The Caps and the Baseball Cap Brigade: How Backup Goalies Might Have Been Opportunities Lost

The Washington Capitals have had, by anyone’s reasonable definition, a disappointing season to date. When the season started, few would have guessed that by the time the Caps had completed 50 games, they would be skating for a different head coach and would find themselves on the outside, looking in at playoff eligibility.

It might have been even more incredible to entertain that scenario after the Caps got off to a 7-0-0 start to open the season, capped off by a 7-1 demolition of the mighty Detroit Red Wings. But in that seven-game winning streak to start the 2011-2012 campaign the seeds were sown for disappointment that would sprout later. It comes down to two words…

“Backup goaltender.”

In those first seven games the Caps outscored their opponents by a 29-14 margin. To the fan who might have followed the Caps on a casual basis the past few years, it might have looked as if the high-flying Caps were back to their lamp-lighting ways, the 2010-2011 season of “defense first” but a memory. But in those first seven games, the Caps faced no fewer than five backup netminders (backups in blue):

The Caps lit up those five goalies for 19 goals in five games, and the Caps used that to jump out to their 7-0-0 record before the season was barely two weeks old.

That has been a recurring underlying theme for the Caps this season – facing backup goaltenders on a rather regular basis. They have not taken advantage of the opportunity. In 52 games through last Sunday, the Caps faced a backup goaltender 20 times.* In those games the Caps have posted a 10-8-2 mark. And as a group, those backup goalies have a 2.69 goals against average, a .896 save percentage, and one shutout (the Islanders’ Evgeni Nabokov) against Capitals shooters.

It is strange that the Caps would struggle so against backups when you consider that the record they have against number one goaltenders over 32 games is not substantially different than the record they have against backups. Through last Sunday the Caps were 17-13-2 against number ones (10-8-2 against backups). Number ones had a 2.69 goals against average against the Caps (compared to 2.68 for backups). The number one netminders had a save percentage of .905 in 32 games (backups were at .896). Each group had one shutout against Washington (Cam Ward for the number ones, Evgeni Nabokov for the number twos).

There is something to note about the losses to the backups. In eight regulation and two extra time losses to backup goalies, the Caps have failed against a largely veteran group. Scott Clemmensen (twice, before beating him last night), Jaroslav Halak (who was behind Brian Elliott in St. Louis), Jean-Sebastien Giguere (at the time behind Semyon Varlamov in Colorado), Evgeni Nabokov, and Johan Hedberg were among the veteran netminders serving in a backup capacity who beat the Caps.

But the Caps had success against some veteran backups, too. They did beat Brent Johnson, Brian Boucher, Alex Auld, Ty Conklin, and Martin Biron, among others. It just seems rather confounding that the Caps have not had any markedly better time of it against the baseball cap brigade than against the number one goalie teams have to offer.

Part of the problem is, as has been the case for much of the season, getting shots to the net at all. Against backup goalies the Caps are averaging only 25.7 shots per 60 minutes of play, fewer on average than they have against number one netminders (28.2). And with the Caps scoring two or fewer goals against this specie of goaltender ten times in 20 games, it suggests that the Caps have left standings points on the table by failing to make opponents pay for sending out their number two in goal.

As the season dips under 30 games left to play, one would expect that the Caps are going to see fewer and fewer backups as teams get their number one goalies loaded for the stretch run and prepped for the playoffs. But it hasn’t seemed to matter much for the Caps so far this year. Backup or number one, it has been the same tune. Come the spring, the Caps might regret not having taken greater advantage of the opportunities presented to them in the form of the backup goaltender.

* Backup means just what it suggests. Even if the number one goalie was injured and out of the lineup, and the number two goalie started, that is considered having faced the “backup.” It is where the goalie sits on the depth chart. For purposes of this exercise, to avoid confusion, we considered Rick Dipietro the number one goalie for the Islanders (he did face the Caps once this season), and Semyon Varlamov as the number one for the Avalanche (he was ahead of Jean-Sebastien Giguere on the depth chart at the time the Caps faced Colorado).

A TWO-point night -- Game 53: Capitals 4 - Panthers 0

The hook for the game last night between the Washington Capitals and the Florida Panthers was that it was a “playoff” game. At stake was the top spot in the Southeast Division, the winner claiming the prize, the loser dropping to ninth place and out of the top-eight playoff-eligible clubs.

It was Washington that rose to the occasion, scoring early and often, and keeping Florida from doing the same in a 4-0 win. If there was any doubt about the Caps’ showing up for this one, it was set aside early. Very early. Mathieu Perreault scored 13 seconds into the game. It started when Panther goalie Scott Clemmensen circled around his own net and snapped the puck around the wall and up the left wing boards. Alexander Semin cut off the puck and sent it back down to Jason Chimera at the Florida goal line. Chimera sent the puck back out in front, where it found its way onto Perreault’s stick. Perreault snapped a shot at the Florida net that slithered under Clemmensen’s pads before he could get down into position to smother the shot, and the Caps were off and running.

Alex Ovechkin made the lead two on a power play nine minutes later. Dennis Wideman authored the play by carrying the puck from the Caps’ zone right up the middle of the ice without any Panther forcing him to give up the puck. With the Panthers backing off, Wideman made it to the Florida blue line before dishing the puck to his left and onto Ovechkin’s stick. As Wideman was making the pass, Panther defenseman Mike Weaverwaved weakly at the puck going by, and it provided enough of an edge for Ovechkin to gain position and a clear path to the net. He took a couple of strides in and rifled a wrist shot through Clemmensen’s five hole for his 21st goal.

The Caps made good on special teams once more early in the second period. Jason Chimera picked up a loose puck just inside the Capitals’ blue line and started out of the zone where the Caps soon found themselves on a 3-on-2 rush. He tried to send the puck across to Matt Hendricks on his right, but the puck was deflected into the air. Brian Campbell waved at it with his stick as it was drifting over his head, but he missed, and Hendricks picked it up. Hendricks dropped the puck for John Carlson, who then sent the puck to the Florida net. The Panthers by this time lost Chimera behind the play, and the forward was all alone in front of the Panther crease. The first shot by Chimera was muffled by Clemmensen, but not stopped. With the puck lying still in the crease, Chimera stepped up and around the fallen Clemmensen and bunted it into the open net to make it 3-0, Caps.

Alex Ovechkin ended the scoring by starting and ending his own play. He started it from the Capitals’ blue line, skating down the left wing boards and into the Florida zone. As he was about to move the puck in deep, Panther defenseman Mike Weaver poked it away. No Panther could control the puck until it was Ovechkin who did as he circled back around the top of the left wing circle. With Weaver trying to close the distance, Ovechkin snapped the puck across his body and over Clemmensen’s blocker in the top corner to make the score Caps 4 – Panthers 0. That was more than enough for goalie Tomas Vokoun, who turned away all 42 – yes, 42 – Panther shots to record his fourth shutout of the season, and the Caps were once more on top in the Southeast Division.

Other stuff…

-- By the time the Caps had their two goals in the first period, the Caps outshot the Panthers, 3-2, and out-attempted them 8-5. Then things changed. Over the next 22:26 – from the time the Caps got their 2-0 lead until Ovechkin scored to make it 4-0 – the Panthers outshot the Caps, 11-4, and out-attempted Washington by a 32-15 margin. After they got to 4-0, the Caps battened down the hatches as far as offense goes. Florida outshot the Caps 22-10 over the last 28:13 and out-attempted them, 37-16. For the game, the Panthers had a 42-24 edge in shots and a 74-39 edge in shot attempts.

-- Karl Alzner earned a roughing minor penalty at 3:31 of the second period. Write it down. It was the first roughing penalty of ALzner’s NHL career in his 186th game.

-- When Jason Chimera scored a shorthanded goal 61 seconds into the second period, it was the second shorthanded goal of the season for the Caps and the first at home this season. Chimera has both shorthanded goals, getting the other as the game-winning goal in a 3-1 win in New Jersey on November 11th.

-- The Caps had 24 shots for the game. Chimera had eight of them, Ovechkin had five, Matt Hendricks – Matt Hendricks??? – had three. Eight shots for the other 15 skaters? Ovechkin had ten shot attempts, Chimera nine, and Hendricks three. Seventeen shot attempts for the other 15 skaters? Are you kidding me?

-- Brooks Laich got a sweater, bad knee and all, and skated 9:28. With the Caps holding a big lead, he took a seat for the last 8:21. Still, he managed two hits and won seven of eight draws.

-- Speaking of draws, the Caps had only ten in the offensive zone, and they took 23 in the defensive zone. OK, “scoring effect”… but still, an awful lot of plays starting in the Caps’ end, and it is not a new phenomenon.

-- For the Panthers, Marcel Goc might want to burn the tape of this one. He was on the ice for both even strength goals for the Caps and the shortie, he took the penalty that led to the Caps’ power play goal, and he lost nine of 14 draws.

-- Jeff Schultz… two hits (two hits!!!), three takeaways, and a plus-1 in almost 15 minutes. Next stop…Norristown.

-- Efficiency, thy name is “Caps Power Play.” One opportunity, one shot, one goal. Heck, the Caps had more shorthanded shots (two, both by Chimera on the same play).

-- Mathieu Perreault played in his 35th game last night, tying his career high in three seasons. He is also working on career highs in goals (getting his ninth last night) and points (16). He’s also shooting to a 27.3 percent success rate for the season.

-- It was not the most shots on goal Tomas Vokoun faced this season, but he could see the top from there. The 42 shots he faced and turned away tied the volume he faced in a 5-2 win over the Flyers last October 20th, and it was just short of the 44 he faced in a 2-1 win against Carolina on January 15th.  He is 4-0-0 when facing more than 40 shots.

