelphia in the chase for the top spot in the East. It is yet another opportunity to do good things in a season where that consistency in getting them done has been lacking. One thing that hasn’t lacked for consistency is the thing no one thought this team was capable of doing – playing defense. And tonight the Caps showed that this is not a fad, this is who they have become.

The Peerless Prognosticator is ON THE AIR!!! -- Caps at Lightning, March 7th

The Peerless Prognosticator is ON THE AIR!!!

There are worse places on earth to play back-to-back hockey games than south Florida (insert Pittsburgh/Philadelphia joke here), and that is what the Caps are completing tonight – a back-to-back set of games in sunny south Florida. Last night it was a 3-2 overtime win over the Florida Panthers to put the Caps back on top in the Southeast Division, and tonight Washington can open up a three-point lead with a win over the Tampa Bay Lightning.

This trip is also a chance for many of the Caps’ players to bond with their fathers, who were invited on this trip. It is one of those mysterious things in life, the bond between father and son, and we were wondering what the secret is. So, we asked some well-known fathers what the key is to forging that bond with their sons.

Jim Anderson…you raised a lovely family in the heartland, two daughters and a son. What was your secret to getting through parenthood?

“Well, Peerless, I found that nothing beats giving a kid a sense of their own identity…”

You mean…

“That’s right, nicknames…’Bud,’ ‘Princess,’ ‘Kitten’…

Sort of like hockey?

“Exactly, except I don’t know that you’d give a hockey player the nickname, ‘Princess.’”

We’ll let Matt Pettinger know. And how about you, Cliff Huxtable? Your family was the epitome of wholesome, middle class virtue. What was your secret?

“Pudding…lots and lots of Jell-o pudding.”

Hmmm…interesting. And what about you, Homer Simpson? Do you have any advice on how to forge that bond?

“I won't lie to you, fatherhood isn't easy, unlike motherhood. But I wouldn't trade it for anything in the world ... except for some mag wheels, that would be sweet.”

Well, what would be sweet would be a Caps win to close out the trip to Florida. And even though the Caps are visiting what is a formidable team on home ice (Tampa Bay leads the Eastern Conference in home wins and is tied with Montreal for the lead in points earned on home ice), the Lightning have been struggling lately. Starting with a 5-2 loss at home to the Caps on February 4th, the Lightning are 5-6-2 overall, 4-4-2 on home ice. Overall, the Lightning look like this…

With 41 goals in 65 games, Steven Stamkos is on a pace for 51 for the season and his second straight Richard Trophy as the league’s top goal scorer. The immediate problem, though, is that Stamkos has not recorded a goal in his last five games and has only one over his last 11 contests (while going minus-7). Maybe it is a product of the streakiness of goal scorers, perhaps it is a case of his getting a heavier ice time burden (averaging almost 22 minutes a game over the last 11 after getting a bit less than 20 minutes a night before that). In what might be an effort to shake Stamkos out of his slump, coach Guy Boucher moved him from center to right wing for Sunday’s practice. In 17 career games against the Caps Stamkos is 8-3-11, including a goal and an assist in five games so far this season.

As part of the shift of Stamkos to the wing, Dominic Moore was given time at center between Stamkos and Martin St. Louis by coach Guy Boucher on Sunday. Moore was described by Boucher as “our best player the past two weeks.” An odd thing to say about a player who is 12-12-24, minus-13 for the season? Well, he is 2-3-5, plus-1 in his last seven games (both goals coming on power plays), and only once has he lost a majority of the draws he took. For a player who gets little power play time compared to the likes of Stamkos or St. Louis (he is 16th on the club with 48 seconds per game), his four power play goals seem rather productive. And here is your odd Dominic Moore fact. He has scored more goals on Mondays this season (three in five games) than he has on any other day of the week. In 21 career games against the Caps he is 2-4-6, with a goal and an assist in five games this season.

The Lightning do not get an extraordinary number of goals from their defensemen (18 overall, compared to 22 for the Caps’ defenseman corps), but they do get scoring contributions. Three defensemen – Brett Clark, Victor Hedman, and Pavel Kubina – all have more than 20 points for the Lightning. Brett Clark is the unlikely leader of that group with eight goals and 23 points. His scoring has more or less dried up over the last several weeks, though. Clark does not have a goal in his last dozen games and has only one assist in his last ten. In 16 career games against Washington, Clark has a goal and an assist, that goal coming in five games played against the Caps this season.

This is the sort of game for which the Lightning obtained goalie Dwayne Roloson. A big game, even though you might get some blather from both teams about it being just another regular season game. In fact, it might be with the Caps in mind that Roloson was brought to Tampa. In 16 regular season games against Washington he is 8-5-0, 2.19, .919, with four shutouts. Two of those shutouts came at the expense of the Capitals eight days apart in early January. He has faced the Caps four times this season, one of those appearances coming when he was tending goal for the New York Islanders (a 2-1 loss in October).

So, that covers three of Roloson’s appearances against the Caps this season, two for Tampa Bay and one for the Islanders. What of that fourth one? That would be the game that started the Lightning on their recent 5-6-2 funk. The Caps beat the Lightning, 5-2, in that matchup, Roloson allowing four goals on 35 shots. Starting with that game Roloson is 4-5-1, 3.38, .878 as he gets ready for tonight.

The Peerless’ Players to Ponder

Tampa Bay: Steve Downie

Last season Steve Downie established himself as a player with as much potential as a scorer as he displayed in racking up penalty minutes. With 22 goals in 78 games it looked as though Downie could provide the kind of supplementary scoring the Lightning would need to take some of the scoring heat off Steven Stamkos and Martin St. Louis. Well, this year did not start well in fulfilling that promise. In his first 31 games Downie recorded three goals. He was somewhat more productive in his next ten games, scoring five goals in that span. Part of the problem is that he has missed 14 games to ankle and back injuries, and now he is listed as “day-to-day” in what appears to be a recurrence of his ankle problems. But complicating his situation is his on-ice behavior against Boston last Thursday, a game in which he had an assist on the only goal in a 2-1 loss, but one in which he also took a ten-minute misconduct penalty for some confrontational antics. If the Lightning are to retake the Southeast Division lead from the Caps and win it in the end, having Downie on the ice contributing on the score sheet will be important. If he plays tonight, he has to exhibit some of that potential he showed last season.

