The Peerless Prognosticator is ON THE AIR!!! -- Eastern Conference Quarterfinals Game 2: Rangers at Capitals

The Peerless Prognosticator is ON THE AIR!!!

The Washington Capitals try to make it two-for-two at Verizon Center in their series with the New York Rangers when they take the ice at the 12:30 hour Saturday afternoon.

The Caps defeated the Rangers in Game 1 of the series on Thursday, taking advantage of the Rangers’ lack of discrimination in several areas.  Let’s take a look at them…

Discipline

The Rangers took six minor penalties and faced five shorthanded situations totaling 8:33 of ice time.  The five shorthanded situations faced by the Rangers was important.  When getting five or more power plays this season, the Caps had a record of 5-1-3 and were 4-0-0 in such games during April.

The blink of an eye

Three times the Rangers were guilty of losing focus – two obvious and one subtle – and all of them burned the visitors.  Let’s deal with the obvious ones first.  Dan Girardi and Ryan McDonagh can be considered a shutdown defensive pair, unaccustomed to egregious errors and certainly not simply – as a pair, no less – losing track of a player completely.  But that is what happened with the teams tied as the second period ticked under five minutes.  Marcus Johansson is lurking in the weeds at the Ranger blue linenear the penalty box when he starts across the Ranger line to create a passing lane for Steve Oleksy…

McDonagh (on left defense) appears unaware of Johansson’s move to the middle, choosing what in football might be considered “peeking” – what a cornerback does in “peeking” into the pocket to read the quarterback instead of focusing directly on the receiver he is covering.  And just as in football, sometimes “peeking” ends badly, for while McDonagh is peeking down ice at Oleksy, his partner – Girardi – appears to be unaware of Johansson’s whereabouts…

Oleksy now has a passing lane with neither McDonagh nor Girardi in a position to defend either the pass (McDonagh concentrating of the passer and not the revciever, Girardi too far away from the play to intervene)…

Johansson received the pass behind the defense, Girardi and McDonagh now only turning to try to get back into the play…

All McDonagh can do is lunge out at Johansson to try and interfere with his shot, unsuccessfully…

The second obvious instance was the Caps’ third goal, the play on which the Caps scored started in odd fashion.  Mathieu Perreault fended off Anton Stralman and Mats Zuccarello in the Olympia Corner to move the puck out to Jason Chimera.  From the edge of the left wing circle, Chimera works the puck up the blue line with Brad Richards in his path…

Then Richards makes a decision not to engage Chimera, backing off to defend a possible pass to the point.  Meanwhile, Perreault is exiting the corner and heading for the net…

With Richards taking himself out of the play, Chimera turns in the other direction along the wall and, spying Perreault getting into position in front of the crease, sends…what?  A pass to Joel Ward at the left wing hashmarks?  A pass to Perreault for a possible deflection?  These are things that might have been weighing ever so slightly on the mind of Henrik Lundqvist…

Of all the choices he had to defend, Lundqvist appeared to consider a shot from Chimera last on that list in that split second.  He did so at his peril…

Then there was the subtle instance, coming on the Caps’ first goal.  This gets started with the Rangers in what looks like decent position to defend a play from the top of the Rangers’ zone. Ryan Callahan is in Mike Green’s shooting lane as Green winds up for a shot, Derek Stepan looks in good shape to defend Troy Brouwer from the back side…

And as Green fires, Callahan turns into the middle in an effort to block the oncoming shot.  The trouble is, the puck is going wide left, and Callahan has turned the wrong way with the wrong guy to leave by himself on that side – Alex Ovechkin…

The puck sailed wide, hit the end boards, and rebounded back, Ovechkin wide open to collect the puck.  Meanwhile, Callahan, having turned away from the direction in which the puck was shot, is now tied up with Troy Brouwer, and Dan Girardi cannot make his way through the wash in front with Mike Ribeiro there.  Ovechkin has a free shot…

You know how that ended…

Nash Hash

Rick Nash is a gifted goal scorer, but even goal scorers have preferred areas from which to shoot.  Although Rick Nash had eight shots on goal, chances are that he would have preferred not having six of those eight shots coming from between the faceoff dots and the wall or the low edge of the faceoff circles.  He did have two shots from scoring areas, but it was a low yield given his shot volume.  Nash is a scorer who has the gift of reach and quick hands that can be used to great effect to beat defenders in close or one on one.  Neither of those gifts could be used to good effect for much of the evening…

Hot Breath of the Power Play

The New York Rangers do not have an especially efficient power play – 23^rd ranked in the regular season at 15.7 percent.  But in Game 1 New York had the benefit of four power plays on which they recorded eight unsuccessful shots.  Five of those shots came deep within the “home plate” area in which a team would want to find scoring chances.  One cannot think the Caps would want to tempt fate with a repeat of this performance on Saturday afternoon…

In the end...