-- Remember we had Sean Bergenheim as the “Player to Ponder” in the pre-game scribbles? Yeah, well, he was the only Panther to fail to record a shot on goal. Nice call, moonyok.

In the end, it was a nice win. In another time, it would have been a win of an expected variety, but one wonders on a game-to-game basis which Caps team will show up, the one that sleepwalked through a loss in Florida last week or the one that jumped all over the Cats from the opening faceoff last night. The Caps got what they needed – Alex Ovechkin stepped up with a pair (of goals, that is), they got support from Mathieu Perreault and Jason Chimera to get and pad a lead, and they let Tomas Vokoun do the rest. Is that a recipe for putting some wins together until the Caps get healthy? It worked just fine last night. Now the trick is bringing that every night.

The Laichinator

The Peerless Prognosticator is ON THE AIR!!! -- Game 53: Panthers at Capitals, February 7th

The Peerless Prognosticator is ON THE AIR!!!

- Division opponent?... check
- Playoff position at stake?... check
- Home game in front of supportive fans?... check
- Team you would like to get a measure of revenge against because they lead the season series so far this season?... check

OK, it is not Montreal or Philadelphia or the Rangers. It is the team right in front of them, standing there eating your lunch in while you look on.

If the Caps can’t get excited about this game -- even in the wake of injuries -- the word “professional” doesn’t apply, let alone the word, “contender.”

The Washington Capitals host the team directly in front of them in the standings, the Florida Pantthers, in a Southeast Division matchup that could put the Caps right back in the playoff mix or signal the beginning of the end of their competitive portion of their season.

The Panthers visit Verizon Center sitting on top of the Southeast Division and having earned points in four of their last five games (3-1-1), including a 4-2 win over the Caps just last Wednesday. This will be Florida’s fourth straight game against a Southeast Division foe, a stretch that began with the win over the Capitals. Since then they beat Winnipeg at home, 2-1, then lost in Tampa Bay, 6-3, on Saturday.

At one level, the Caps should consider themselves fortunate that the Panthers have been meandering through their schedule over the last six weeks. Over the last two months, starting with a 2-1 overtime loss to the Buffalo Sabres that snapped a three-game winning streak on December 9th, the Panthers are 8-8-7. On another level though, the Caps should be kicking themselves from here to St. Swithin’s Day (July 15th) over their incapacity to put the Panthers and the rest of the Southeast Division away. On December 9th, as the Panthers were starting their journey of mediocrity, they held a six point lead over the Caps in the Southeast. In the intervening two months the Caps have outpointed the Panthers by five standings points. It does not say much for the Caps in that time. Here is how the two teams stack up this season so far:

(click pic for larger image)

1. Those eight wins the Panthers have since December 9th. Six of them have been by one goal, and three of them have come in extra time. The eight losses in regulation? Five have come by three or more goals.

2. Scott Clemmensen has been the goalie of record in each of Florida’s last five games. In that time he is 3-1-1, 2.57, .920. He has nine decisions in the 2012 portion of the season, only four wins. Of course, this being the Florida Panthers, he has only two losses in regulation (4-2-3 overall).

3. Caps Alumni, Part I… Tomas Fleischmann is 2-2-4 in his last four games, including a pair of assists against Washington last week. Despite the four points, though, he has been on the ice for six of the last eight goals scored against the Panthers.

4. Caps Alumni, Part II… Matt Bradley has only one goal in his last 31 games. He is also dialing down the fisticuffs. He has four fights so far this season (10 last year with the Caps), none of them since November 13th, a fight against the Flyers’ Zac Rinaldo that was deemed by the voters at hockeyfights.com as his only win of the season.

5. Caps Alumni, Part III… Jose Theodore is day-to-day with a knee injury. He has only two appearances since the new year began and has only one win in seven appearances since December 18th. It is unfortunate for Theodore. In his first 25 appearances this season he allowed more than three goals only three times in compiling a record of 13-7-4. Since then, however, he is 1-2-1 in six appearances, with a 2.67 goals against average and a .899 save percentage.

In the last ten games…

1. The Caps have scored more than three goals once (a 5-3 win over Boston).

2. The Caps have played in four games that ended in a shutout, winning two and losing two. All of them were by 3-0 scores.

3. The Caps have one power play goal in 25 power play opportunities (4.0 percent). Alex Ovechkin was the lone power play goal scorer.

4. The Caps have allowed eight power play goals in 36 opportunities. Over the full season to date, that 77.7 percent penalty kill would rank 28th in the league. But there is that whole allowing only 15 even strength goals in ten games thing (they also allowed a shorthanded goal).

5. The Caps have been out-shot by 324 to 239. They hit the 30 shot mark once and allowed opponents at least 30 shots eight times. Tomas Vokoun and Michal Neuvirth have combined to stop 298 of 322 shots. That .925 save percentage (which would be good for seventh in the league) is the only thing keeping the Caps within striking distance of a playoff spot.

The Peerless’ Players to Ponder

Florida: Sean Bergenheim

Sean Bergenheim almost single-handedly ruined the Caps’ playoff season last spring with four goals in the four-game Tampa Bay sweep. This season he is 1-1-2 in two games against Washington. And, he has five of his nine goals this season over the last seven games (5-2-7, plus-3). Some players just seem to have another team’s number, and Bergenheim seems to have the Caps’ at the moment. Plus, he’s coming into this game as a “hot” player. Attention needs to be paid.

Washington: Marcus Johansson

Marcus Johansson ended a five-game streak without a goal by getting the Caps’ lone marker in the 4-1 loss to Boston on Sunday. It might be just in time with Brooks Laich likely to miss this game to a knee injury suffered in that game on Sunday. Johansson is as close to Laich’s “Mr. Versatility” type of play as any Cap – when he is on his game. And frankly, he hasn’t looked especially sharp lately (for the Caps, who has?). He might be getting a few more shifts to help fill in for Laich’s absence, and if the Caps are to win – if they are to keep from falling any further in the standings as the Caps try to regain a measure of health – Johansson is one of those players who has to step up. Fun fact… Tuesday is his most productive day of the week so far this season (1-7-8, plus-3).

Keys:

1. Convene the Committee. When you have three important cogs out of the lineup – Nicklas Backstrom, Mike Green, and Brooks Laich – the trick is for guys to step up to the moment, but not in a way in which they try to do it all themselves. The Caps do not have enough talent to be able to do that (even if Alex Ovechkin turns back into “Alex Ovechkin”). Contributions have to come from up and down the roster, but by avoiding the individualistic approach. Wins will have to come “by committee.”

2. Respect. The Caps did not appear to give Florida much respect the last time these clubs played, and they got burned for it in a 4-2 loss in Florida. The Panthers have had a long run of poor seasons, but the fact is, this team is ahead of the Caps. And if the Caps treat them like the Panthers of the previous few seasons, then Florida will skate off with another win, and another nail will have been driven into the coffin of the Caps’ playoff chances.

3. Pick ‘em up. Goaltending has pretty much kept the Caps in it. When it has faltered a bit over the last ten games, the Caps just haven’t had enough offense to pick their goalies up. And there is that whole matter of allowing far too many shots. A .925 save percentage when you are giving up 32.4 shots per game (as is the case over the last ten games) still means you are allowing almost 2.5 goals per game (not including the two empty netters opponents have scored). It is not a long term formula for success, and not a short term one for this game, either.

In the end, they are not Montreal or Philadelphia or Pittsburgh. But the Florida Panthers are in first place in the Southeast Division. They might not be playing like it lately (that whole 8-8-7 record since December 9th), but there they are. The Caps do not have the luxury of treating this opponent as anything but a better team at the moment and need to provide an effort that reflects that reality. If they don’t, it will be a long night. Maybe they learned their lesson last week in Florida.

Capitals 3 – Panthers 2

Sittin' at the end of the bar...

Quite a weekend, the Caps pitched a shutout, then got shut down. And there was a football game that was redemption for one team and a road map for another…

-- Hey, the Caps had more than 30 shots on goal. Been awhile. The last time they did it, the New York Football Giants were 7-6 and had allowed 121 points in their last three games. Things can change.

-- The Caps still have the best home record in the East in terms of standings points earned. But they are now 1-2-0 in their last three home games and have scored a total of six goals in carving out that record. Things had better change.

-- The Caps are 4-4-2 in their last ten games, tied for the 11th best such record in the league… with Montreal. Only Winnipeg, Buffalo, and Ottawa are worse.

-- Nicklas Backstrom has missed 14 games. The Caps are 6-6-2 in those games. They are 4-for-35 on the power play (11.4 percent). They have scored a total of 31 goals (2.21 per game). If those were season ranks, the Caps would rank 30th and 29th, respectively in those categories. There are three words that come to mind… emm-vee-pee.

-- Brooks Laich went down with an injury yesterday. It did not look good when it happened, and it sounded worse after the game. We are trying not to imagine a team that down the middle has Mathieu Perreault, Marcus Johansson, Jeff Halpern, and Keith Aucoin. That group has combined for 22 goals this season. Five centers in the league have at least as many as individuals (Logan Couture, John Tavares, Jonathan Toews, Evgeni Malkin, and Steven Stamkos). They are probably fine, upstanding citizens, and in their own way and their own roles decent players, but this is not a center depth chart that will win 15 more games this season out of the 30 remaining, perhaps not even ten.

-- The Caps have 29 power play goals this season. Ten of them are or could be on the bench for a while – Brooks Laich (four), Nicklas Backstrom (three) and Mike Green (three).