Washington: Matt Bradley

Sixteen points might not sound like a lot, especially when they have come in 36 games, but that is how many points Matt Bradley had in 36 career games against the Lightning coming into this season, twice as many as the next highest point total he had against any other team. This season he has not registered a point against Tampa Bay in three games. With one point in his last 16 games, the Caps could use some production out of The Professor.

Keys:


1. Better Late Than Never. Neither team is especially adept (by NHL standards, at least) in holding leads when they score first. Tampa Bay and Washington are 20th and 22nd, respectively, in the NHL in winning percentage when scoring first. However, while these two teams rank first and second in the league in winning percentage when allowing the first goal, it is the Caps that are the only team to have won more games than they have lost in regulation when allowing that first goal.

2. Stymie Stamkos. We’ve probably made the point before, but Stamkos really is the key here. He has scored at almost a goal per game pace in wins (33 goals in 37 wins). If he gets a goal, it very well means a win for the home team.

3. Score. In three wins against the Lightning this season the Caps have 17 goals. In two losses, none. And since Tampa Bay has allowed 43 goals in their last 13 games (ok, only 10 in their last five), do the math.

In the end, this game might be the tipping point of the Caps’ season. It has been largely disappointing to date at the individual and team level, if such can be said of a 36-win team at this point of the season. The Caps are catching the Lightning at a moment when they are not doing well what they do best – score goals. Tampa Bay has only eight goals scored in their last five games. If the Caps can hold the Lightning to that kind of output, the Lightning goaltending might not be up to the challenge. Beating the Lightning and getting a three-point foothold of a lead over Tampa Bay could enable the Caps to set their sights on bigger fish and bigger prizes down the road.

Caps 4 - Lightning 2

A TWO-point night -- Game 66: Caps 3 - Panthers 2 (OT)

Pretty? No. But no one gets extra points for being pretty. Two is what a team gets for a win in the NHL, and two is what the Washington Capitals earned with a 3-2 overtime win over the Florida Panthers. And for the first time since December 29th, the Caps reside at the top of the Southeast Division.

This one did not come easy. And in fact, it was quite an odd game. For a contest that would feature 15 shots on goal for the Caps’ top line of Alex Ovechkin, Nicklas Backstrom, and Mike Knuble; one that featured 19 from the Florida skill players Stephen Weiss, David Booth, Niclas Bergfors, and Sergei Samsonov; it was a game that was ground out by both teams with few in the way of quality scoring chances.

Florida had the better of it early and put the Caps behind the eight ball with a goal by Bill Thomas at 15:03 into the period. But Nicklas Backstrom tied it barely two minutes later, converting a feed from Alex Ovechkin. While Backstrom and Ovechkin got the points on the play, along with a secondary assist from Mike Knuble, it was the little things that Backstrom and Ovechkin did before the set up that made the goal possible – Backstrom pushing his way to split the defense of Jason Garrison and Mike Santorelli to keep the puck alive behind the Panthers’ net and Ovechkin fending off Santorelli in the left wing corner to gain control of the puck and send it in front to Backstrom for the shot and a goal.

The Caps took a lead in the second when Boyd Gordon put his second goal of the season on the board, the happy result of some hard work by the Two Matts and a Boyd line, Hendricks and Bradley being the “Matt’s” who, with Gordon, befuddled the Panthers with their ability to work the puck below the goal line and keep the puck in the Panther end. Gordon jumped on a loose puck in front of Florida goalie Scott Clemmensen and lifted a backhander past the fallen goalie with a delayed penalty already coming to the Panthers as a result of the trio’s effort.

The Caps could not make the one-goal lead stand, though. John Erskine and Dennis Wideman took penalties 40 seconds apart in the latter stages of the third period to give the Panthers a 5-on-3 power play. David Booth converted for the Panthers to tie the game, that goal being the eighth 5-on-3 power play goal of the season for Florida, second most in the NHL.

That was it for the scoring in regulation, and with nine of the Panthers’ 26 wins coming in extra time, that wasn’t necessarily a bad thing for the home team. But 48 seconds into the extra frame, Marcus Johansson and Alexander Semin played a little give and go – Semin heading down the left side and passing the puck Johansson in the middle. Johansson fed it back, and Semin wristed a laser past Clemmensen. Game over.

Other stuff…

-- The win preserves a pair of four-game streaks. The Caps have won four in a row overall and have won four in a row on the road.

-- The 10-26-15 line had its own “Gordie Howe Hat Trick,” Gordon with the goal, Matt Hendricks with the assist and the fight. Matt Bradley contributed five hits in less than ten minutes of ice time.

-- Backstrom didn’t get a star, but he had a nice line… a goal, six shots, a hit, and he won 11 of 17 draws.

-- The top line of Alex Ovechkin, Nicklas Backstrom, and Mike Knuble all had fewer than 18 minutes of ice time. You might try to explain it away by the fact that the Caps had just one power play, thus denying them that route to the ice. But Ovechkin had only 15:28 of even strength ice time, more than a minute less than his average (16:44). Backstrom had only 12:58 (almost three minutes less than his average) and Knuble only 12:40 (almost two minutes). Even their third period ES ice time totals were low – Ovechkin – 5:12, Backstrom – 4:37, Knuble – 5:06.

-- The Caps were only 9-for-25 on defensive zone faceoffs. Gordon struggled more than most, winning three of ten.

-- Semin’s goal came on his only shot of the game. In fact it was the only shot on goal for the entire line of Semin, Jason Arnott, and Brooks Laich.

-- Back to the time on ice thing. Karl Alzner and John Carlson were the defensemen on the ice in the last minute to end regulation; they were the defensemen on the ice to start overtime. Alzner got an assist on the Semin game-winner, but was not credited with being on the ice when it was scored, his place having been taken by Dennis Wideman just before the score.

-- Given the relative lack of ice time, it seems odd that the top line should have had a total of 15 shots on goal.  The other nine forwards recorded a total of only six.

-- Stephen Weiss…five giveaways? No other skater for either team was charged with more than one.

-- Odd that a defenseman would not lead his team in blocked shots, but there was forward Boyd Gordon with four. No other Cap had more than two.

-- The Caps were outshot, 12-0, on the power play. That’s what happens when one team gets six power plays, and the other team gets one. It was the fourth straight game the Caps had two or fewer power play chances, the second in a row in which they had but one.

-- The Caps outshot their own power play while they were shorthanded. Nicklas Backstrom had a pair of shorthanded shots on goal, Mike Knuble another.