The Caps were opportunistic in Game 1, taking advantage of momentary lapses on the part of the Rangers.  On the other hand, the Rangers were a more methodical team but could not convert what opportunities they had, particularly on their own power play.  In a sense, that is who these two teams are, the Caps better able to impose their personality in Game 1.  But the margin of error is thin.  If a fine defensive pair does not lose contact with a Cap, and a close in power play shot pinballs of a body, these teams might still be playing in overtime.  There is a long way to go, but for now, “Advantage: Capitals”…

Capitals 3 – Rangers 2

Pictures from screen capture of NBCSports feed
Shot charts from Washingtonpost.com

Capitals vs. Rangers: Exception to the Rule and the Analogy of the Saints

Today's topic is...possession.

A lot of folks spend a lot of time and apply their hard-won expertise in the empirical sciences to try to apply mathematical rules and statistical measures to hockey in an effort to explain what happens on the ice.  Some of the new fangled measures confirm what the casual fan might intuit by sight. For instance, a fan only recently acquainted with the game, but who might follow football, assumes intutively that just as in football, having the puck beats not having the puck as an ingredient to success.

But these empirical rules, methods, and measures are not (not yet, anyway) sophisticated enough to predict with virtual certainty a result or an aoutcome.  The same holds true in any team sport where any number of variables might affect an outcome that are not included in the observer's model.

And so it is with possession.  The New York Rangers are thought to be the superior "posession" team, while the Washington Capitals have had issues with this metric for much of the season.  All other things being equal, the Rangers' superior ability to control territory by virtue of possessing the puck should result in wins more often than not, especially against a team such as the Capitals, a team that is somewhat lacking as a "possession" team.

The imperfection in the measure leads us to an analogy in a different sport -- professional football.  If one looks at the team statistics tables for the 2012 season under "time of possession," one will find that the New Orleans Saints finished a modest 27th in the NFL, ahead of only five other teams.  But, lo and behold, there are those same Saints finishing third in the league in points per game.  The lack of possession did not seem to impair unduly their ability to wreak havoc on opposing defenses.

How is this so for a team with such weak possession statistics?  Possession is merely a variable in what could be a larger set of variables in a model to explain an outcome, the "how" that outcome was achieved.  Some of those variables have had measures identified with them by those adept in the mathematical and statistical sciences looking at football or hockey, some no doubt have not.  How, for instance, does one accommodate the particular skill of a Drew Brees in the model?  Or his bevy of receivers?  How do you accommodate the skill of an Alex Ovechkin or a Nicklas Backstrom?  Or (given his unique contributions against the New York Rangers) a Jason Chimera?  How do you account for the philosophy, preparation, and game planning of the coaching staff on a game-to-game basis? 

How do we model the opportunistic effects of "skill" on an outcome as opposed to the methodical effects of "possession?"

There will be instances in which the results do not confirm what relying on a single measure or a small set of measures shows us should occur.  Some results will fall through the cracks (generically categorized as "error"), and others will reflect an entirely different set of variables that are important in explaining the results we see on the field or on the ice.  That is a challenge for the numbers mavens, defining and developing broader models that capture the discrete variables that best explain a result, whether they include "possession" measures or some variable or measure that explains the "Analogy of the Saints."

Caps vs. Rangers... Torts' Shorts

New York Rangers head coach John Tortorella is an entertaining quote (unless you happen to be a working journalist), and from time to time in this series, we will try and assemble the most "entertaining" of them from a variety of media sources.  After Game 1, Tortorella was rather subdued, although you could almost see the thought bubbles over his head in the post-game press conference after the Caps 3-1 win last night (images from screen capture of MSG Network clips)...

As for the best of the quotes themselves...

“Are you asking me ‘do we want to move away from him to allow the shots to get through?’…No.  I don’t know what you’re talking about, but no.”

-- In response to a question about a quote from Caps’ goalie Braden Holtby that there was a lot traffic in front of him.

"You [can’t] go back to back with those.  I’m not so sure [Arron Asham’s] was a penalty; they call it though. We can't take that many penalties…You can't take two in a row. Hopefully, we will discipline ourselves the next game."

-- On a question about the Rangers’ penalty killing.

Quite tame, by his standards.  On scale of 1-to-10 on the Tort-o-Meter of Surliness ("1" being sweetness and light, "10" being "The Full Tortinator"), last night's performance gets a...

3

NHL Eastern Conference Quarterfinals -- Game 1: Capitals 3 - Rangers 1

The Washington Capitals spotted the New York Rangers a first period goal, but then they stormed back with three of their own to defeat the Rangers, 3-1, at Verizon Center on Thursday night. 

The game started as if it would be a low-scoring grind, but the Rangers finally broke through late in the first period.  Carl Hagelin got the Rangers on the board first with equal parts hard work and luck, first digging the puck free from John Carlson.  Then, Hagelin darted out from behind the Capitals’ net to goalie Braden Hotlby’s left and tried to wrap the puck around the post.  The puck spun off Hagelin’s stick through the blue paint and would have done no harm, but it hit John Erskine’s skate and deflected into the back of the net to give the Rangers a 1-0 lead at 16:44 of the period.

That was how it remained until the Rangers until the Rangers took a penalty early in the second period.  Taylor Pyatt took an elbowing penalty at 3:14, giving the Caps a power play.  It stunk.  The Caps recorded only one ineffectual shot on goal on that power play, but they saw something, and when the Rangers obliged the Caps by taking another penalty barely a minute after the Pyatt penalty expired, the Caps pounced. 