-- Did you ever think there would be four Caps with more goals at home at this point in the season than Alex Ovechkin? He has six at Verizon Center – fewer than Alexander Semin (eight), Jason Chimera (nine), Nicklas Backstrom (eleven), and Troy Brouwer (11). He’s tied with Marcus Johansson and Dennis Wideman. Heck, even Mathieu Perreault has five. Ovechkin has only two goals against Southeast Division opponents this season (Tampa Bay and Winnipeg).

-- The Caps have only nine players (out of 27 skaters dressing this season) in “plus” territory. Of that group, one is on IR (Mike Green, +1), two have been mothballed (Jeff Schultz, +1; John Erskine, +3), one is at Hershey (Cody Eakin, +2), and another is on a six-game streak of not getting ten minutes of ice time (Joel Ward, +7).

-- Still, there is this... The New York Giants were 6-6 after 12 games and still got into playoffs with 9-7 record. Last night, they won the Lombardi Trophy as champions of the NFL.

Things change.

That Was The Week That Was -- Week 17 (January 29 - February 4)

Week 17 could have better, it could have been worse, many more weeks of this, and the season’ll need a hearse…

Record: 1-1-1

Odd fact… The Caps have had seven consecutive weeks without finishing below .500 in standings points earned. Over that time they are 11-6-3, a 103-point pace. This week, however, a 1-1-1 record is something of a disappointment. An overtime loss to the Tampa Bay Lightning might, under other circumstances, been viewed as a good point earned, given that the Caps trailed by two goals midway through the game. But Tampa Bay just is not that good a team, and it was one more instance of the Caps not getting a “W” on the road. A loss to Florida the following night was confounding in that the Caps just did not seem to treat the game and the circumstances with the respect it deserved and required. A win over Montreal was the one expected outcome that came to pass, but Montreal is a club that is having one of the worst seasons in its memory. This was a week that in the past few years very well could have ended in a sweep. That the Caps split the points is indicative of the disappointing season they are having.

Offense: 2.67/game (season: 2.80/rank: 10th)

Eight goals is by no means awful, but eight goals – and the manner in which they were scored – meant that the Caps could see “awful” from there. If there was a word to describe the Caps’ offense this past week, it might be “disjointed.” Of the eight goals, one came on a penalty shot (Alexander Semin) and three others were unassisted. No evidence of a smoothly operating offense there. Part of the problem might have been the absence of Alex Ovechkin for the first two games of the week (serving the rest of his three-game suspension). And other players did step up – Matt Hendricks had two goals to lead the Caps for the week; Mathieu Perreault added one to give him five goals in five games at the time. Troy Brouwer broke a personal six-game streak without a goal when he scored against Tampa Bay. But the Caps faced not one, not two, but three backup goaltenders this week. It should have ended better on the offensive side of the ledger.

Defense: 2.67/game (season: 2.80/rank: 18th)

Much has been made about the Caps’ inability to generate shots on goal (they had 80 for the week – 26.7 per game). Failing to get past 30 shots made it 22 straight games. But the other side of that is that the Caps allowed 99 shots on goal for the week (33.0 per game). That made 13 of 15 games in which opponents recorded at least 30 shots on goal. And it was not a scoring effect where opponents fire shots in the third period with the Caps in front. The shots by period this week went 35-30-30 with another four in the 4-3 overtime loss to Tampa Bay. Opponents out-attempted the Caps, 192-147. Getting more than 30 percent more attempts than the Caps is just one more piece of evidence that the Caps are spending too much time in their end.

Goaltending: 2.31/.929, one shutout

What more can one ask of the goaltenders? The Capitals are not playing in front of their netminders as if they were the Bruins or the Red Wings, or even the Rangers. They are putting their goaltenders on edge by spending a lot of time in their own zone, and the goalies are facing more than 30 shots a game on a regular basis. A 2.31 goals against average would make a goalie a top-15 netminder, but a .929 save percentage would put him squarely in the top ten (sixth, actually). Tomas Vokoun had the better of the week between Michal Neuvirth and himself, stopping 57 of 61 shots (.934) and allowing only four goals in almost 123 minutes of work (1.95 goals against). And that is not to say that Neuvirth was bad. Oh, he had his moment – falling for the old fake-hard-around and shoot the puck on net by Mikael Samuelsson in the 4-2 loss to the Panthers. But he had an otherwise solid game. Goaltending is not the problem for this club at the moment.

Power Play: 0-for-8/0.0 percent (season: 17.6 percent/rank: 15th)

By going oh-for-the-week, the Caps are now on a seven-game streak without a power play goal (0-for-17 chances). They are 1-for-25 in their last ten games (4.0 percent). They had five shots on goal in 12:42 of total power play time. And the five shooters – Dennis Wideman, Mathieu Perreault, Marcus Johansson, Troy Brouwer, and Alexander Semin… except for Semin, those aren’t necessarily the players you would expect to be taking the shots. But this is life without Alex Ovechkin, Nicklas Backstrom, and Mike Green. What those absences do not excuse, though, is allowing three shorthanded shots on goal on their own power play.

Penalty Killing: 5-for-6/83.3 percent (season: 80.9%/rank: 22nd)

On the other side of special teams, the Caps didn’t have a bad week, although the one goal they did allow gave Florida a third-period lead, and the Caps could not overcome it in a 4-2 loss. Still, killing off five of six chances is a decent enough performance; the six situations faced was even better. The Caps didn’t give opponents much of an opportunity to capitalize on those chances, either – seven shots allowed in 9:01 of shorthanded time.

Paying the Price: 81 hits/58 blocked shots (season rank: 12th/6th)

The Rangers have more blocked shots on the season than do the Capitals, but otherwise being sixth in the league in this statistic is a pretty seedy neighborhood – the Islanders, the Wild, Montreal. Not teams doing all that well. The 58 blocked shots represented 30.2 percent of all the shot attempts taken by opponents, marginally less than was the case last week (31.7 percent). But having to block shots at a volume that is more than 70 percent of the number of shots the Caps took themselves is still another piece of evidence that opponents are dominating possession.

Faceoffs: 64-for-151/42.4 percent (season: 50.4 percent/rank: T-12th)

The Caps had 38 draws in the offensive end, 51 in the defensive end. It does not sound like a big difference – 13 faceoffs in three games, but again it is a reflection of spending more time in one’s own end than in the other. And the Caps were poor in this phase of the game this week. They were 42.4 percent overall, but they won a total of only 15 offensive zone draws for the week (39.5 percent). With Nicklas Backstrom out, Brooks Laich is taking the lion’s share of draws. He was 28-for-62 for the week 45.2 percent). Another effect of Backstrom’s absence is the fact that Mathieu Perreault and Marcus Johansson are getting more calls in the circle. Combined, they were 16-for-46 for the week (34.8 percent). It was a tough week on the dot.

Turnovers: minus-15

Three road games, three results that left the Caps on the minus side of the turnover battle. They had more than ten total turnovers in all three games and managed to get more than ten only in the shutout of the Canadiens (owing largely to ten Montreal giveaways). And part of not getting turnovers is – again – more evidence of the other guys spending too much time with the puck at the Caps’ expense, from which they can generate all those shot attempts and shots on goal. It is all part of a piece.

Impressions:

Like we said at the top, this is seven straight weeks of a .500-or-better finish, but it had to be a disappointment to get only three points out of three games against this level of opponent. It left the Caps on the outside looking in, and now the schedule is going to start to get harder with Florida and Winnipeg – the two teams fighting the Caps for the Southeast Division lead – with the Rangers and San Jose to follow.

But for now, one thing seems to be coming into focus. In football, there are certain things that work at one level, but not at another. Things like the wishbone offense and the “wildcat” formation might work at the college level of play, but they have had almost no success at the highest level of play – the NFL. At the college level, the disparities in talent among teams that execute those offenses well and the defenses they play makes those schemes successful. But in the NFL, where talent is much more evenly spread among the teams, those schemes are too easy to defend.

Maybe we are witnessing something of that with the Caps. What works for Dale Hunter at one level – that man-to-man concept in the defensive zone – does not seem to be working at this level. It seems too easy for other teams to break it down into odd-man situations in their favor down low, and it does not seem to be able to afford the Caps a means of getting out of their own end consistently enough. It is putting too much pressure on their goaltenders, and when the schedule stiffens down the road, one wonders whether the Capitals will improve enough in their execution of the system to make up for whatever deficiencies it might have as a concept. It makes things that much more challenging going forward.

A TWO-point....uh, afternoon! Game 51: Capitals 3 - Canadiens 0

Groundhog Day is celebrated on February 4th in Montreal (not really, but humor us). Saint-Laurent Sebastien comes out of the St. Lawrence River, and if he sees his shadow, proclaims that the Canadiens will lose another 3-0 hockey match with the Washington Capitals.

Well, Seb must have seen his shadow, because it happened again.  For the second time this season, the Caps shutout the Canadiens, 3-0, at Bell Centre.  It was the third consecutive shutout of the Habs by the Caps, the trick turned by three different goaltenders.  Braden Holtby did it last season, a 2-0 shutout.  Michal Neuvrth did it by a 3-0 score last month.  And it is the third time int the last six times these teams have met that the Caps skated off with a 3-0 win against Montreal. 

The Caps set a club first in this one, the first time in franchise history that they were the recipients of two penalty shots in the same game.  Troy Brouwer was granted the first one when Monteal goalie Peter Budaj got caught up in the whole "stick save" concept and let go of his stick with a loose puck lying close.  He was called for "throwing object at the puck," but he made up for it on the ensuing penalty shot by foiling Brouwer's attempt to solve the five-hole.