In the end, it was one of the uglier ways to get two points, but any way you get them at this time of year is welcome. The Caps turn it right around and have an opportunity in Tampa tomorrow night to open up a little more room between themselves and the Lightning. It has been a long time coming – 67 days – but the Caps are back where they belong. Now that they have assumed the top spot in the Southeast once more (and only four points behind the Flyers for the Eastern Conference lead), perhaps it will serve as a springboard to bigger things.

The Peerless Prognosticator is ON THE AIR!!! -- Caps at Panthers, March 6th

The Peerless Prognosticator is ON THE AIR!!!

The Washington Capitals take to the road for a weekend of sun, sand, and…

- knock knock –

…for a weekend of sun, sand, and hockey as they start a back-to-back series against the Florida teams starting with…

- knock knock –

…starting with the Florida Panthers, a team than hasn’t won a game in regulation time in…

- knock knock –

…in regulation time in almost a…

- knock knock –

WHAT?!

“Opportunity knocking…”

Well, it’s about time!

The Caps have an opportunity tonight in their game against the Florida Panthers to finish the night somewhere they have not been in 67 days, since December 29th – first place in the Southeast Division. With the Tampa Bay Lightning losing to the Montreal Canadiens yesterday, opportunity has come a-knockin’.

And it has come in the form of a team that has not won a game in regulation time in almost a month. The Florida Panthers beat the San Jose Sharks, 3-2, on January 13th to reach the .500 mark at 24-24-7. Since then, however, the Panthers are 2-7-1, both wins coming via the Gimmick. Overall, the Panthers look like this…

With Florida having drifted out of the playoff conversation, they sold off as many assets as possible over the past couple of weeks. One might have called it a “fire sale,” although team president Michael Yormark wasn’t a fan of the term. In all, Florida has sent to other teams Dennis Wideman (Washington), Michael Frolik (Chicago), Chris Higgins (Vancouver), Cory Stillman (Carolina), Bryan McCabe (the Rangers), Radek Dvorak (Atlanta), and Bryan Allen. There are a total of 51 goals in that group, almost a third of the goals scored by the Panthers this season (159). More to the point, there are 4,503 games of NHL regular season game experience that departed with those seven players. Florida is playing for the future.

While Florida plays for the future, one problem they have had lately is finding the back of the net. Over this 2-7-1 stretch the Panthers scored only 15 goals, only eight goals in their last seven games. Not that the Panthers are an especially prolific offensive team anyway. Florida has one player with more than 40 points and only three others with more than 30 points (and one of them – Wideman – now plays for Washington). Stephen Weiss, the subject of much speculation at the trading deadline, is still in Florida and leads the Panthers in scoring (18-25-4). It is not an unusual spot for Weiss – he was the Panthers’ leading scorer in each of the previous two seasons. What he has not done, though, is score much (or at least enough) lately. As the dim hopes for a playoff spot became only dimmer over the last ten games, Weiss was 3-3-6, minus-5, and – inexplicably for the team leader in goals – did not record a shot on goal in three of those games (one of which came when he skated only 4:34 before being excused for elbowing Radek Martinek, earning a major penalty and a game misconduct in a 5-1 loss to the Islanders). Weiss seems sometimes as if he entered the NHL last week, but he is a veteran of 545 games and was 11-18-29 in 37 regular season games against Washington entering this season. He has six assists in three games against the Caps this year.

David Booth is quietly repairing his game after having missed 54 games last season as a result of two concussions. This season he has not missed a game, and in the 64 games played by the Panthers he has 17 goals and 15 assists. He, too, has not been able to ramp up his game in the last ten. He had a six-game streak without a goal broken when he recorded a goal against Atlanta in his last game, and he is 3-2-5, minus-4 in the last ten contests. Booth bears watching. He had a career-best five-point game against Washington in the last regular season game of the 2008-2009 season, a 7-4 win against the Caps. What’s more, nine of Booth’s 18 goals have given the Panthers a lead, and another four tied games when the Panthers were down a goal. Coming into this season he was 4-5-9 in 20 career games against the Capitals, and he has a goal and two assists in three games against the Caps this year.

Florida cleared out the cupboard of defenseman in trades. Dennis Wideman, Bryan McCabe, and Bryan Allen are gone. That leaves Jason Garrison as the Panthers’ minutes leader on the blue line, averaging 21:39 a game. This is Garrison’s first full season in the NHL, having played in one game in 2008-2009 and 39 games last season, all with the Panthers. He is not an especially productive offensive defenseman (3-10-13 in 56 games this season), but he is a minus-1, a respectable number given that the Panthers are, as a team, a minus-17 for the season. Garrison has one assist in five career games played against Washington.

Once upon a time, goaltender Tomas Vokoun was looked upon as perhaps a prize to be pursued at the trading deadline. Some (among those, yours truly) thought he might end up with, or at least be pursued by, the Capitals. But here we are in March, and Vokoun is still a Panther, the victim of a goalie market that dried up and a contract ($6.3 million annual salary/$5.7 million cap hit) that not a lot of teams would have or could have wanted to assume, even this late in the season. As usual, Vokoun has faced a lot of rubber this season – an average of 33 shots per 60 minutes played. It has left him with an unremarkable 2.62 goals against average (27th in the league), despite being tied for 12th in save percentage (.920). Perhaps the uncertainty of where he would be strapping on his pads was in his head lately. Over Florida’s last ten games he is 1-5-1, 3.24, .905. Vokoun entered this season with a 7-13-0 record against the Caps and a 2.71 goals against average. He won both of his decisions against the Caps earlier this season (1.47, .957), including a 36-save shutout on December 9th.

The Peerless’ Players to Ponder

Florida: Mike Santorelli

Even on a team that does not get much attention, Mike Santorelli doesn’t seem to stand out. But this season – his first with Florida after playing parts of two seasons in Nashville – he is third on the Panthers in goals (17) and tied for second in points (33). Three of those goals came at the expense of the Capitals in the three games played between the teams so far this season, two of them on power plays. He has not been as productive lately, though, with no goals in his last six games. He does have 11 goals in the 26 wins in which he participated.