It was about getting pucks to the net.  It started with Alex Ovechkin dumping the puck into the far corner to goalie Henrik Lundqvist’s left.  Nicklas Backstrom was first to it along the wall, and he worked the puck out to Mike Green.  The puck took its turn on the sticks of Backstrom, Green, and Mike Ribeiro, eventually making its way back to Green at the top of the offensive zone.  Green loaded up for a slap shot, but directed the shot to Lundqvist’s right and off the end wall.  The puck caromed back to the edge of the faceoff circle where Alex Ovechkin was waiting to bat it under the right arm of Lundqvist and in to tie the game at 6:59 of the second period.

Late in the period the Caps put the game away with a pair of goals in short order.  The first goal in the sequence came on a simple play, well executed.  Steve Oleksy backed his way into the Caps’ zone with the puck, allowing the Caps to regroup in the neutral zone.  One Cap, though, got behind the Ranger defense, and Oleksy spied him, firing a long lead pass that Marcus Johansson took at the Ranger blue line.  Johansson took the puck in behind Ranger defensemen Dan Girardi and Ryan McDonagh.  Johansson pirouetted into the Ranger zone on his own and snapped a shot under Lundqvist’s left arm to give the Caps their first lead of the series, 2-1.

Just 46 seconds later the Caps were on the board again thanks to the gritty work of Mathieu Perreault.  First, Perreault outdueled Anton Stralman for a loose puck in the faceoff circle to Lundqvist’s right.  Then, having shed Stralman once, Perreault fended off Mats Zuccarello and Stralman to move the puck to Jason Chimera along the left wing wall.  Chimera was patient enough to let Brad Richards back off to defend against a pass to the point.  When Richards backed off, Chimera turned and sent an off pace shot to the Ranger net that had the look of seeking a rebound or a deflection.  There was neither.  The puck snuck through Lundqvist’s pads, and the Caps had a 3-1 lead heading to the second intermission. 

For the Caps, the third period was a matter of playing smart and minimizing Ranger opportunities.  The Caps managed both, leaving the rest in the hands of Braden Holtby, who stopped all 12 shots he faced in the period to seal the win, 3-1, and give the Caps a 1-0 lead in the series.

Other stuff…

-- Only three times in their last 13 games of the regular season did the Rangers face more than two shorthanded situations.  The five they faced in Game 1 was the first time they allowed that many to the Caps in a playoff game since giving the Caps seven power play chances in a 4-0 loss to the Caps in Game 5 of the 2009 Eastern quarters.

-- Alex Ovechkin’s goal gave him sole possession of the franchise record for career power play goals in the playoffs.  He had been tied at 30 goals with Peter Bondra.

-- The Rangers tilted the ice severely in the Caps’ direction, once they got their skates working.  They were outshot by the Caps, 9-0, over the first eight minutes, but they finished the game out-attempting the Caps, 79-53, and outshot the Caps by a 36-22 margin after their slow start.

-- In the game within a game, score it “Braden Holtby: 1, Rick Nash: 0.”  Nash recorded eight shots on goal (16 attempts), but failed to record a point.

-- Anybody have Steve Eminger leading the Rangers (and tied with Troy Brouwer for the Caps) in hits with seven?  He had those seven hits in less than ten minutes of ice time.

-- It’s hard to know if the first line was efficient, opportunistic, or plain lucky.  The Ovechkin-Backstrom-Johansson trio managed only four even strength shots on goal for the game, Johansson getting the only even strength goal.

-- Mike Green gets the all-you-can-eat buffet coupon… an assist, plus-1, three shots on goal, nine shot attempts (team high), two hits, three takeaways, three blocked shots.  The only thing he did not do was take a faceoff.

-- Braden Holtby gets marks for using the whole net – and just as important, the pipes – in tending goal.  He had a Carl Hagelin shot beat him in the third period, only to find the crossbar, and he pinned another shot against the right post with his blocker shortly thereafter (a shot that was reviewed) to prevent another goal.

-- Speaking of Holtby, his blocker stop of a Hagelin breakaway early in the second period was probably the pivotal point of the game.  It was an indication that Holtby was sharp, probably sharper than Lundqvist at the other end.

-- It should escape no one’s notice that Alex Ovechkin was out on the ice in the game’s last minute.  True, if it was a one-goal lead he very well might not have been out there, but it was a little thing that showed trust in him to play responsibly in his own end.

-- Speaking of which, a nice block of a Rick Nash shot by Ovechkin with less than four minutes left and the game still in doubt. 

-- Joel Ward had a quiet – very quiet – 8:06 of ice time, only a lone takeaway marking his line on the score sheet.  But quiet is good as Ward gets his skating legs under him for what could be a long series.

In the end… It could be a long series.  That is the recent history of these teams.  But the Caps now have the shorter path to the second round, having won Game 1.  On the other hand, it is first to “four,” not first to “one,” and the Caps have merely held serve.  Both teams can take something from this game.  The Rangers dominated possession for long stretches after a slow start.  The Caps were opportunistic and made the most of those opportunities.  Rick Nash was beastly, if not well rewarded, while Alex Ovechkin had a more well-rounded game than the usual suspects in the media give him credit for. 