Budaj was not as lucky later.  Alexander Semin intercepted a ghastly backhand pass by Tomas Kaberle just inside the Caps' blue line.  All Kaberle could do after horking up the puck was chase and hook.  He did, and he did, and Semin was awarded the second penalty shot of the afternoon.  Amid a chorus of boos, just as had been the case for Brouwer on his attempt, Semin skate in, faked a fake slap shot, and rifled a slapper over Budaj's glove to provide the final margin of victory.

Before that, the Caps got a pair of odd goals -- Dennis Wideman took a slap shot from the point in the game's ninth minute that had the look of Bing...or maybe it was Bob, on the links.  Like a Titleist struggling to gain altitude out of the sand trap, the puck pitched up, fluttered, and settled ever so gently behind a startled Budaj for the Caps' first goal.

The second goal was a little more conventional, although its scorer might have been a bit unexpected.  Brooks Laich did some nice work with the puck behind the goal line to Budaj's left and inched out to try to score himself.  But the puck got lost in the noise of players around Budaj, and it squirted out to the slot where Matt Hendricks pounced, flipping the biscuit into the cupboard for his third goal of the season.  A chip, a flip, and a zip, leaving the Canadien fans booing at the end for things other than the other team getting a penalty shot.  And that was all it took for the Caps to inch just that much closer to a playoff spot.

Other stuff...

-- One shot.  Five attempts.  Not exactly the most auspicious return to the ice for Alex Ovechkin, but hey... it was a win, so it's all good.

-- 30-23 (shots), 68-45 (shot attempts)... More blocked shots (27) than shots on goal (23).  Only one Cap had more than two shots on goal (Semin).  Stop us if you've heard this before.

-- Only a fan would think it appropriate that if a goalie gets a shutout, he should earn it with a big save in the dying seconds.  We're betting Tomas Vokoun would just as soon not had to face a breakaway by Tomas Plekanec in the last half minute of the game.  He turned away Plekanec shot, and we wonder that had it gone in, whether Vokoun would have clubbed Dennis Wideman within an inch of his life for letting Plekanec get free to take a pass in the neutral zone from P.K. Subban on a backhander flip from the Montreal goal line.

-- The Caps displayed a little more balance in ice time than we are used to seeing under Dale Hunter. No skater was on for more than 22:30 (defenseman John Carlson), and no forward skated as many as 20 minutes.

-- Motto for the Caps' power play lately... "We might not be good, but we're exciting."  One shot on three power plays, two shorthanded shots allowed.  Not what we're looking for here.

-- Brooks Laich probably deserves better.  He did have two goals in his last four games coming into this game, but those had been his only two goals over his past 17 games.  He had enough effort to add to that total, but he was shut out from scoring on his own.  He did have a pair of assists, five shot attempts, two blocked shots, and he won 13 of 23 draws.

-- Keith Aucoin did play in this game (only 7:57) but he did make his presence felt with a couple of hits.

In the end, a solid, if not especially dominating win.  And if the object of the exercise on the road is to break even, the Caps did that on this three game road trip; they went 1-1-1.  But given the opponents and their precarious position in the standings, it had the feeling of an opportunity lost. 

Now the Caps get the Boston Bruins at home 24 hours after a road game.  Not the easiest way to spend a Super Bowl Sunday.


Programming note...no pre-game blog for the Boston game.  We'll be back in the next day or two.

The Peerless Prognosticator is ON THE AIR!!! -- Game 51: Capitals at Canadiens, February 4th

The Peerless Prognosticator is ON THE AIR!!!

The Washington Capitals bring their three-game road trip to an end with a visit to "La belle province" and the Montreal Canadiens. For those of you not acquainted with the French language, “La belle Province” is loosely translated as “place we can get up for games because people actually show up and care about hockey almost as much as they care that the people who coach hockey here can pronounce ‘La belle province’ and not sound like Rocky Balboa ordering French fries.”

The Canadiens are not “The Canadiens” these days. Montreal has struggled more often than not this season to string together wins. Since they had a four-game winning streak snapped on November 4th, they have not had more than two consecutive wins since. Since replacing head coach Jacques Martin with Randy Cunneyworth on December 17th, Montreal is 6-11-2, and have dropped from being only two points out of a playoff spot all the way to 14th in the Eastern Conference, ten points behind the eighth-place New Jersey Devils and ahead of the 15th place Carolina Hurricanes only by virtue of a tie-breaker (fewer games played).

They have, however, shown some signs of at least being competitive recently. Since the Caps shut them out on January 18th, Montreal is 2-2-1 (so, it’s not a big improvement), including a 7-2 thrashing of the Detroit Red Wings. Even if the Canadiens find themselves nine points behind the Caps, they are playing to a level on which they should not be taken lightly. Here is how the teams compare, numbers-wise:

(click pic for larger image)

1. Montreal has the second best penalty killing squad in the league, but they come about that ranking in an odd way. No team has allowed fewer power play goals on the road than the Habs (eight in 104 shorthanded situations – 92.3 pecent). At home it is a different story. Not that the Canadiens are bad in killing penalties at home, but they are merely “good” – 85.9 percent. Alex Ovechkin notched a power play goal at Bell Centre in the Caps’ 3-0 win on January 18th.

2. One might not be too surprised that Erik Cole leads the Canadiens in power play goals (seven). One might be very surprised that Yannick Weber is second in power play goals (four). They happen to be the only four goals scored by Weber this season.

3. If the Caps have a lead after two, don’t count on Montreal coming back. Only five teams have a worse winning percentage than Montreal’s .050 (1-16-3). And winning after taking a lead after 20 minutes is no sure thing, either. Only three teams have a worse winning percentage than Montreal when leading after the first period. They do seem to wilt in games. They are a plus-5 in goals scored/goals allowed in the first period of games this season and plus-5 in the second period. But they are a minus-12 in the third period.

4. Defenseman P.K. Subban is tied for the league lead in minor penalties taken.

5. Montreal is the only team in the Eastern Conference that has not yet reached the 10 win mark at home. Columbus is the only team in the league with fewer wins on home ice.

1. Tomas Vokoun has only a 5-9-1-3 win-loss record against the Canadiens for his career, but that .921 career save percentage stands out.

2. The Caps are minus-7 (goals scored to goals allowed) in the first period of games this season and minus-10 in the second period. But they are plus-11 in the third period.

3. Only five teams have allowed more goals on the road this season than Washington (83).

4. The Caps are 3-for-30 on the power play over their last 11 games (10.0 percent). On the other side, they are 24-for-32 on the penalty kill (75.0 percent). Clearly, special teams must improve.

5. Even though he hasn’t played a hockey game in a month, Nicklas Backstrom is still tied for fifth overall in power play assists.

The Peerless’ Players to Ponder

Montreal: Max Pacioretty

Erik Cole might lead the team in goals, and David Desharnais might lead the club in assists. But Max Pacioretty is a player to watch on Bell Centre ice. He leads the team in goals, assists, and points at home. He is a tale of two players, home (12-16-28, plus-9) and road (6-3-9, minus-10). Regardless of location, he is 6-3-9, plus-4 in his last eight games, but he has yet to record a goal against Washington in his career (eight games played).

Washington: Alex Ovechkin

Well, yeah. After sitting out three games in which the Caps went 1-1-1, the Caps are sitting in ninth place in the East and are three points behind Florida in the Southeast Division. They are in desperate need of a kick start, and Ovechkin is in need of kick starting his game. He has 13 goals in 24 games against the Canadiens. He was 3-3-6, plus-4 in the six games leading up to his suspension. The trick will be to see if he can improve on that to start his second half and push the Caps closer to Florida.

Keys:


1. It’s Saturday, not Sunday. The Caps are a team that has enough trouble focusing on the task at hand, and the distraction in this one is the fact that the Caps will return home to face Boston on Sunday. Think too much about that, and they’ll be facing Boston having lost three in a row. Play this game first.

2. Low Ball Price. Montreal goalie Carey Price has an odd quirk in his performance. In games he has faced more than 30 shots he has a save percentage of .925. When facing 30 or fewer, that save percentage drops to .901. Given how the Caps fare in getting shots, they might light him up for five goals on 18 shots.

3. In by two, out by three. It’s a 2:00 start – an odd time to start a hockey game, even for a weekend. But whatever time they start, having a solid first period makes all the difference. The Caps are one of four teams with an unblemished record after 20 minutes this season (15-0-0). If he Caps are leading at 3:00 (approximately when the second period will start), it will be a good omen.

In the end, one can now think of this as the beginning of the stretch run. The Caps get their captain back, Mike Green is at least skating again. And this is Montreal. There is much to feel good about, or at least much to get up for in this one. Flat is not going to cut it.

Caps 4 – Canadiens 2

Valentine's Day

No, it is not a love story, although it had a happy ending for a group hockey fans. And perhaps it will serve as a source of hope for another group of hockey fans.

February 14, 2009. It might have been a day for young lovers to express their feelings for one another, but it was also a turning point for a hockey team. It was a team that got off to a fast start in the 2008-2009 season, a start that included a six-game winning streak to put them in second place in their division and in the conference with an 11-4-2 record. It was a team with stars, youth, and excitement. It was a team that had been close to a Stanley Cup, but had not quite scaled those last few feet to the summit. It looked for all the world as if this would be the year and that in mid-November, the engraver could be put on notice.

Then, a loss. It became two losses in three games, then three in five… four in seven… a three-game losing streak. The team would go 64 days before they would again win so much as consecutive games. By the time February 14th game along, they had a record of 16-20-3 after their 11-4-2 start.