Washington: Dennis Wideman

Playing your former teammates for the first time only adds to the interesting week Dennis Wideman has had. After having been set free by the Panthers for prospect Jake Hauswirth and a draft pick, Wideman has played two games for the Caps, averaging more than 24 minutes of ice time and recording a plus-2 (no points yet). He has been logging major minutes in all situations, includind 3:34 in shorthanded ice time a game and 2:41 on the power play. It is a profile he seems likely to repeat tonight. In 13 games against Florida over his career, he is 1-8-9. That power play time could be important to a team who struggles in that aspect and for a player with eight power play goals this season.

Keys:


1. Play Power Play. There are two numbers that when taken together work against the Caps in this one – 97 and 92. The former represents the number of times Florida has been shorthanded at home this season. Only two teams have been shorthanded on home ice fewer times. The latter is the number of power plays the Caps have had on the road – last in the NHL. How many times the Caps go a man (or two) up could be the thing to watch for in this game…can’t score a power play goal if you don’t get the chance.

2. Lock ‘em up. No team in the NHL has allowed fewer third period goals this season than has Washington (45). The Panthers are tied for 23rd in the league in third period goals scored. If Florida scores late, it can’t be good for a team that doesn’t allow the practice, especially for a team that plays as many close games as do the Caps (35 one-goal games). Lock up the third period, get two points.

3. 60 minutes, no more. Nine of Florida’s wins this season have come in extra time. They are 17-31 in games that do not go past 60 minutes. We would just as soon not get the free hockey.

In the end, this game is troublesome. The first of a back-to-back, coming as it does before the big match-up Monday night for first place in the Southeast against Tampa Bay. Some of the players being joined by their fathers for the trip. And hey, it’s Florida…sunny Florida. There is no shortage of potential distractions.  Add to that the fact that the Panthers won two of three games in the season series so far, and this game could be trouble. If the Caps can't manage to earn themselves some power play time, this one could come down to the lunch-pail guys. Jason Chimera has five goals in ten games in his career against the Panthers (none in three games so far this season). Matt Bradley has three of his four goals on the season away from Verizon Center. If the stars will be getting the attention on Monday against the Lightning, the grinders can shine on Sunday.

Caps 4 – Panthers 2

A TWO-point night -- Game 65: Caps 3 - Blues 2

One step at a time.

It was not a dominating performance, by any means, but the 3-2 win posted by the Washington Capitals over the St. Louis Blues last night was another small step forward. After stumbling through the middle portion of the NHL schedule over the last three months, the Caps might finally be giving indications that they are finding their stride.

Although there were many good things in evidence in last night’s game, the fact that there were some lingering bad things meant that the win did not come easy.

Good: The Caps came out strong again at both ends, holding the Blues without a shot for the first six minutes and outshooting them 5-2 in the first 13-plus minutes.

Bad: In the 14th minute, the Blues scored first when the Blues, quite inexplicably, managed to get a 3-on-2 advantage in the Washington end. Chris Stewart, skating down the left side, sent a pass to his left that Patrik Berglund let go through to the tape of Alex Steen’s stick. Steen wasted no time snapping the puck past Caps goalie Michal Neuvirth. The Blues were able to get a 3-on-2 because Alex Ovechkin and Nicklas Backstrom got caught pushing the one-minute mark on their respective shifts, and both were slow to backcheck and prevent the advantage for the Blues.
*****

Good: Nicklas Backstrom’s swat out of mid air of a puck deflected by Mike Knuble to give him his first goal at home since November 20th (a 5-4 Gimmick loss to the Flyers).

Bad: Concerning Backstrom, not much (the backchecking on the Blues’ first goal notwithstanding, but it was at the end of a shift). A goal, four shots, a couple of takeaways, a blocked shot, and he won seven of 12 draws, despite the injured flipper.
*****

Good: Neuvirth stopped the last 17 shots he faced, keeping the Caps in the game when they fell behind twice, then slamming the door when the Caps finally took a lead.

Bad: Neuvirth did not have as smooth a game technically as he had against the Islanders on Tuesday. Against the Islanders one had the impression watching him that he was really trusting his positioning. Last night, he seemed to be swimming and lunging a great deal more. Shots he normally gobbles up were bouncing off him, making it necessary to lunge out in an attempt to smother the puck.
*****

Good: The Caps showed that they are gaining confidence and growing more comfortable in these low-scoring, one-goal games

Bad: They keep falling behind in them (twice allowing the Blues to take one-goal leads).
*****

Good: A swarming power play that created more chances on their first period man-advantage than they might have had in total over the past two weeks, several pucks barely sliding past the net or out of danger.

Bad: Well, the one power play. Part of converting power plays is getting power plays. The lone power play makes it three games in a row in which the Caps have had two or fewer opportunities and 22 such games this season.
*****

Good: With two assists, Alex Ovechkin is now 5-7-12 in his last ten games. This is more the pace and consistency of scoring to which Ovechkin and Caps fans have become accustomed.

Bad: One shot on goal? Three attempts? No shot attempts in the last 32 minutes? Sure, the Blues are a step up in weight class on defense from the Islanders, but those are rather sparse numbers.
*****

Good: Experience. Jason Arnott could have seen Alexander Semin pick up the puck with five minutes left and just skated hard at the net while Semin did what Semin does. But Arnott gave his teammate options. He opened his stance and gave Semin a real passing option. Semin used it, feeding Arnott for the game-winning one-timer before Patrik Berglund could get back to defend Arnott.

Bad: Nothing from the three new guys so far. Arnott has points in both games in which he played; Dennis Wideman skated more than 22 minutes, had five hits and two blocked shots; and Marco Sturm had six shot attempts (three on goal) and gave indications that it’s just a matter of time until he joins the scoring list for the Caps.
*****

Good: Matt Bradley winning a fight. It does not happen often, and this one might have been his most convincing one, KO’ing Tyson Strachan late in the first period.

Bad: It did not seem to jump-start the Caps from their sluggish start. They did not record a shot in the last minute of the first following the bout and had only one shot on goal in the first three minutes of the second period before Scott Hannan scored to tie the game.
*****

Good: Dennis Wideman getting five hits in 22 minutes is one thing. Matt Hendricks getting five hits in 12 minutes is something else. And there he was pounding his stick on the boards from the bench after the Caps made some fine plays to help kill a penalty. On the bench, on the ice…if Pat Verbeek was once the “Little Ball of Hate, Hendricks might be the “Little Ball of BOOM!”

Bad: Wish we saw that kind of enthusiasm a little more consistently from other Caps.
*****

Good: A win

Bad: Not nearly enough to outweigh the good.
*****

And some numbers…

38 – Number of times the Caps have allowed the first goal (which they did again last night). Only Toronto, Edmonton, and the New York Islanders have allowed the game’s first goal more often than the Caps.