If there was a difference in this one it was that Henrik Lundqvist did not have an especially good game.  Given who he is, one could have expected him to stop each of the three Caps shots that resulted in goals. The Chimera goal was uncharacteristically soft on his part.  At the other end, Braden Holtby was sharp, technically not beaten cleanly on a shot from a Ranger stick (the only goal scored as a deflection off a skate).  The Caps and their fans would just as soon this continue, but a seven-game series is not seven chapters that repeat one another.  It is a story of twists and turns.  And this was just the first chapter.  Still, it’s a nice story so far.

The Peerless Prognosticator is ON THE AIR!!! -- 2013 Eastern Conference Quarterfinals: Washington Capitals vs. New York Rangers

The Peerless Prognosticator is ON THE AIR!!!

Last year when we wrote the warm-up for the Eastern Conference Quarterfinal series between the Washington Capitals and the Boston Bruins, we opened with this paragraph…

“On Thursday the Washington Capitals will embark on their 23rd post-season journey with the aim of winning a Stanley Cup. This year marks the fifth consecutive trip to the playoffs for the Caps and if anything, this one resembles the first one in this five-year run more than the others.”

Well, it worked last year, and but for the fact that this is the 24^th post-season journey for this franchise (the old television series “Lost” comes to mind) and their sixth consecutive trip to the playoffs, the paragraph still fits, right down to this year resembling the first one more than any of the others.

Oh, and there is a different opponent, too.  Well…not so different.  This will be the fourth time in five seasons that the Capitals will face off against the New York Rangers in a post-season series.  Some things don’t change…well, much.

The View from 30,000 feet

Last year, when these teams met in the Eastern Conference Quarterfinals, they resembled one another as teams that tended to grind out wins.  The Rangers did it with an aggressive pursuit style, while the Caps did it by minimizing risks.  Either way, they were close-to-the-margin teams for which blowouts were a rare commodity.

This year, things are different.  The Capitals and Rangers are a contrast in styles, or at least a contrast in production, as their respective numbers would indicate:

Looking at the top-end numbers, the Rangers look a lot like last year’s team:

• Goals for/game – 2012: 2.71 / 2013: 2.62
• Goals against/game – 2012: 2.22 / 2013: 2.25
• 5-on-5 – 2012: 1.14 / 2013: 1.30
• Power play – 2012: 15.7% / 2013: 15.7%
• Penalty killing – 2012: 86.2% / 2013: 81.1%
• Winning when scoring first (pct) – 2012: .814 / 2013: .857

If anything this year’s Rangers are a weaker road team that scores less away from Madison Square Garden (2.17 G/G vs. 2.66 last season), is scored upon more (2.46 / 2.34), has a weaker power play (11.4 percent / 15.7 percent), and has a worse penalty kill (75.0 percent / 87.3 percent).

The bigger changes are on the Capitals’ side.  They averaged almost half a goal more per game from last year to this (from 2.66 to 3.04), actually had a slight drop in scoring defense (from 2.76 to 2.71), had a marginally better 5-on-5 ratio (1.01 to 1.07), a much more efficient power play (from 16.7 percent to 26.8 percent), and had a much better record when falling behind first (.326 winning percentage to .455).  Those differences to the better hold up in both the Caps’ home and road records, as opposed to the Rangers, who have been a weak road club this year.

Offense

Even with the addition of Rick Nash this season, this is a team that was offensively challenged for much of the season, especially on the road.  The Blueshirts were held to fewer than two goals in 11 of 24 road games.  The good news here is that only two of those games took place after March 14^th.

The Rangers don’t have top-heavy scoring in their lineup as much as they do not have top-end scoring.  Derek Stepan led the club in points (44), but was only tied for 21^st in the league in scoring.  Rick Nash was close behind with 42 points (tied for 27^th), but after that the scoring drops off quickly.  Only six Rangers who spent the entire year with the club are in double digits in points. Five are in double digits in goals, but after that the goal scoring drops off a cliff to Taylor Pyatt with six and then to defensemen Ryan McDonagh and Anton Stralman with four apiece.  And, just as the Rangers struggle to score on the road, so is that fact reflected in individual performance.  Only five Rangers who started the season with the club have more than two goals on the road. 

If there is a silver lining in this for the Rangers, it is that they have a very strong finishing kick in games.  They were eighth overall in third period goals scored this season (46).  But even here that silver lining is not all that thick.  Five of the other seven playoff teams in the East have scored even more third period goals than the Rangers.

For the Caps, their offense resembled more the offense of the 2008-2009 season (3.27 goals per game) if not the 2009-2010 juggernaut (3.83 goals per game).  Their 3.04 goals per game tied Montreal for fourth in the league in scoring offense.  And like the Rangers, the Caps’ offense improved as games went on, only more so and earlier in those contests.  Their 56 second period goals led the league (with Winnipeg), and their 48 third period goals were fourth in the league. 

