Two Hockey Players Talkin'

Thanks to Japers Rink for giving us the pic inspiration.

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

The Peerless Prognosticator is ON THE AIR!!!

For the Washington Capitals, these are the best of times – regular season edition.  Winners of four straight, eight of their last ten, and with a record of 24-4-3 since December 5^th and a ten-game winning streak on home ice, the Caps will host the Detroit Red Wings on Thursday night at Verizon Center looking to extend their good fortune another night.

The Caps’ record on home ice has been stunning.  In their ten-game winning streak, they have outscored their opponents by a combined 50-12, scoring five or more goals in each of their last nine games at Verizon Center. 

The Red Wings, opening a three-game road trip, have been struggling in their quest to reach the postseason for the 26^th consecutive season.  They bring a modest three-game points streak into this contest (2-0-1) having lost in overtime to the Columbus Blue Jackets on Tuesday night, 3-2.  It is one in a cruel stretch of games for the Wings, who have four overtime losses in their last eight games (2-2-4 overall).  Scoring has been an issue over those eight games for Detroit, having recorded a total of only 16 goals and being shut out twice, both times on home ice.

Henrik Zetterberg had a hand in almost half of those 16 goals, going 2-5-7 over that stretch.  Now the grand old man for the Wings – the oldest player to dress for the club this season and one of the last links to the last Stanley Cup winning team in 2008 – he is not going gently into that good night.  Zetterberg leads the team in assists (27), points (38), plus-minus (plus-13), and ice time among forwards (19:23 per game.  He is on a pace to record his third-straight 50-point season (59) and his tenth such season in a 14-year career, all in Detroit.  If he should appear in all of the Red Wings remaining games this season, he would finish the year with a round 1,000 NHL games played in his career, the seventh player to reach that milestone for the club.  In 18 career games against the Caps, Zetterberg is 6-6-12, minus-1.

With Niklas Kronwall – another link to that 2008 Stanley Cup winning team – on the shelf with an injury, Darren Helm is the third and last link on the current club to those glory days.  Helm is something of a survivor, or at least persistent.  He has played every one of his tens seasons with the Red Wings and is one of just 38 players in the history of the franchise to play at least ten seasons.  He is in the top-50 in total games played for the club (468).  It would be more but for having missed 28 games this season to a dislocated shoulder suffered in November that kept him out of the lineup until January 20^th.  His role has been as a reliable bottom-six forward, a role in which he has enjoyed some success.  In six full seasons (he missed most of the 2012-2013 to injury) he has never finished with less than 20 points, and only in 2011-2012 did he finish with fewer than ten goals (9).  In his eight games back from his shoulder injury, coinciding with the 2-2-4 skid on which the Wings find themselves, he is 2-1-3, minus-2, and is on a pace to finish with 13 goals and 22 points.  Helm is 1-1-2, minus-4, in 12 career games against the Caps.

Goaltender Jimmy Howard suffered a knee injury in late December, and he has been on a rehab assignment in Grand Rapids with the Griffins in anticipation of his return to Detroit.  In the meantime, Petr Mrazek has had the number one netminding duties.  It is a role with which he has struggled.  Since taking over for Howard, Mrazek is 3-6-3, 3.21, .894, but he did have a 42-save shutout of the Nashville Predators last Saturday.  Mrazek is 1-2-1, 1.54, .944, with one shutout in four career appearances against the Caps.

1.  Detroit has been charged with 19 fighting majors through 53 games this season.  That is more than the last two seasons combined (16) and the most since they had 19 in the 2009-2010 season. 

2.  Outshooting the opposition is hardly a guarantee of success for the Red Wings.  Their eight wins in 19 games when outshooting opponents is fewer wins than all but four other teams, all of whom are outside the playoff eligibility group (Dallas, Buffalo, Colorado, and Arizona).  Detroit has more wins when outshot by opponents (13) than they do when outshooting them.

3.  If the game is a blowout, chances are the Red Wings are on the wrong side of it.  Their .286 winning percentage in decisions of three or more goals (4-10 record) is the fifth-worst in the league.

4.  Detroit has the worst record in the league when scoring first (10-6-6/.455).  Only Colorado has fewer wins (9) when scoring first.

5.  It should be no surprise that Detroit struggles with possession.  The Red Wings rank 23^rd in Corsi-for at 5-on-5 (48.08 percent) overall and when adjusted for score, zone, and venue (47.78 percent; numbers from Corsica.hockey).

1.  Lars Eller became the tenth player this season to hit double digits in goals when he scored against Carolina on Tuesday night.  The Caps had only eight players hit that mark last season.  They did have ten players reach that mark in 2014-2015.  The last time they had more players hit that mark was 1993-1994, when 13 players had 10 or more goals.

2.  The Caps have been liberal in spreading ice time around.  Among the 12 forwards appearing in at least 40 games so far this season, only Daniel Winnik is averaging less than ten minutes at even strength (9:55), and no one has more than Evgeny Kuznetsov (14:32 per game).