35 --Last night was the 35th one-goal game played by the Caps – only Carolina and Florida have played more.

18 – The number of one-goal wins the Caps have after last night.

28 – The number of one-goal games in which the Caps have secured at least one standings point, tied for tops in the league (Tampa Bay).

4 – Number of multi-point games from Alex Ovechkin in his last eight (including the one he had last night). Might not sound like much for Ovechkin, but it is the most frequent instance of so many multi-point games since he had five in six games in early November.

2 – Number of power play shots on goal last night, both by Jason Arnott.

118 – the streak of games without a goal that ended for Scott Hannan last night. Taking a sweet feed from Ovechkin from behind the Blues’ net, Hannan was all alone on the weak side, where he had time to pick the corner over Blues goalie Ty Conklin’s left shoulder. Hannan had not scored a goal since November 23, 2009, in a 5-4 win over Philadelphia. This one ended more happily. After Hannan scored against the Flyers he took a blind-side shot to the chops from Danny Briere that flattened him and earned Briere a two-game suspension.

2 – The first time the Caps have won two games in succession at home since November 26th (6-0 over Tampa Bay) and November 28th (3-2 in a Gimmick over Carolina).

3 – The first three-game winning streak since the Caps capped a three-gamer with their win over Pittsburgh in the Winter Classic.

Maybe, just maybe, the Caps are finally awakening from their long winter hibernation. One cannot call any of the three wins on this mini-streak “dominating” (all were by one goal, and the Caps did not score more than three goals in any of them), but a team that chooses to play a shutdown kind of game isn’t going to be winning many 7-4 games, either. It is the fifth consecutive win in which the Caps have allowed two or fewer goals (a total of six in the five games). In fact, in 13 wins in the 2011 portion of the season, the Caps have allowed two or fewer goals 12 times, the 7-6 win over Anaheim the only blot on that mark.

The Caps have almost completely remade themselves into something unrecognizable to anyone who watched them play last season. But think upon this. Last season the Chicago Blackhawks closed the regular season having held opponents to two or fewer goals in nine of their last 11 wins. The year before, the Pittsburgh Penguins held their opponents to two or fewer goals in six of their last eight regular season wins. If this is the trend among teams that go on to success in June, the Caps would do well to continue what they are doing.

The Peerless Prognosticator is ON THE AIR!!! -- Caps vs. Blues, March 3rd

The Peerless Prognosticator is ON THE AIR!!!

The Caps return to the Verizon Center ice tonight to host the St. Louis Blues in an effort to win their third game in a row and second in a row on home ice. The last time the Caps had a three-game winning streak was when they defeated the Pittsburgh Penguins on January 1st. The last time they won consecutive home games was at the end of November when they beat Tampa Bay and Carolina in the last two games of the month.

Yeah, it’s been awhile.

Tonight’s opponent is one that Caps fans don’t get a chance to see up close and personal very often. So here is a look at the Blues' numbers in comparison to those of the Caps...

One player Caps fans would recognize, though, is goaltender Jaroslav Halak. You will remember him as the goalie for the Montreal Canadiens last year who stymied the Caps time and time again in the last three games of the opening series of the Stanley Cup playoffs, shaking off, well…the shakes, to lead the Habs to a stunning first round upset of the Presidents Trophy winners.

Well, guess what. He won’t be playing tonight. Cracked bone in his right hand. In his absence, St. Louis could offer up Ty Conklin. And if his recent performances are an indicator, tonight could represent the latest in a series of opportunities for the Caps to get their offense well. Over his last four appearances, Conklin is 0-2-2, 3.77, .848. He is 1-1-0, 3.06, .884 against the Caps for his career. He has not faced the Caps since he tended goal for Detroit in a 4-2- loss in Washington in January 2009.

Or Ben Bishop could get the call. The young goalie (24 years old) might be short on experience with 11 games on his resume, but he is long on being tall. At 6’7, he is the tallest goalie to have taken the ice so far this season in the NHL. Bishop has played well enough so far in his five appearances this year, posting a 2-3 record, but with a 2.60 GAA and .913 save percentage. Although he has only 11 games of NHL experience, one of those games came against Washington – a 4-2 Capitals win in Washington in December 2008.

As far as the skaters go, this is a team that gets reasonable balance in scoring with four 40-point scorers. One of them is Brad Boyes. Trouble is, he’s now in Buffalo, having been sent there on Monday for a second round pick. David Backes leads the three 40-pointers remaining (23-23-46), but he has been having his troubles getting on the score sheet lately. Over his last six games he is 1-0-1 and is a minus-2. In four career games against the Caps he has a pair of goals, including a game-winner.

Alexander Steen is tied with Backes for the team lead in scoring 17-29-46 and leads the Blues in game-winning goals (five). He hasn’t exactly been on fire lately, either, with only a pair of assists to show for his effort over his last six games. In 15 games played against the Caps over his career (most of it with the Toronto Maple Leafs), he is 3-4-7 with a plus-2.

With defensemen Eric Brewer and Erik Johnson shipped out on trade day (to Tampa Bay and Colorado, respectively), Alex Pietrangelo gets to shoulder more of the burden. He already leads the Blues’ defensemen in scoring (8-26-34, plus-11) and is getting bigger chunks of ice time lately. He has been over 24 minutes in three of his last five games, compared to a season average of 21:20 a game. He has faced the Caps only once in his career and has yet to register a point.

The Peerless’ Players to Ponder:

St. Louis: Patrik Berglund

Berglund is the other 40-point getter for the Blues, and he is as close to a consistent goal scorer as the Blues have had lately (six in his last 13 games, nine in his last 19 games). On a team that has been shut out in its last two games, he needs to rekindle his goal scoring. In three games against the Caps in his career he is 1-0-1.

Washington: Alexander Semin

On November 28th, Alexander Semin staked the Caps to a 2-0 lead over the Carolina Hurricanes in what would end in a 3-2 shootout win at Verizon Center. That, folks, is the last goal Semin scored on home ice so far this season. Given his importance as an offensive threat, it is probably no coincidence that the Caps have struggled at home since then (6-7-6). Whether the reason is injury, the lack of productive linemates, sunspots, whatever…Semin needs to show the fans at home some love.