As individuals the Caps resembled that 2009-2010 in the distribution of goals, certainly.  Alex Ovechkin was the dominant goal scorer (0.71 goals/game in 2009-2010, 0.67 goals/game this year), but he had good support from another winger (Alexander Semin (0.55) in 2009-2010, and Troy Brouwer (0.40) this season) as well as a center (Nicklas Backstrom then (0.27) and Mike Ribeiro now (0.27). 

And just as with that 2008-2009 team, the Caps had balance.  There were 21 players on a pace to score in double digits in points over an 82-game schedule, while on this team there were 19 (20 if you count Brooks Laich but he played in only nine games this season).

Defense

The Rangers are not an especially gifted team at holding teams without shots on goal.  The finished the season tied with the Islanders for the tenth lowest average shots on goal (28.2), although that number is tied for the second lowest among the eight playoff clubs in the East.  What the Rangers do seem to have a knack for is in avoiding big periods, at least as their overall scoring defense is concerned.  With 34 goals allowed in the first periods of games, 38 in the second periods, and 34 in the third periods of games, the Rangers don’t express any clear weaknesses or tendencies to either slow starts or weak finishes.  If there is a concern, it is in falling behind early.  No team in the Eastern Conference playoffs allowed the first goal of games more often than the Rangers (27 times in 48 games).

The Caps suffer a similar problem to that of the Rangers allowing first goals.  Only Colorado (23) and Florida (28) have trailed at the first intermission more often than the Caps (20).  Fortunately, the Caps had all those second period goals scored to negate that disadvantage, but this is not necessarily something to count on in the post season.  Then there is the continuing issue of shots allowed.  Only Edmonton and Buffalo allowed more shots on goal this season.  Here is where that matters.  If Henrik Lundqvist, who had a .926 save percentage in the regular season, duplicates that in this series, then Braden Holtby has to have a save percentage of .935 just to stay even in goals allowed.

Special Teams

The Rangers are a Jekyll and Hyde act on their special teams.  Their power play, while not elite, is competent at home (19.3 percent, 17^th in the league), but on the road it struggles to say the least.  No team scored fewer power play goals on the road than did New York this season (eight, tied with Winnipeg), and the Rangers have the 28^th rated road power play.

New York’s penalty killing shows similar profiles at home and on the road.  At home the Rangers are a tenth-best 86.2 percent and had to use it often, finishing with the tenth highest number of shorthanded situations faced at home (80, tied with Ottawa).  On the road, however, the Rangers rank 26^th with a 75.0 percent penalty kill rate.  What saved them was an uncommon discipline about taking penalties in the first place.  Only Minnesota found themselves in fewer shorthanded situations on the road this season.

For the Caps, the power play is their signature strength – first at home among playoff teams (27.2 percent), first on the road (26.5 percent), first overall (26.8 percent).  At first blush it might look bad that the Caps finished only 14^th in total power play opportunities (164), but if they finished tied with New Jersey for third most opportunities (176), the difference would amount to three power play goals.  The differences wouldn’t be significant until the Caps have as many opportunities as Detroit (185) or Montreal (203).  Still, putting more pressure on teams to defend power plays at the expense of more 5-on-5 time could not hurt.

Penalty killing for the Caps has been a long slow slog of improvement.  After four games it was awful (15-for-24, 62.5 percent).  But since then the Caps have kiiled penalties at an 80.6 percent rate.  Not elite, perhaps, but it would have ranked the Caps in the middle third of the league rankings.  Overall, the Caps have has issues with games in which they have three or more shorthanded situations.  In those games the Caps are 13-15-3.  When they face two or fewer shorthanded situations they are 14-3-0.  The silver lining here is that they did better late in the season in games facing three or more shorthanded situations (5-1-1 in April).

Goaltending

New York – Henrik Lundqvist (season series): 1-0-1, 1.44, .942

Washington -- Braden Holtby (season series): 1-2-0, 2.71, .923

When you have been nominated for the Vezina Trophy as the league’s top goaltender four times in the last seven seasons (winning in 2012) while ranking eighth among active goaltenders in wins, second among active goalies in goals against average, first in save percentage, and sixth in shutouts, you are an elite goalie.  That, of course, is the Rangers’ Henrik Lundqvist.  This season Lundqvist had his second best career season in goals against average (2.05, seventh in the league) and save percentage (.926, tied for fifth in the league).  He has been a bit inconsistent in the season’s final weeks, though. In his last ten appearances Lundqvist had a fine win-loss record (7-3-0) and a fine goals against average (1.98).  But his save percentage dropped a bit (.920), and he allowed three or more goals in four of the ten games.

Braden Holtby overcame a start to the season that might have had Caps fans wondering if last spring’s superb effort in the playoffs was a fluke.  In his first seven appearances he was 3-4-0, 4.04, .874.  But in his last 29 appearances he was 20-8-1, 2.26, .930, with four shutouts.  Only Tuukka Rask of Boston, among playoff goalies in the East, had more shutouts (five).  Among goalies appearing in at least half of their teams’ games, Holtby finished eighth in even-strength save percentage and his save percentage against opponents’ power plays was indistinguishable (.860) from that of his opponent in this series, Henrik Lundqvist (.861).