But February 14th might have been the low point. They took the ice that night and scored two goals in the first period to take a 2-0 lead into the first intermission of their contest. And then the roof fell in on them. Six unanswered goals later – five of them in the third period – the team was beaten, battered, and banished from the playoff-eligible group in their conference. From second in the conference in mid-November, they now found themselves sitting tenth, five points out of a playoff spot and 16 points behind their division leaders.

And then, change. In this instance the change was made behind the team’s bench. It did not look like much at the time, a promotion of a dutiful, earnest sort from a coaching position in the team’s system, an individual with a coaching resume you could fit on a post-it pad. Maybe it was the coach, and maybe it was just “change,” but the team came from behind twice in the coach’s first game to force extra time and get a point when they lost in a shootout. Then they won a game… and another. They suffered a hiccup, then they peeled off seven wins in a row. They would go 12 consecutive games without losing in regulation time.

After Valentine’s Day, when change came to this hockey team, they went 18-3-4 in their last 25 games to finish second in their division and fourth in the conference. They won a six-game series against their most hated rival. They won a seven-game playoff series against a team that itself was young, had stars, and was thought to be up-and-coming. And then, after a sweep that led them to the finals, they defeated the defending champions in a seven-game series, winning Game 7 on their opponents’ ice.

That was the 2009 Pittsburgh Penguins, a team that found itself mired in very much the same standings swamp in which the Washington Capitals now find themselves. The Caps have made their coaching change, and to be charitable the results would have to be described as “mixed.” They also face a more daunting injury situation with one of their top players out for some time yet to come, and another top player out with no idea when he might be healthy enough to take the ice.

Which brings us to “change.” For the Caps, it cannot happen in the same way it did for the Penguins, but it is going to have to happen for the team to shake off the stale air of mediocrity that has hovered over it for the past three months. Some might think it might come in the form of a trade – an injection of skill and passion that will jump start the team. Thinking like that would seem like a fool’s errand. Not that it should not be done, but that thinking this is all the team needs.

“Change,” if it is to come, is going to have to come from the players already in the room. Fans cannot know what goes on in that room, but they can see what is happening on the ice, and they can read a standings list. What is happening and what those fans are reading is not good, certainly not what they expected when the season started. However it happens – finding an untapped reservoir of determination, finding that groove they had when things were going well, a smile and a nod from the hockey gods – it is going to have to happen. Or else, the Caps are going to find themselves at the end of this season where that other team did before “change” came – on the outside looking in at the party.

And then, one would expect that “change” of a different sort will be made.

A NO-point night -- Game 50: Panthers 4 - Capitals 2

“This game could have been a catapult to shoot us off in the second half. Instead we’re back chasing again. The lack of success on the road, it’s not acceptable.”

-- Brooks Laich, Washington Capital forward, after last night’s 4-2 loss to the Florida Panthers

There is so much there to chew on, but there is still the matter of the bitter taste left in one’s mouth after having swallowed that 4-2 loss in south Florida last night. After closing the pre-All Star portion of the season with points in three straight games (1-0-2), two of them coming against top-end teams in Pittsburgh and Boston, the Caps laid an egg last night with the lead in the Southeast Division on the line.

Given how the game started, it probably is not very surprising. The Caps started by topping ten shots in a period in an all-too-rare occasion of it, recording 11 shots on Panther goalie Scott Clemmensen in the first period. But only one of them came in the last 8:22 of the period – a 103-footer by John Carlson as the period was expiring. Meanwhile, Florida was recording seven of the 15 shots they had for the period in that last 8:22. The period ended scoreless, but one had a feeling that this game was going to go like so many over the last couple of months – no offense, rely on your goaltender.

Well, goaltender Michal Neuvirth let his teammates down in the first minute of the second period when he got caught in the hockey equivalent of the old baseball fake pickoff move when a pitcher fakes a pickoff to third base, then spins to try to pick a napping runner off first. Hockey’s version is the fake rim-around play where an opponent carrying the puck in the neutral zone gives the impression he is going to shoot the puck on a hard-around behind the defending team’s net. But then he whips a shot at net, hoping to get the goalie cheating to circle behind his own net to cut off the hard-around.

Mikael Samuelsson did just that, and did catch Neuvirth cheating to try to cut off the puck. Sameulsson fired shot across his body that went far side and rang the pipe before settling behind Neuvirth to give the Panthers the lead. The trick on that shot is not to fire it along the ice, where the goalie can still flash out a pad along the ice to block the puck. The shot came blocker-high, and Neuvirth could only try to lunge with his blocker to push the puck wide. He missed – clang! – Panthers 1, Caps 0.

The Caps got it back on a pretty goal by Brooks Laich, who stepped out from the left wing corner to give himself space, then snapped the puck over Clemmensen’s shoulder to tie the game midway through the second period. But after that… ugh. Samuelsson again on a wrister early in the third period that went through Laich trying to block the shot, then under Neuvirth’s right arm to give Florida the lead they would not relinquish. Stephen Weiss got his 13th of the season five minutes after Samuelsson to give the home team a 3-1 lead.

John Carlson got the Caps back within one with 2:21 left on an unassisted rocket of a shot. But it made for false hope. Shawn Matthias sealed it with an empty-netter with 53 seconds left to send Florida into first place in the Southeast and the Caps into ninth place in the Eastern Conference.

Other stuff…

-- From the time the Caps recorded their ninth shot of the game at the 11:38 mark of the first period, they went almost 20 minutes and recorded only three shots on goal – the 103-footer from Carlson, a 51-footer from Mike Knuble, and a 28-footer from Laich. The fourth shot, which interrupted the string at 19:37 of ice time, was Laich’s goal.

-- More same old… 2:21 of power play time, one shot (Troy Brouwer). The Caps are 0-for-13 in their last five games on the power play and one for their last 17 opportunities (5.9 percent). The road power play is now running at 12.2 percent (26th in the league).

-- If folks were holding out hope that the John Carlson goal late would jump-start the Caps to come back when down 3-2, the Caps had scored more than three goals in a road game only once in their past 11 games, and that came at Columbus against the dreadful Blue Jackets. Now, it’s one in 12 road games.

-- When Marcus Johansson – with a 43 percent winning mark on faceoffs this season – is your best man in the circle in the offensive end, it’s not going to be a good night for that sort of thing. Johansson was 3-for-6, but Brooks Liach was 1-for-4, and Mathieu Perreault was 1-for-3. At the other end, Laich was 1-for-8 in the defensive end, and Jeff Halpern was 1-for-3.

-- Joel Rechlicz…four shifts (none after the 4:03 mark of the second period), 2:37 of ice time. That makes six shifts and 4:26 in total ice time in two games.

-- Meanwhile, Jeff Schultz took the ice for the first time since December 31st (that four-goal game in Columbus). 9:48 and nary a mark on his scoresheet. If the object was to keep things simple, he did. Fun fact…the Caps have won 15 times in the 28 games Schultz has played, 11 in the 22 games he has not.

-- With the Caps behind 3-1, they skated the last 4:05 having recorded one shot on goal – Carlson’s goal. They had only two other shot attempts – a shot by Marcus Johansson that was blocked and a 51-footer that Carlson sailed wide with 22 seconds left and the Caps down, 4-2.

-- Symmetry of a Sad Sort… the Caps had 38 hits, the Panthers had 38 shots.

-- Shots Watch… Florida had 70 shot attempts (38 shots), the Caps had 51 attempts (28 shots). That makes 20 games in a row that the Caps have not recorded more than 30 shots.

-- Jason Chimera was the Caps’ second-leading goal scorer among skaters last night...no shot attempts; Semin was third-leading goal scorer...no attempts in last 23:53.

-- Which brings us back to Laich's comment after the game.  The Caps are less "catapult" and more "cap gun."  Whether by the design of Dale Hunter's system or just a lack of talent, this team has been, and seems to be, incapable of generating any offense.  They are chasing because they fall behind and seem to get discouraged with themselves; they have no swagger whatsoever.  And as for the lack of success on the road, if it was "unacceptable," then why has it become almost a given for this team?  They have won consecutive road games only once since October 20th and not at all since December 15th.

In the end, there are some really unpleasant truths being revealed about the team in the absence of Alex Ovechkin, Nicklas Backstrom, and Mike Green. We preface them by saying that one can have little trouble with the play of Brooks Laich last night – a goal, four shots, five hits (although that 7-for-21 on draws sticks out). Or Roman Hamrlik, who had four blocked shots, every one of which looked wince-inducing. Or Matt Hendricks, who plays as if he is his own little Van de Graaff generator out there…eight hits in 17 minutes. But with all that said, if you look at this team without those three players in the lineup, there is but one uncomfortable truth that seems to have emerged.

They’re just not very good.

The Peerless Prognosticator is ON THE AIR!!! -- Game 50: Capitals at Panthers, February 1st

The Peerless Prognosticator is ON THE AIR!!!

OK, let's try this from a different direction...

-- The Caps are 15-15-1-4 in their 50th game of the season in franchise history.

-- Since the lockout, they have played 12 Tampa/Florida or Florida/Tampa trips.  They won both ends four times, lost both ends four times, and split decisions four times.

So...what's the tie-breaker?

The Caps are 11-6-1-1 on February 1st in franchise history.

Caps 3 - Panthers 2

A ONE-point night -- Game 49: Lightning 4 - Capitals 3 (OT)

They got a point. It could have been worse. But losing to the Tampa Bay Lightning was just “Groundhog Day” a couple of days early. The same things we have seen from the Caps over who knows how long played on the loop once more…

-- Twenty seven shots on goal in regulation (29 for the game). That makes 20 straight games without topping 30 shots.