Keys:


1. Forget where they play. The Caps are 4-8-1 against Western Conference teams this season (although they are 2-0-0 against the Central Division). Just remember, the West is part of the NHL, too, and this game does count in the standings.

2. Don’t squander good fortune. Perhaps the Caps get a break with Halak highly unlikely to play in this game. That is no occasion to let up, just because they are likely to face Ty Conklin or Ben Bishop. Letting down in the face of a perceived weaker opponent is something at which the Caps have become entirely too accomplished this season. Knock it off!

3. 3rd period fireworks. St. Louis has an interesting record in the first two periods of games – 52 goals for/51 against in the first period, 62 goals for/62 goals against in the second. But in the third? 54 goals for/64 goals against. The Blues lose too many games late. They are 25th in winning percentage when trailing after two periods, suggesting they just let games get away from them after holding teams close after 40 minutes.

In the end, it’s another game against – let’s face it – a club the Caps should beat, but will probably be left to hang around to make things altogether too interesting at the end. All the hints are there – a Western Conference team (yawn)…a 13th place team (ho-hum)…a weeknight game with no buzz (zzzzz…). We come to half-expect the Caps to sleep-walk through such games. This is the kind of game the injection of some new personnel might provide some spark for. We’ll see.

Caps 3 – Blues 2

Timing is Everything, Even for Trophies

Perusing some hockey sites, we noted that ESPN.com ranks the Norris Trophy candidates as follows:

1. Kris Letang
2. Keith Yandle
3. Nicklas Lidstrom
4. Zdeno Chara
5. Lubomir Visnovsky

We take no small notice that these five defensemen are ranked: fifth, first, second, 26th, and third in scoring among defensemen, respectively.  They are also a combined plus-37.

Yet last year, a certain offensive defenseman finished first in goals, assists, and points among defensemen and finished with a plus-39 on his own.

Mike Brophy at Sportsnet.ca has Dustin Byfuglien and Shea Weber in the mix (Chara and Visnovsky out).  It bears noting that Byfuglien leads all defensemen in goals (18) and is sixth in points (while posting a minus-5), and Weber is a top-ten point getter (although to be fair might be the best two-way defenseman in the NHL not named "Lidstrom").

Nicklas Lidstrom is hockey royalty and is having a superb seaaons; he should win this award going away for 2010-2011.  As for the rest, none of the years they are having hold a candle to the year Mike Green had last season.  It is the difference between a year (two, actually) when offense among defensemen (and specifically, it seemed, Green) was the bubonic plague* and a year when offense seems to go a long way to influence the rankings of the candidates.

Sorry, Mike.  You picked the wrong year to decide to play defense.


*  Yes, Green was a Norris Trophy finalist, but you'd wonder why when reading commentary suggesting that his inclusion was all but an insult to defensemen everywhere.

A TWO-point night -- Game 64: Caps 2 - Islanders 1 (OT)

When a lot of people put their head on their pillow, they count sheep to fall asleep.

We will be chanting, “twoooooo points…twoooooo points…”

That’s about all that the Caps took away from their 2-1 overtime win over the New York Islanders this evening at Verizon Center, because quite frankly…the Caps sucked for 59 minutes, 12.9 seconds.

OK, Michal Neuvirth didn’t suck. He allowed one goal on 29 shots faced, and that one came on a ghastly turnover by John Carlson that let the Islanders jail break into the Caps zone with a 2-on-1 that became a 3-on-1, and only Carlson’s partner Karl Alzner back. P.A. Parenteau carried the puck in on Neuvirth, dished to the one Islander that the Caps could not afford to leave alone with a good look at the net – Matt Moulson – and Moulson buried the puck for his 28th goal of the season.

The Islanders almost made it stand up. No thanks to their goaltending. The record will show that Nathan Lawson – he of the 1-4-0 record, GAA far north of 4.00, and save percentage well south of .900 coming into the game – stopped the first 38 shots he faced. That is the minimal requirement for a goaltender, to stop the puck, but he might not have handled half a dozen shots cleanly all night. He was leaving loose pucks in the crease as if they were confetti on the floor of the Superdome after a Super Bowl. The Caps were unable (with a splash of unwilling) to cash in on the opportunities strewn along the ice by young Mr. Lawson.

The Caps were 47.1 seconds away from perhaps their most embarrassing loss of the season. It looked as if the Caps were going to take their ninth shutout of the season (edit: correction...tenth!)and fifth on home ice in the last 17 home games. And they would do it against a team that had not recorded a road shutout all season (or last season…in fact, not since March 27, 2009).

But the Islanders played things a little too cute in the end game. They did not have a shot on goal in the last 5:23 of regulation time, including none on a power play that started with 3:11 left (a holding penalty to Nicklas Backstrom, his second in the span of ten minutes). The Islanders are not a good enough team to be playing prevent defense with a one-goal lead, especially in front of a goalie with a grand total of 302 minutes of NHL experience coming into this game.

It burned them in the last minute. Alexander Semin out dueled Michael Grabner for a loose puck along the boards just inside the Islander line. Semin kicked the puck in deep, where it was worked all the way around to Alex Ovechkin in the left wing corner. Ovechkin sent the puck back from whence it came, finding the stick of Jason Arnott. The new guy flicked the puck out in front where Brooks Laich was heading to the net (hey, there’s a thought!...folks might want to do that more often). Laich had time and space to settle the puck and scoop it over Lawson to tie the game with 47.1 seconds left.

That left it for overtime, which became the exhilarating, and at the same time frustrating “Alex Ovechkin Show.” Travis Hamonic skated into the Capials’ zone carrying the puck down the right side. He was angled around the Caps’ net by John Carlson. Hamonic had nowhere to go but along the path he had taken, and as he came out the other side sent the puck along the boards to Frans Nielsen.

But there wasn’t enough mustard on the pass, and Alex Ovechkin intercepted it, turned, and headed up ice. With only the forward Nielsen back and doing a less than passable imitation of a defenseman skating backward, Ovechkin pushed the pace and cut around Nielsen to the middle of the ice. With Nielsen left behind and Jack Hillen choosing to cover Nicklas Backstrom driving at the net, Ovechkin had only the goalie Lawson to beat. He showed forehand, pulled the puck to his backhand, and lifted it over Lawson’s right pad to put this godforsaken game out of its misery, the Caps skating off with… twoooooo points.