Coaching

John Tortorella ended a number of bad personal trends when his Rangers overcame the Caps last spring.  Since winning a Stanley Cup at Tampa Bay in 2003 he had an 11-19 post-season record and put together consecutive series wins (beating Ottawa in the first round before ousting the Caps) for the first time since that Stanley Cup year.  This is his fourth trip to the post-season with the Rangers, but it will be his fourth time facing the Caps, including once as head coach in Tampa.  He is 12-13 overall in wins and losses against the Caps and has split four series against Washington.  This series is seen in many quarters as critical to his continued employment in New York.  One thing to count on, it probably won’t affect his style.  He is the personification of the Sinatra refrain, he does it “myyyyy way,” even if it means antagonizing the local media in Manhattan.

Adam Oates is in his first playoff as a head coach, but it is not as if he is a stranger to being behind the bench in the playoffs, having served as an assistant to Pete DeBoer in New Jersey when the Devils went to the Stanley Cup finals last season.  He also understands the pressure of the playoffs as a player, having appeared in 163 playoff games over a 19-year playing career.

If there is a difference between these coaches it would seem to be on where they occupy themselves on the motivator-technician spectrum.  Tortorella impresses as more of a motivator, getting his players to expend the maximum effort available to them, more than he seems to be an X’s and O’s coach.  Oates, on the other hand, appears more a data-driven driven coach that uses technology and adjustments on the fly based on his accumulation of information than the “rah-rah” type.  Each suits their team to a point.  New York is not particularly deep in skill and depends on its whole being more than the sum of its parts, being willing to push themselves (or be prodded by Tortorella) to give more than 100 percent for 60 minutes of more.  The Caps have more high-end skill, but get contributions from the mid-range of their roster because Oates can make adjustments to maximize the skills those players have. 

The Season Series

The Rangers won the season series.  Here are the wrap-ups to bring you up to speed:

• February 17: Rangers 2 - Capitals 1 
• March 10: Rangers 4 – Capitals 1 
• March 24: Capitals 3 – Rangers 2 (OT/SO)

Stars Who Must be Stars

New York: Rick Nash

This is what the Rangers paid a king’s ransom for (Brandon Dubinsky, Artem Anisimov, Tim Erixon, a first round draft pick and future considerations) to employ the services of Rick Nash – the post-season.  Nash has appeared in only one playoff series in nine seasons preceding this one, and it did not end well.  His 2009 Columbus Blue Jackets were swept in four games by the Detroit Red Wings.  Nash was 1-2-3, minus-4 in the four games.  And that makes Nash something of an unknown quantity.  At first blush it would seem that Nash, who has a 7-8-15 scoring line in 12 career games against the Caps, could dominate.  True, he could.  But on the other hand he had more shorthanded responsibility in Columbus than he has in new York (only 31 seconds of penalty killing time per game this season), and taking that away from his Columbus production against the Caps he is a more mortal 6-6-12 in those 12 games.  Whether he does the “Monster Nash” on the Caps or is more “Rickey Mouse” could be an important factor on which this series turns.

Washington: Alex Ovechkin

It is getting late in the day for Alex Ovechkin to be more than a numbers freak in the post season.  He is 30-29-59, plus-56 in 51 career playoff games, but his Caps are just 24-27 in eight playoff series in which Washington has only three series wins.  He is 9-8-17, plus-2, in 19 career playoff games against New York having scored three goals in each of the three series in which he faced the Rangers.  This season started poorly for Ovechkin, but he closed with a rush.  After going 2-1-3, minus-3 in his first eight games he finished 30-23-53, plus-5, in his last 40 games, a 62-47-109, plus-10 pace over 82 games.  His 16 power play goals works out to a 27 power play goal scoring rate per 82 games.  Only 12 times in the history of the league did anyone score more power play goals in a season.  And, if anything he comes into the post-season even hotter – 23 goals in his last 23 games.

Guys Who Might Be Heroes

New York: Derick Brassard

Derick Brassard is another one of those players who is a big question mark.  This is his first taste of post-season action, having missed his first chance as a member of the Columbus Blue Jackets in 2009 when he had a shoulder injury.  Since arriving in New York with Derek Dorsett and John Moore from Columbus at the trading deadline (with a draft pick for Marian Gaborik and two prospects) Brassard went 5-6-11, plus-3, in 13 games, four of those goals coming in his last six games of the regular season.  On a team lacking offensive depth, and not getting all that they might have thought possible from Gaborik, Brassard has been a plus.  If he carries that into this series, it spells trouble for the Caps.

Washington: Martin Erat

We had it right in Round 1 of last year’s playoffs when we picked Joel Ward in this category (he with the series clinching goal against Boston).  This year we go with the new guy.  The addition of Martin Erat has not led to a flood of scoring off his stick (1-2-3 in nine games), but his presence shores up a weakness on this team, filling the left wing side on the second line.  He provides balance to that line, his intelligence and scoring potential opening things up for Troy Brouwer and giving center Mike Ribeiro more options.  Erat has a body of work in the post season – 8-15-23 in 46 playoff games with Nashville – so this will not be new to him.  His is the sort of secondary scoring the Caps could use as another threat against Henrik Lundqvist.