-- Eleven shots came from the duo of Brooks Laich (six) and Troy Brouwer (five). Eighteen shots from 16 other skaters. Someone named J.T. Wyman had more shots for Tampa Bay (three) than any of the other Capitals’ skaters.

-- At least they were not badly out-attempted (54-51, Tampa Bay). But 51 attempts in a game that went more than 60 minutes is not exactly evidence of much offensive pressure.

-- John Carlson was a minus-4. That is a career worst. He is now minus-10 in his last 14 games.

-- The much ballyhooed premiere of “The Joel Rechlicz Show” closed after two shifts in the first period.

We don’t have much of a problem with the likes of Dennis Wideman (plus-2, three shots on goal, more than 28 minutes), Brooks Laich (six shots, an assist, three hits), Troy Brouwer (five shots, a goal, almost 23 minutes of ice time), Karl Alzner (plus-3, three hits, two takeaways, two blocked shots), Matt Hendricks (a pretty goal after a whiff and seven hits in 16 minutes of ice time), or Mathieu Perreault (his fifth goal in five games). But the rest? The Caps were not facing the 1978 Canadiens. They were playing a team that despite a four game winning streak is not that good. They should consider themselves fortunate to get the point against a weak team with bad goaltending.

It needs to get better than this.

The Peerless Prognosticator is ON THE AIR!!! -- Game 49: Capitals at Lightning, January 31st

The Peerless Prognosticator is ON THE AIR!!!

The All Star Game is history. Goalie-Cam, Corey Perry’s stick, Patrick Kane’s Superman glasses and cape, white gloves… all put away. It is back to business, and for the Washington Capitals that means a 34-game sprint to the finish of the regular season that starts tonight in Tampa to face the Lightning. The Caps start the sprint from the pole position, first place in the Southeast Division by virtue of the fact that they actually win hockey games in the hockey portion of the hockey game. Despite their having the same number of standings points as the Florida Panthers, the Caps have 25 regulation and overtime wins to 19 such wins for the Panthers. That could be a big deal down the stretch, since it is the first tie-breaker if the teams finish the season tied in standings points at the top of the division.

But we get ahead of ourselves. Tonight the Caps visit Tampa Bay for the first time this season after winning the first two games of the season series in Washington. The left coast of Florida has been rather kind to the Caps, who are 10-2-0 against the Lightning in their last dozen regular season visits. They were 2-1-0 in their three visits last season.

The hosts come into this game riding a four-game winning streak after opening January 0-6-1. The difference between the two streaks has been defense and goaltending. In the first seven games of the month the Lightning allowed an average of 4.71 goals per game with an accompanying save percentage from their goaltenders of .849. In their four game winning streak they have allowed an average of 2.25 goals per game with an accompanying save percentage of .923. Here is how the two teams stack up overall for the season:

(click pic for larger image)

1. Even though there is a bright line separating the goaltending performance between the seven-game losing streak and the four-game winning streak in January, it hasn’t been a product of picking one goalie over another. In the seven-game losing streak, Dwayne Roloson was 0-2-1, 3.55, .870; while Mathieu Garon was 0-4-0, 5.36, .850. In the four-game winning streak, Garon is 3-0-0, 2.00, .926; while Roloson has won his only decision, allowing three goals on 33 shots. Roloson has the reputation as the Cap killer with an 8-6-5, 2.30, .916 record against Washington with four shutouts.

2. If Steven Stamkos is going to slow down in his goal scoring pace, he has given no signs of doing so yet. He has not gone consecutive games without a goal since December 21-23. In the 14 games since then he has 12 goals, and he is on a pace to be the only 50-goal scorer in the league (55). He has nine in 20 career regular season games against Washington.

3. Tampa Bay’s power play has struggled in the new year. In 11 games during January the Lightning are 3-for-33 (9.1 percent). The other side of the special teams has not been much better. The penalty killers are 29-for-37 (78.4 percent) over the same 11 games, although during the four-game winning streak they are 12-for-13 (92.3 percent).

4. Tampa Bay is the only team in the league to have allowed a total of at least 50 goals in each of the first, second, and third periods of games this season.

5. The Lightning lead the league in most losses by three of more goals (13). Only two teams have more losses by two goals. This is not a team that loses close.

1. For all the angst displayed by Caps fans this month over the team’s playoff chances, they are 5-2-1 since they laid an egg out on the two-game west coast trip. They have done it largely with defense, allowing an average of only 2.13 goals per game over those eight games.

2. Washington has the second worst combined power play/penalty kill index number in the league. Adding their 76.6 percent penalty kill to their 13.0 percent power play on the road makes their combined index of 89.6 second worst only to Columbus’ 87.6.

3. As if you need reminding, with Nicklas Backstrom and Alex Ovechkin out, your top three scorers taking the ice tonight for the Caps will be Dennis Wideman (9-25-34), Alexander Semin (12-16-28), and Marcus Johansson (10-18-28). Tampa Bay will start three players with more than 40 points (Steven Stamkos, Martin St. Louis, and Vincent Lecavalier).

4. Michal Neuvirth would appear to be ticketed to baseball cap duty tonight, but he does have an odd career record against the Bolts. He has won both decisions in four appearances against Tampa Bay, but he has a GAA of 3.38 in doing it.

5. This is the first of a back-to-back set of games in Florida. The Caps are 3-2-0 in the opening game of back-to-backs so far this season.

The Peerless’ Players to Ponder:

Tampa Bay: Steve Downie

Two years ago, Steve Downie had a breakout season. With 22 goals and 46 points in 79 games, he gave indications he could be more than just a pot-stirrer. Last season, however, he dropped to ten goals in 57 games. This season he has eight goals in 45 games (a 14-goal pace), but is a minus-18, worst on the team and 822nd among 828 skaters in the league. He has been a little more productive of late, going 1-3-4, plus-1 in his last four games. But someone has to take some pressure off the big-three of Stankos, St. Louis, and Lecavalier, and Downie might be someone to look for to do that, and not just be the guy with 111 penalty minutes in 45 games.

Washington: Brooks Laich

Part of being Mr. Versatility for the Caps is not just being able to skate in all situations, but being able to produce in them. And that brings us to goal-scoring. Brooks Laich has one goal in his last 15 games (34 shots on goal) and is on a pace to finish the season with 15 goals, a total that would be his lowest since the 2006-2007 season. He has eight in 43 career games against the Lightning, but the bigger picture here is that even if Nicklas Backstrom and Alex Ovechkin were in the lineup, the Caps need to get a bit more goal scoring from Mr. Versatility.

Keys:

1. First 20. Any team coming off a long hiatus might be susceptible to a slow start in their first game back. The Caps are already a team that seems to have that problem, regardless of time between games. They are a minus-7 in the first period of games this season and have allowed the first goal 25 times in 48 games. The Caps are not in a position to let anyone get off to a fast start against them, given their struggles to mount offensive pressure in the last month.

2. Score by Committee.  As long as Backstrom, Ovechkin, and Green are out – and even when they are back, for that matter – the Caps need to do a better job of scoring by committee. Laich has that one goal in his last 15 games. Joel Ward has one in his last 35 games. Mike Knuble has one in his last 39 games. Even Jason Chimera, who started the season so hot, has only one in his last 15 games. The Caps are going to struggle to win games if this kind of production doesn’t change.

3. Play Smart.  Only one team has fewer power play opportunities at home than does Tampa Bay (69 in 21 games). Only seven teams have fewer power play goals at home than the Lightning (14). Don’t give them any cheap opportunities.

In the end, maybe treating the first half as a bad dream and tonight as if they were 0-0-0 is the best way to go. The first half was disappointing to say the least, but the Caps have an opportunity to make things right in the last 34 games. On paper, they are still the class of the Southeast, but they played those first 48 games as if “on paper” was enough. Starting tonight, they have to toss that paper in the waste basket and tend to their business on the ice.

Caps 4 – Lightning 2

What can one expect?

Over the course of his six-year career preceding this season, Alex Ovechkin has scored 105 goals in 171 games following an All-Star or Olympic Games break.  That works out to a 50.4 goals average per 82 games, precisely what his career average is overall for goals scoring per 82 games.

In the last two seasons he scored 21 goals in 46 games after the breaks, a 37.4 goal pace, slightly (but not significantly) higher than his 33.8 goals-per-82-games pace from the end of the Vancouver Olympics through the end of last season. 

Ovechkin is on a pace to score 33.6 goals this season, which means perhaps 14 more in the 32 games he is still eligible to play in before the end of the regular season.

Maybe it is the new normal.

The Cousins of the Roundtable: Part V

There is but one more question to have the cousins take a stab at, and it really is the only question worth asking at this point.

Will the Caps make the playoffs?

Fearless: Yes, and here is why. There are 14 games between now and the trading deadline, and the Caps’ schedule is set up in such a way that they can stick a fork in Florida’s chances and deal a harsh blow to Winnipeg’s to win the Southeast Division. The Caps will face the Panthers three times in the next nine games, and they might be getting them at the best time, if you are a Caps fan. The Panthers closed the pre-All Star Game portion of the season by going 4-6-5. Of the 13 points they earned in those 15 games, seven of them came in extra time (1-0-5). Their lone extra time win came in a Gimmick. And when they have lost in regulation, it hasn’t been close much of the time. Of their six losses four of them came by three or more goals, including a ghastly 8-0 whitewashing by the Boston Bruins.

Even if you set the Caps’ three upcoming games with Florida aside, things do not look good for the Panthers. This is a team that has not won a road game in regulation since December 8th (they are 1-4-4 on the road since then, their only win coming in a trick shot competition). What is worse, Jose Theodore has allowed seven goals on 66 shots since returning from a knee injury. Perhaps the All Star break gave him time to recuperate a little more, but that isn’t a stat line that should give much comfort to Panther fans.