The exhilarating part was the manner in which Ovechkin grabbed the puck, weaved his way around Nielsen, kicked in another gear, and deked his way to the backhand winner.  The frustrating part was how bored he looked over the first 60 minutes (and that has not been an uncommon look this season).  

Other stuff:

-- Each of the new guys – Marco Sturm, Jason Arnott, and Dennis Wideman – could have had a goal on their respective first shots. Sturm had his chance on a breakaway in the game’s third minute. His shot snuck through Lawson’s five hole and trickled out the back side, missing the far post by a couple of inches. Arnott’s chance came about a minute later when he redirected a centering feed from Brooks Laich into the shoulder of Lawson. Wideman completed the trifecta of chances when he took a shot from outside that went through a screen and off Lawson’s pad. All were good chances.

-- In fact, the Caps had a lot of chances, especially early. They outshot the Islanders 10-1 in the game’s first 8:31. But like their season in a bottle, they would not record another shot for the next 9:39. When the Caps went to the first intermission tied 0-0, it looked like an opportunity – make that “opportunities” – squandered.

-- The shots on goal was terribly deceptive in this one. Yes, the Caps had those 42 shots on goal for the game, but that might have been a reflection of the Islanders being utterly incapable of getting in the way. The visitors had only 19 blocks on the night, a small number given the volume that got through.

-- Oh, and of the shots taken by the Caps, 20 of them were from further than 40 feet, nine were from more than 60 feet, and two were from more than 100 feet, including a shot credited to Dennis Wideman from 179 feet. Someone had fun with the shot counter tonight.

-- Only three caps failed to be credited with at least one hit – Marco Sturm, Jeff Schultz, and Marcus Johansson. The odd thing was, Ovechkin was credited with only one. But it was a doozy when he flattened Travis Hamonic at the side of the Islander cage.

-- The old saying goes that doing the same thing the same way and expecting a different result is a working definition of insanity. Well, Ovechkin out there in Siberia ain’t working on the power play; it's approaching insane. Watching him get passes within arm’s reach of the blue line on the left point is agony to watch. He is not going to score from out there. He just isn’t.

-- And speaking of the power play, it one thing to go 0-for-2. There has been a lot of oh-fer’in going on lately. It is another thing to get only three shots on two power plays. It is (or should be) unacceptable to fail to execute a clean entry or a simple dump into the corner. The repetition of the Caps bumbling the puck at the blue line and having to either regroup in the neutral zone or chase the puck into their own end – almost none of it the doing of the Islanders – was the hockey fan’s equivalent of root canal (it was not lost on the fans, who booed quite a bit on the Caps' man advantages). The Caps looked plainly lost on their own power play.

-- Dennis Wideman averaged 2:16 in shorthanded ice time with Florida. Tonight – 4:45.

-- With all due respect to Ty Wishart, it seems a violation of the laws of nature than any Islander would wear the number “6.” We understand that Wishart is the 13th player to wear the number since Ken Morrow wore it as a four-time Stanley Cup champion, but it just doesn’t look right.

-- Maybe it’s all just a matter of a few words. Listening to the post game and Jason Arnott’s comments, we were left with the feeling that until now, there hasn’t been much conversing with Alexander Semin going on out on the ice. Semin didn’t have a point tonight, but he did have two shots on goal (eight attempts), a hit, a couple of takeaways, and a blocked shot. Maybe it’s just a case of getting him more engaged.

-- Good things don’t happen with the snap of a finger when a new guy (or three) comes in. But there did seem to be some decent chemistry from time to time between Arnott and Brooks Laich, and that was even before the game-tying goal.

-- Perhaps the oddest number of the night – 27. That was the number of shifts Brooks Laich skated, a number usually reserved for defensemen. Only Dennis Wideman (a defenseman) had more (30).

-- And speaking of Wideman, is it me, or does he bear a resemblance to Nationals’ third baseman Ryan Zimmerman?

In the end, let’s be real here. The Caps escaped with a win against a team that had players participating in their third NHL game (Mark Katic), 12th NHL game (Micheal Haley), first NHL game (Justin DiBenedetto), and ninth NHL game (Lawson). And it is not as if the guys with more experience have a lot more talent, once you get past John Tavares, Matt Mouslon, Josh Bailey, and Kyle Okposo. The team the Islanders iced tonight might be long on spunk, but the Caps should have ended the competitive portion of this game in the first ten minutes. Instead, they responded to the frustration of not scoring on any of their first ten shots by playing a disinterested game for the rest of the first period, then followed it up with a lot of sizzle (27 shots on goal in the next 39-plus minutes) and no steak (zero goals).

This really has to stop. Two points is two points, but the Caps are not going to be playing green, talent-challenged teams every night, and squeaking by them to boot. It might be a win, but it is NOT a winning formula.

Winners and Losers

The ink is barely dry on the paperwork making yesterday’s trades official, and already we have outlets proclaiming winners and losers, issuing grades, and opining on which team “won” the trading deadline.

Hold your horses, folks. Let’s think about something for a moment. Why are “buyers” at the trading deadline “buying?” It’s not to win another game or two in the last 20 regular season games (unless they are on the playoff bubble). They are doing it to fit a last piece into a Stanley Cup-winning puzzle.

I heard one commentator on the radio breathless gushing about all the moves Boston made in the days leading up to the deadline. I saw one respected blogger handing out grades. Another even proclaimed – gasp! – the Caps the winner of Deadline Day.

Given the object of the exercise, it’s a little bit…no, way too early to be issuing grades or identifying “winners” and “losers.” What looks good on paper today might not have that same appeal in a couple of months.

We touched on this yesterday when we asked if Deadline Day matters. Last year, were people gushing about the steal Chicago made in obtaining Nick Boynton from Anaheim for future considerations? And two years ago, the saga of Bill Guerin was more a tale of intrigue (the mysterious team with which the Islanders did or did not have a deal) than it was his being a player that could make a team – ultimately Pittsburgh – a winner on Deadline Day. Pittsburgh, hard as it is for Caps fans to remember, won the Cup with Guerin in tow.

Winners and losers are not made on Deadline Day. They are built long before those last pieces of the puzzle are fit in. Oh, granted, it is quite entertaining to see who will go where and to speculate on who improved their chances to win a Cup most from among their peers. Caps fans can take comfort in the fact that the team improved itself in the deals it made yesterday, filling holes and increasing the overall talent level. But it is not until after the ice shavings settle in June that we can know who “won” or “lost” yesterday and the days leading up to it. If the Stanley Cup is the standard by which one evaluates such things, the “winner” is the team that skates the Cup around the rink, not the team that gets a high grade from hockey commentators or bloggers (including this one) this morning.