In the end…

This is seen by many folks as a series that will be close, although the Rangers appear to be the consensus pick.  We wonder if this isn’t “muscle memory” taking over.  The Rangers were on a short list of Stanley Cup favorites when the year started, but they struggled to get much traction for long stretches over the course of the abbreviated season.  This is not a team that has performed to that anticipated level.

To that, add the fact that this Ranger team is not a lot different than that which defeated the Caps in seven games last spring.  But in that series the Caps were within a triple overtime goal in one games and a late penalty in another of ending the Rangers’ season in less than seven games.  And the Caps did it with a team that didn’t have a consistent number two center, had a defenseman with a lot of rust, had a first-line center that lost half a season to a concussion, and was led by a coach who made-do with what he had, but took few (if any) chances.  The Caps do not suffer those same problems on the eve of this series.

The Rangers have improved as an internal matter, young players (particularly Derek Stepan) getting another full year of experience under their belts.  And on balance, Rick Nash is an upgrade over Marian Gaborik.  They will, however, miss defenseman Marc Staal for any additional time he might miss recovering from an eye injury.  For the most part, the Rangers will be relying on being a better version of the team that faced the Caps last spring, and that team has not yet emerged this season, at least not consistently and not for long stretches.

On the other hand, the Caps are a better version of the 2009 team that beat that Ranger team, mostly for the experience that their core group – Alex Ovechkin, Nicklas Backstrom, and Mike Green – have obtained.  They are also a more balanced team than that one, which was the warm-up act for the Greatest Show on Ice that would torment defenses the following year. 

This will be a hard-fought series, as have the three been that preceded it.  But while this will be no five-game romp for the Caps as it was in 2011, neither will it be the seven-game series that sandwiched that 2011 series.

Capitals in six

The Peerless Prognosticator Presents: Your Eastern Conference Round One Prognostos

Yesterday we took care of the Western Conference first round picks in the Stanley Cup tournament, now we take on the Eastern Conference prognostos.  Pour a cup o’ coffee (or a mug of your favorite adult beverage) and join us to take a look…

(1) Pittsburgh Penguins: 36-12-0, 72 points

(8) New York Islanders: 24-17-7, 55 points

Fearless: What Chicago is in the West, Pittsburgh is in the East.  Among Eastern Conference teams the Penguins are first in wins, first in points, first in scoring offense, first in 5-on-5 play, first in winning percentage in one-goal games, first in total wins by two or more goals, and they are one of only three teams in the league that was not shutout this season (Chicago and Boston being the others).  They had three 20-goal scorers (Chris Kunitz, James Neal, and Pascal Dupuis).  They had two 50-point scorers (Sidney Crosby and Kunitz).  They had three players finish better than plus-25.  They are an offensive juggernaut.  They were 23-4-0 over their last 27 games.  And yet there is this.  Since his star turn in the 2009 Stanley Cup playoffs, goalie Marc-Andre Fleury is 12-14, 3.12, .880 in 26 post-season games.  Not even the Penguins could score enough to cover up his problems in goal last spring against the Flyers.  He has some proving to do.

Cheerless: John Tavares is on a lot of folks’ short lists for most valuable player.  With 28 goals (third in the league) and having a hand in 47 of 135 goals the Islanders scored this year (35 percent), he certainly is the most valuable player on an up-and-coming club.  But one wonders if midnight is closing in on him.  He had a shooting percentage of 17.3 percent this season following years in which he had progressively worse percentages (12.9 in his rookie season followed by 11.9 and 10.8 percent) on progressively higher shot totals (186, 243, then 286 last season).  He was on an 82-game pace of 277 shots this season.  His history has not been better accuracy with higher volumes, although without it in this series, the Islanders don’t have a chance.

Peerless:  Pittsburgh had little trouble with the Islanders this season.  They lost to the Isles early on, 4-1, as part of the sleepwalking portion of the Penguins’ season (3-3-0 in their first six games), then swept the last four games by a combined 16-5 margin.  More ominous for the Islanders, the Penguin penalty kill – ordinary at best this year at 79.6 percent – was 16-for-16 in those four games.  Over the last three seasons the Penguins are 11-5-1 against New York.  For the Islanders to pull off the upset Tavares has to play at an even higher level than that at which he played during the regular season, and Fleury’s playoff demons of recent years will have to make an appearance.  Even if Sidney Crosby and/or Evgeni Malkin miss any time in this series, we cannot see either of those things happening over the span of an entire series.

Pittsburgh in five

(2) Montreal Canadiens: 29-14-5, 63 points

(7) Ottawa Senators: 25-17-6, 56 points

Fearless:  It is hard to know what to make of Montreal.  Are they the team that rocketed from dead last in the Eastern Conference last season to within three points of the top spot in the conference on April 6^th?  Or are they the team that went 2-6-0 over their next six games, giving up 32 goals in the process and having their goalie pulled three times?  Or, have they shaken the cobwebs loose and put their playoff face on with two impressive road wins in Winnipeg and in Toronto to wrap up the regular season?  Montreal can score – they finished tied with Washington for fourth place in scoring offense this season.  But in a sense it is a bit of a fragile team, too.  They were fine in blowout games, posting a 14-6 record in games decided by three or more goals (no team had more wins in such games).  When the games were closer, though, the Canadiens were not as successful, going 15-13 (eight regulation losses, five in extra time) in games decided by one or two goals.