As for Winnipeg, they are five points behind the Caps, and the Caps have two games in hand. Worse, they have been awful in the new year, going 3-8-1 since January 1st to drop back down to .500 (22-22-6). The Caps get the Jets here on February 9th, and the Jets have a road record that is worse than Washington’s, if you can believe that. On top of all that, Evander Kane – the Jet’s leading goal scorer – has missed the Jets’ last three games with a concussion, and Dustin Byfuglien hasn’t dressed since December 23rd as a result of a knee injury.

The Caps might not light up the sky with their play in the second half, but this is going to be a long slow march of attrition, the Caps being the ones standing at the end, albeit on unsteady feet going into the playoffs. Ninety-five points might be the cutoff point for the eighth place finisher in the Eastern Conference, but the Southeast Division winner (and third seed for the opening playoff round) might not crack 90.

Cheerless: Sorry, cuz. A team that more or less sleepwalks its way through the first half of the season, gets it coach fired, doesn’t do all that much better with the new coach, stinks on the road in all three zones at even strength and on special teams, can’t get out of their own end whether they are playing Pittsburgh or Plattsburgh, and is starting the second half with their captain in the hooskow for an illegal hit is not gonna find a pony in a barn filled with all the manure from the first half of the season. Sometimes, it’s just a pile of manure.

OK, that’s a bit harsh, but not by too much. Take a look. Y’know how many times Alex Ovechkin has had a points streak of more than one game since Thanksgiving? Three. He had a two-gamer on December 7-9, a seven-gamer from December 20th to January 3rd, and another two-gamer on January 13-15. That’s not goals, cuz, that’s points. He had his first three-point game of the year in the game that got him his suspension. He hasn’t had a game-winning goal since December 15th, which happens to be his only one of the year. He’s gonna finish with fewer game-winning goals than in his rookie season when he had five for a team that won only 29 games the whole year.

And it’s not like the rest of the team is lighting it up. Alexander Semin is on a pace to finish with 21 goals. Brooks Laich is on a pace to finish with 15. Joel Ward and Mike Knuble might not ever score again. Between them they have one goal since December 7th; that’s 22 games. Mike Green is out, Nicklas Backstrom is even outer. The Caps are giving 16 minutes a night to a defenseman who is in his first pro season and who was supposed to spend it in Hershey (Dmitry Orlov) and benched Jeff Schultz in favor of Tomas Kundratek. Y’know when was the last time the Caps won a road game against a team in the top-eight of their conference? December 7th, against Ottawa. OK, they’ve only had four such games since then, but in all road games since then they are 3-5-2.

And then there is the goaltending. Yeah, Tomas Vokoun was pretty much keeping the Caps in games there for a while. He had a stretch there where he was 5-2-0 in eight appearances, 1.88, .938, and a shutout. But since then he has allowed three goals in four of five appearances. Michal Neuvirth had a nice shutout in Montreal a couple of weeks ago after he had only 31 minutes of work since Christmas, but then he gave up four goals to Pittsburgh. Maybe that goaltending run is coming to an end. In any case, this team is a bigger mess than a baby’s diaper. Add it all up, and they are not making the playoffs.

Peerless: Well, we know how Cheerless got his name. We see only one viable path to the playoffs, and the road sign marking it says, “Southleast Division Champion, This Way.” Given the absences of Green and Backstrom to start the second half (and who knows if/when Backstrom will return this season), the persistent domination of opponents in shots and chances in the 20 or so games leading up to the All Star break, the lack of consistent offense, the too-hard leaning on goaltending to win games, and that awful road record, it is hard to see any way short of divine intervention that the Caps make the playoffs as an at-large team. Their best, and likely only path to the post season is to take advantage of the fact that the Southeast has once more reclaimed its rightful place as the worst division in hockey (and perhaps not as good, top to bottom, as either the East or the West Division in the AHL).

The Caps have what looks like a favorable road schedule through February. They get seven divisional opponents and four others below them in the standings over the 15 games through the end of next month. But then there is that whole “home-road” thing. Nine of the 15 games will be played away from Verizon Center, where the Caps have the third worst road record in the East and only two more standings points earned than 15th place Carolina away from home. If they do not turn that around and take advantage of the weaker teams on the slate, regardless of where the games are played, things get rougher on the schedule dramatically after that. In their last 19 games the Caps will play 10 games against teams that start the second half as playoff eligibles in their respective conferences. Three other games will be played against ninth or tenth place teams at the moment likely to be fighting for a spot in their respective conferences.

It all might come down to three letters for the Caps – “R-O-W.” Regulation and Overtime Wins. At the moment the Caps are fourth in the East in ROW with 25 such wins, and they might have all but insurmountable leads over Florida (19) and Winnipeg (21) in that category. It will be the first tie-breaker to determine playoff seeding for teams tied in standings points at the end of the season. It might be how the Caps find their way to the post season.

The Cousins of the Roundtable, Part IV

We continue this little interlude with two more questions of a forward-looking nature. Let’s hope the cousins are up to it.

The NHL trading deadline is 3:00 p.m. (EST) on February 27th. The Caps have 14 games to go before that date, so there is some time to find out if they will be a buyer or a seller. Which will they be?

Fearless: A buyer. Of the 14 games to go between now and the deadline, seven of them will be against Southeast Divisions teams, and three others will be against teams below them in the standings. The Caps will not win them all, but they should be favored in all of them (Cheerless…” cough-road games-cough”).

Cheerless’ juvenile commentary notwithstanding, the other four games will be against strong teams such as Boston, the Rangers, and San Jose, but two of those are at home (the Caps will be at Madison Square Garden to face the Rangers on February 12th). If you look at the 14 opponents and their respective win-loss records at home; then compare them to how they fit those records into the Caps’ schedule, they have a combined 168 wins in 340 games. That’s a roundabout way of saying that it is not as tough a schedule of opponents as it could be.

Cheerless: Fearless, you are a certifiable, 200-proof idiot. The Caps scrooed the pooch getting to this point, cuz. They’re gonna be sellers. Take a good look at those 14 games until the deadline. Nine of them – nine! – are on the road. They have a three-game road trip coming out of this break; then they have a four-game trip in the middle of next month. Last time I looked, and that was about two wags of a dog’s tail ago, the Caps had the third worst road record in the Eastern Conference. Only Carolina has a worse road record in the Southeast, for cryin’ out loud.

Then there is the matter of whether Mike Green comes back healthy and effective, and whether Nicklas Backstrom comes back at all this season. Who is a number one center on this team with Backstrom out? Who is a number two center when he’s in? And this team hasn’t figured out a way to string a lot of wins together. Since the seven-game streak to start the season, the Caps have two winning streaks of more than two games, the same number of losing streaks of more than two games since then. Hard to see how they suddenly do more than tread water, and that schedule ain’t lookin’ too good, and it’s gonna be hard to be a buyer when you’re falling out of the playoff group. The Caps made their bed in the first half, and now they have to pay the band in the second half.

Peerless: Neither, at least in the sense a contender is looking to add the last pieces, and an also-ran is looking to sell assets for futures. The Caps have too many holes to think that adding a player like a Jason Arnott, or a Dennis Wideman, or a Sergei Fedorov is going to be the piece that makes them a good bet to go deep in the playoffs. The team has not displayed enough depth or production to warrant that kind of a conclusion. But there will be no selloff, either. One thing that will probably signal whether the Caps are going to be a “buyer” is what happens to Jeff Schultz. If he is traded at the deadline, it will not be for a top-six forward or a top-four defenseman. But packaging him with something else could yield an asset that could be valuable for the playoffs. If the Caps hold onto him, then perhaps it is a signal that they are going to cast their lot with this roster and for Schultz to regard it as a lost season for him, the aim being that perhaps next year he can be a more consistent contributor.

If the Caps do a face-plant out of the gate to start the second half, then one wonders what will happen to Alexander Semin.  The Caps could then become sellers, accelerating what some (ok, we) presume, that Semin will not be re-signed. He could be a valuable asset for a team looking for a forward with a history of scoring goals (whatever his performance this season). That is on the daring end of the spectrum in terms of team shake-up. But the fact is that the Caps have stumbled their way to their place on the edge of the playoffs. They have given little evidence that things are going to change by magic in the second half. And Cheerless, in his convoluted way, has a point – the Caps didn’t do enough in the first half, and now with the schedule putting them on the road, where they have not done well, things do not look promising.

********** 

So, you have offered your points of view on buying and selling. Who – or what positions – are bought and sold?

Cheerless: Heck, just about anybody with an expiring contract could be moved. It wouldn’t be the yard sale the Caps had a few years ago, but if the Caps are going to do some renovating, then maybe they start now instead of the summer. Even if they are not a “seller,” they might have to be a “seller.” The Caps don’t seem to have much, if any room to add a piece without sending out a piece. That might be the “Schultz” argument – sending out a player who does not fit into the team’s short term plans for a player who can help them down the stretch. The buyer would have to be a team thin on defense that is out of contention who wants to move an older player or expiring contract.

Fearless: The Caps do not seem to have much room to maneuver here and might have to buy in what amount to chewable bites. They might have to move money out as part of a two-step that brings in another player. In that instance, the first part that deal might not mean much except for what money it frees up. There might not be much return in that part of a deal. As for need and the kind of player the Caps might be bringing in, they have the perennial problems to solve – a second line center and some scoring support on the lower half of the forward lines. Another adept puck mover from the blue line might be nice to try to reverse this nasty trend of getting out shot, out attempted, and out chanced by opponents.