The Peerless Prognosticator is ON THE AIR!!! -- Caps vs. Islanders, March 1st

The Peerless Prognosticator is ON THE AIR!!!

Hey, didn’t we just do this? With the Islanders, that is. The Caps complete the extended home and home with the New York Islanders (begun with a 3-2 win on Long Island on Saturday) by hosting the Islanders at Verizon Center tonight. Since last Saturday, as you know, things have changed on the Caps’ end.

The Capitals completed two trades yesterday:

-- Dennis Wideman from Florida for Jake Hauswith and a 2011 third round pick
-- Jason Arnott from New Jersey for David Steckel and a 2012 second round pick

Adding Marco Sturm to that mix as a waiver pick-up means that the Caps will have tuned over a sixth of their skaters taking the ice since Saturday’s game. The three will provide a measure of veteran experience (a combined 2,472 regular season games of experience) and offensive punch...we hope.

About that offense. Arnott, Sturm, and Wideman have among them only 26 goals this season, but there are circumstances concering that fact. Regarding Sturm, he is coming off knee problems that began on his first shift of last spring’s second round playoff series against Philadelphia. In the meantime, he moved from Boston to Los Angeles and has been limited to four goals in 17 games this season while finding it difficult fitting in with the Kings and satisfying their head coach, Terry Murray. Before this season Sturm averaged 22 goals per 82 games played over 12 seasons. If knee injuries have not robbed him too much of his speed, he could provide more reliable (or more consistent) scoring on the wing from the second line than the Caps have been getting lately.

Wideman brings a minus-26 number with him from Florida. Only Ottawa’s Erik Karlsson has a worse plus-minus number heading into tonight’s play. However, that number comes while playing almost 24 minutes a night for a struggling team, and Wideman has eight power play goals (the entire Florida team has only 29). He has 25 power play goals over the last three-plus seasons and has 34 power play goals in his 439 career regular season games (by way of comparison, Mike Green has 41 power play goals in 366 career games). He will be insurance on the back line, especially on the power play, given Mike Green’s uncertain health status. And, he could allow the Caps to manage John Carlson’s minutes a little more closely (Carlson picking up a number of responsibilities lately as injuries dig into the Caps’ blue line).

Arnott could be the key here. That the Caps have had second line center problems since Sergei Fedorov departed is well known. The last couple of years have been a search for a replacement. Arnott comes in, not with the rest of the regular season in mind, but his 106 Stanley Cup playoff games experience, his 30 playoff goals, and his Cup-clinching goal in 2000 in mind. His 13-11-24 scoring line in 62 games this season does not look especially impressive in the context of his career (he has averaged 28-35-63 per 82 games in his career), but in assuming for the time being the second-line center responsibilities he will be replacing the youngsters who have spent much of the year auditioning for that role – Marcus Johansson and Mathieu Perreault – who have a combined 16-16-32 in 85-man games between them. His 51.3 percent faceoff percentage is better than either Johansson (40.7 percent) or Perreault (45.6 percent), and he has the bulk to be able to compete physically with the big centers in the east against whom he might be playing. More to the point, he has a certain familiarity with two of the most dangerous potential opponents for the Caps in the playoffs – Philadelphia and Pittsburgh – by virtue of his experience facing them in the Atlantic Division.

The Peerless’ Players to Ponder:

New York: John Tavares

One of the things that might come hard for a young, highly skilled player late in a season with his team falling out of contention is his ability to maintain focus and finish strong. John Tavares does not have a point in his last three games (all Islander losses) and does not have a goal in his last five contests. Better days lie ahead for the Islanders – in no small part due to Tavares’ presence – but they are now in 14th place in the East, and their fate is sealed. A game like this offers a glimpse at the mental discipline of a young player like Tavares to continue making the effort.

Washington: Dennis Wideman

Adding defensemen to a team late in the year is an iffy proposition. It didn’t work for the Caps last year when they added Joe Corvo at the deadline, and this year Dennis Wideman is the contestant to help give the Caps some added push from the blue line. Wideman brings many uncertainties (like the chicken-egg matter of his wildly fluctuating plus-minus in recent years; is he that good/bad defensively, or is it a product of the teams on which he played?), but his ability to score on the power play isn’t among them. Eight of his nine goals were on the power play this season, and he has those 25 power play goals over the last three-plus seasons. Given the Caps’ woes on the power play, especially at home, fans will get a chance to see if he can provide some early returns on the investment of Jake Hauswirth and a draft pick for his services.

Keys:


1. More Power! The Caps suck on the power play. They are beyond suck on the power play at home.  It has contributed to a disappointing record at home over the past three months.  They have to start demonstrating some ability to make teams pay for taking liberties, or they are going to be pounded into powder when the games matter. Teams will have no fear. The Islanders might be struggling, but they have a competent penalty kill (82.8 percent, tied for 12th). It will be a fair test.

2. Moderate expectations. Integrating three new parts, especially what could be important parts, isn’t something that happens at the snap of a finger or the drop of a puck. But even in a 60-minute game, fans might see more comfort on the part of the newcomers in the third period than early. It’s a process.

3. De-Twitterize. Players all over the league might have had one eye on their mobile devices looking at who was going where and wondering if they would be among those changing teams. It’s over. Back to work. The push starts now.

In the end, these are your 2011 Playoff Washington Capitals, for better or worse. And there is an issue that rises to the surface when you look at the team in that context. Adding Dennis Wideman, Marco Sturm, and Jason Arnott are marginal improvements. But if you are worthy of the term “Stanley Cup contender,” then the important elements of your team were assembled long before the trading deadline. And that means that for whatever improvements this trio might bring to the Caps, ultimately it is on the guys who were here all year (or at least most of it, if you are a Scott Hannan) to push their games to the next level. For whatever Wideman, Sturm, and Arnott might contribute, this is Ovechkin’s, Backstrom’s, Green’s, Semin’s, Neuvirth’s, Varlamov’s, Carlson’s, and Alzner’s team (and others, but you get the point). If they don’t perform at a high level, the additions will not matter. We’ll get a peak at how that might unfold tonight.

Caps 4 – Islanders 2

...and Happy Trails, David Steckel.  Good luck in New Jersey.