Cheerless: Your top center plays only five games all season.  Your best defenseman – the one with the Norris Trophy – misses 31 games to a partially-severed Achilles tendon.  No player had 15 goals for the season, no player had 30 points.  Your leading scorer tied a career high in points – 29.  Your second leading scorer is a 39-year old defenseman.  How did you get here?  By being really stingy (only 74 goals against at 5-on-5, fifth lowest in the league), really responsible (only one shorthanded goal scored against), and getting really good goaltending (Craig Anderson led all qualifying goalies by a wide margin in goals against average (1.69) and save percentage (.941)).  Ottawa held a third of their opponents to fewer than two goals and 30 of them to fewer than three.  Arenas save on their electricity bills when the Senators are in the house.  Not many red lights going on.

Peerless:  Momentum is a fickle thing.  Having it is good, and having it usually means you keep it.  That is, until you don’t, and then it is awfully hard to get back.  And therein lies the caution for Montreal.  It has been a while since these two teams met, and despite the difference in their seedings, Ottawa is 12-9-0 since they last saw the Canadiens on March 13^th, and Montreal is 11-9-1 since they last saw the Senators.  Ottawa is 5-5-0 against playoff teams over that time, Montreal is 5-5-0 against playoff teams over the same span of time.  This series is going to come down to which goaltender is more consistent over longer stretches of play.  Carey Price has allowed fewer than two goals in three of his last 15 appearances, but he has allowed four or more goals four times in those same 15 appearances.  Hint: it’s not him.

Ottawa in six

(3) Washington Capitals: 27-18-3, 57 points

(6) New York Rangers: 26-18-4, 56 points

Fearless: These two teams have…

Peerless: Hey!  We’ll cover this one later.

(4) Boston Bruins: 28-14-6, 62 points

(5) Toronto Maple Leafs: 26-17-5, 57 points

Fearless:  Boston really has mastered this whole “fast start” thing.  Last year they were 28-11-1 in their first 40 games before going 21-18-3 in their last 42 contests.  This year they were 19-4-3 in their first 26 games, and then they went 9-10-3 in their last 22 games.  One is left wondering if some of that Montreal thing rubbed off on the Bruins.  The problem has not been defense – the Bruins allowed 2.32 goals per game over their last 22 contests.  The problem has been scoring.  Only five times in 22 games did Boston score more than twice, and six times they were held to a single goal on their way to averaging 2.23 goals per game over those 22 games.  They were also 3-5-2 against playoff teams over that span.  If you dressed this team up in the colors of, say, the Buffalo Sabres (6-3-1 in games against their last ten opponents that made the post-season) would they look as intimidating?

Cheerless:  I looked it up.  The Toronto Maple Leafs started in the NHL in 1917.  That’s so long ago that the team didn’t even have a name.  They also won the Stanley Cup that first year, something they haven’t done since 1967.  They haven’t made the playoffs since 2004, when Nazem Kadri was still in bantam-level hockey.  Guess you can forgive Toronto fans for having this “never been here before” sort of enthusiasm, especially when the longest the Leafs had gone without making the playoffs before this seven-year streak was two years in a row dating back to 1928, when they had the last of a three-year streak.  There has to be an awful lot of pressure on guys who now are the hopes and dreams of every blue-and-white bleeding Leafs fan in Canada.  And it is not as if they are coming into this soiree with their best bib and tucker on.  They were 2-4-0 in their last six games of the regular season, and if playoff teams are the ruler you want to measure them against, they were 1-3-0 against those teams in that stretch.  You get the feeling they are not quite ready for this.

Peerless:  As it turns out, this is the only “Original Six” duel in the first round.  But this will be the first time the teams have met in the post season since 1974 in a series that the Bruins swept in four games on their way to the Stanley Cup finals.  The teams last met this season in a home-and-home set in late March, the Leafs winning one and taking the Bruins to the freestyle competition in the other before losing.  Their numbers are not altogether different at a high level – Boston has the better defense, the Leafs score more.  Boston is better at 5-on-5, the Leafs better on the power play.  Toronto, perhaps surprisingly, has a slightly better penalty kill.  But in as close to the vest as post season games are played, having the puck might matter here.  Boston has a big advantage in shot differential per game (plus-3.8 to minus-6.0 for Toronto), and the underlying possession numbers do not favor the Leafs.  Cheerless is right, the Leafs are not quite ready for this, but Boston is not playing well enough to make this an unduly short series, either.

Boston in six

And there you have it, seven of the eight first round playoff series with the only prognostications you will ever need (as if one “needs” prognostications).  When we get around to it, we will have the eighth and last, but certainly not least, series – the Caps and New York Rangers.