Peerless: One difficulty the Caps will face is that by the end of the month, there might be only half a dozen or so teams that are truly out of contention, the usual suspects for finding a spare part or two. Who might be a trading partner? Columbus has two forwards that might be of interest in Vaclav Prospal and Samuel Pahlsson. If Montreal drops further out of contention, perhaps a Travis Moen comes into play. Anaheim has a number of forwards on expiring contracts, but the Ducks are 8-1-1 in their last ten games and are showing signs that they might yet challenge for a playoff spot.

The point here is that there would not seem likely to be a clear fit of the sort Jason Arnott was thought to be last year, and a bombshell like having Sergei Fedorov come to D.C. is hard to see happening. If the Caps are to be buyers at the deadline, it would seem this year will be more like 2010, when the players obtained – Eric Belanger, Joe Corvo, and Scott Walker – probably were not on anyone’s radar but might have had fans thinking, “OK, that makes sense.” Let’s just hope that if they do go in that sort of direction, it makes more sense after the deals than was the case in 2010.

That Was The Week That Was -- Week 16 (January 22-28)

There was hockey not of an all-star game sort this past week, so let’s take a look at what the Caps did…

Record: 1-0-1

It could have been better, and it could have been worse. Getting three points out of four has to qualify as a pretty good week, though, given the opponents. The Caps went to Pittsburgh to face a team that had won five in a row and managed to get a point out of it, even after falling behind, 2-0, in the first period. But the Caps did have a lead in that game, taking a 3-2 lead early in the third on a goal by Alex Ovechkin. Pittsburgh evened it later in the period, but the Caps halted any further Penguin marches and squeezed out a standings point, even as Evgeni Malkin converted a friendly bounce off the end boards for a 4-3 overtime winner. The Caps returned home to win in unexpected fashion against the Boston Bruins, 5-3, the first time the Caps scored five goals in a game in 21 games. It made for the first week since Week 11 that the Caps did not lose a game in regulation and only the second time since their seven game winning streak to start the season.

Offense: 4.00/game (season: 2.81/rank: 9th)

Last week it was five goals on 80 shots on goal (6.25 percent); this week, eight goals on 43 shots (18.6 percent). Neither would seem to be the norm. But what does seem to be the norm is that inability to get shots on goal. With 20 against Pittsburgh and 23 against Boston, the Caps now have gone 19 consecutive games without going over 30 shots in a game, and they have been outshot by opponents in 16 of those 19 games (their last ten in a row). They are, however, 11-6-2 in those games. We do not see this as a long term recipe for success.

Individually, it was the Mathieu Perreault Show this past week. Perreault was 3-2-5, plus-4, including his first career hat trick in the 5-3 win over Boston. The Alexes – Ovechkin and Semin – each had a three point week, both going 1-2-3. Ovechkin got his in one game, having to sit out the second game of the week as a result of his suspension for a hit on Pittsburgh’s Zbynek Michalek in the 4-3 overtime loss last Sunday.

Defense: 3.50/game (season: 2.81/rank: 18th)

It is a broken record by now, but the Caps were badly out-attempted in shots this past week. Opponents launched 145 shots toward the Caps net, and 59 of them got through, seven of them for goals. Compare that to 100 shot attempts for the Caps, 43 of which made it to the net, eight of which found their way over the goal line. The Caps just are not doing a very good job of keeping opponents out of the Caps' own end. They are now allowing 2.5 more shots at 5-on-5 per 60 minutes than they are getting for themselves (numbers from behindthenet.ca). that might not sound like much, but there are two things to consider here. First, that 2.5 shots is 9.2 percent more shots than the Caps are getting. Second, let’s say that a typical goalie’s save percentage at 5-on-5 is .920 (a reasonable conclusion, since 20 of 38 goalies having played at least 20 games have that mark or better). Caps goalies have to have a save percentage of ,927 just to stay even. What is Tomas Vokoun’s save percentage at even strength? You guessed it, .927. Which brings us to…

Goaltending: 3.45/.881

Can’t call it a great week, even with the strength of competition. Tomas Vokoun and Michal Neuvirth split the work this week, each getting a game and each allowing at least three goals. If there was a ray of sunshine, it was that the two combined to stop 19 of 20 third period shots in the two games. Trouble is, that one goal tied what was a 3-2 game in Pittsburgh, and the Penguins went on to win in overtime. If anything, this week was an early warning that some fine goaltending that had gone to waste over the previous month might be normalizing a bit, and that is not a good thing. Tomas Vokoun allowed three goals to Boston, and that makes three in a row and six of his last eight appearances in which he allowed three or more goals. The Caps are 2-4-0 in those six games. Neuvirth has allowed three or more in three of his last five appearances (one of those appearances being a 20 minute stint in which he allowed one goal on eight shots). If the goaltending starts to sputter, and the Caps’ offense cannot find its rhythm, this team is toast for this season.

Power Play: 0-for-5/0.0 percent (season: 18.5 percent/rank: T-12th)

In the space of two weeks, the Caps have dropped seven places in team power play rankings, this week dropping four places on the 0-for-5 effort. They managed only two shots on goal in eight minutes of man-advantage time, including 19 seconds worth of 5-on-3 time and 1:13 of 4-on-3 time. Sure, Boston and Pittsburgh are good penalty killing teams (seventh and fourth, respectively, in penalty killing), but this was just short of awful, the only mitigating factor being that the Caps were missing their biggest power play weapons in Alex Ovechkin, Mike Green, and Nicklas Backstrom against Boston, against whom they had no shots on goal on their only opportunity.

Penalty Killing: 5-for-7/71.4 percent (season: 80.8%/rank:23rd)

Well, at least they didn’t drop any more places in the league rankings. Other than that, it was not a very good week. The Caps have now allowed at least one power play goal in eight of the last nine games in which they faced at least one shorthanded situation. They are 28-for-38 over that span (73.4 percent) and have a record of 4-4-1 in those games. Allowing nine shots in 8:27 of penalty killing time isn’t awful, but the Caps are slowly digging themselves a hole by allowing power play goals on what is has become a regular basis. It is just one more thing that has to be corrected if this club is to have a chance at making the playoffs.

Paying the Price: 59 hits/46 blocked shots (season rank:14th/9th)

The Caps keep getting chances to block shots, so they block shots. Another two games this week with at least 20. On one level, that’s a good thing. The Caps are showing a willingness to try to make things easier on their goaltenders. On the other hand, it is a symptom of a lot of shot attempts against – the Caps blocked more shots this week (46) than they had shots on goal of their own (43). And there is this. The Caps rank ninth in the league in blocked shots. Of the eight teams ahead of them, only three – Minnesota, the Rangers, and San Jose – are among the playoff eligibles of their respective conferences.


Faceoffs: 55-for-116/47.4 percent (season: 51.1 percent/rank: 8th)

Faceoffs – another element that seems to reflect the inability of the Caps to start and keep plays going in the offensive end. Going 55-for-116 for the two games this week is by no means awful, being three wins short of a 50 percent week, but it is the numbers by zone that continue to be troubling. The Caps took 27 draws in the offensive zone this week (winning 13) and took 51 in the defensive zone (winning only 23 of them). That the Caps would earn three points for the week while starting plays in the defensive zone by almost a two-to-one margin compared to starts in the offensive zone either speaks to their goaltending or to a bit of Perreault-fed luck (or poor Boston defense in the 5-3 Caps win).

Turnovers: plus-3

One cannot help but think that this week’s results were a reflection of the scoring differences one finds from rink to rink. The Caps and Penguins combined for only 11 turnovers in the 4-3 Penguins win last Sunday in Pittsburgh (the Caps being minus-3 in that game), while the Caps and Bruins combined for 42 turnovers in the 5-3 Caps win on Tuesday at Verizon Center (the Caps finishing plus-6). Boston had a particularly sloppy game that played a pivotal role in the Caps’ win. On balance, though, there was not much to take away from the turnover numbers this week.

Impressions:

A 1-0-1 week is not to be sneered at, but the way the Caps won these points is not the kind of method one can or should count on over the last 34 games of the season. They had to claw back from an 0-2 hole on the road to get a point in the first game of the week, then they had the benefit of an opponent playing a poor defensive game to get a win in the other contest. Make no mistake, that win was a good one, coming as it did while the Caps skated with three big pieces out of the lineup in Alex Ovechkin, Nicklas Backstrom, and Mike Green. But in neither game did the Caps mount any consistent offensive pressure, and they showed cracks in their defense and goaltending in giving up seven goals in the two contests.

We made a point a couple of weeks ago that the Caps had six games on each side of the All-Star break that could very well make or break their chances to make the playoffs. We speculated on their chances to match their standings points mark last season after 54 games, which would come at the end of this 12-game stretch. Well, having finished the first half of that stretch of a dozen games with a 3-2-1 record, even a sweep of their next six games would leave them short of last year’s points mark after 54 games (they can finish with 67 points in 54 games, compared to 68 last season). And given the way the Caps have lurched from winning to losing in short spurts over the last two-and-a-half months, no reasonable person should be thinking “sweep” in the next six games.

The Caps have played this season like the story about a frog in a pot of water. Turn up the heat too fast, the frog jumps out. But if the water is heated gradually, the frog doesn’t have a clue what is happening until it is too late. The Caps have avoided the long losing streak for the most part this season, not having one of more than four games so far. But they have lost often enough in bits and pieces that the heat has been turned up gradually on their chances to make the playoffs. And if they don’t make something of these next six games, when the schedule favors them with four divisional games and another against a team behind them in the standings, the Caps might find themselves cooked.