3.  Among active defensemen, only six have more blocked shots in the post-2004-2005 lockout period than Brooks Orpik.  His next one will be his 1,500^th in that span.

4.  Do the Caps get offense from defense?  Consider this.  Since the 2004-2005 lockout, four of the top five defensemen in total points scored for the Caps are active with this team: John Carlson (254), Karl Alzner (114), Matt Niskanen (94), and Dmitry Orlov (86).  Mike Green, who the Caps will see on Thursday, leads with 360 points.

5.  For all the fireworks at home lately, the Caps have been struggling a bit in possession.  They rank 13^th in Corsi-for at 5-on-5 on home ice (50.97 percent; numbers from Corsica.hockey).

The Peerless’ Players to Ponder

Detroit: Mike Green

He is not the offensive defenseman he was in his heyday with the Washington Capitals, but in his season and a half in Detroit, Mike Green is in the top-20 among league defensemen in total goals scored (17), top 15 in power play goals (7), top-25 in total power play points (27), and is in the top-30 in points overall (61).  He has been a bit of a good luck charm this season, the Wings sporting a 5-1-1 record in games in which Green recorded a goal.  It does not extend quite as far to when Green had a point, the Wings being 11-5-4 in those games.  As was the case when he was a Capital, Green has been a minutes-eater, but that has been a mixed blessing.  Detroit is just 8-11-4 in the 23 games in which Green skated more than 24 minutes.  Green does not have a point and is minus-1 in the four career games he has against the Caps.

Washington:  Karl Alzner

In one respect it is tempting to think of Karl Alzner as the “above average” defenseman.  This season, he is averaging 20:03 in ice time per game.  In 27 games he skated more than that, the Caps are 23-1-3.  When skating less than that, the Caps are 14-10-3.  Perhaps is it the product of his role. Being a defensive defenseman, he’s going to be out there trying to protect a lead.  When the Caps are trying to catch up, he’s not going to get so much time.  He does have that secondary scoring thing going, though.  Washington has won all nine games in which he has a point this season.  Even though Alzner is to be an unrestricted free agent at the end of this season, he will finish this season in the top ten among defensemen in franchise history in games played.  His 563 games played in the NHL, all with the Caps, ranks tenth all time on the franchise list of defensemen.  Alzner is 0-3-3, plus-4, in 14 career games against Detroit.

In the end…

Nine of the last ten games the Red Wings have played ended in one-goal decisions, and they are 4-1-4 in those games.  On the other hand, of the Caps’ last 17 games, 12 of them were multi-goal decisions of which the Caps won 11.  The key factor in whether this is the close game the Red Wings seem to favor at the moment or the blowout characterizing Caps games recently is whether Red Wing goalie Petr Mrazek (assuming he gets the nod) plays like he has against the Caps during his career or how he has played recently.  If the former, the Red Wings could surprise.  If the latter, well…

Capitals 4 – Red Wings 1

A TWO-Point Night -- Game 54: Washington Capitals 5 - Carolina Hurricanes 0

The Washington Capitals keep rolling.  The Carolina Hurricanes came to town with a three-game winning streak, but after holding the Caps to a scoreless tie through the first ten minutes of the game, they buckled under the pressure the Caps have applied on home ice since the calendar turned over to 2017.  The Caps won, going away, by a 5-0 score to extend their home winning streak to ten games.

Washington did what they have done 38 times in their first 53 games (more often than any team in the league) – score first – mid-way through the first period.  With Ron Hainsey off on a tripping penalty, Matt Niskanen fed Alex Ovechkin for a one-timer from the left wing circle that handcuffed goalie Eddie Lack, squeaking under his glove and over his left pad and through to make it 1-0 at the 10:23 mark.

Three minutes later the Caps had a 2-0 lead.  Andre Burakovsky angled into the offensive zone and left the puck for Brett Connolly at the left wing boards.  Connolly circled out, faked a shot to freeze Lack and the defense, then stepped around and roofed a shot over Lack’s left shoulder to make it 2-0, 13:47 into the period.

That would be all the scoring until the seventh minute of the third period.  Nate Schmidt blunted Carolina momentum and moved the puck to Brett Connolly at the red line.  Connolly fed Lars Eller streaming down the left side, and from the top of the left wing circle Eller stepped into one, rifling the puck over Lack’s blocker on the near side to make it 3-0 at the 6:10 mark.

Just 27 seconds later, it was 4-0.  Unable to move the puck out of the defensive zone, Carolina lost the puck to Justin Williams along the right wing wall.  Williams then slid it off to  Marcus Johansson cutting into the right wing circle.  Johansson fed it back to Evgeny Kuznetsov, who glided into the middle and from the high slot snapped a shot through lack to make it 4-0, 6:37 into the period.

Johansson got one of his own eight minutes later.  Late in a power play, the Caps worked the puck clockwise around the perimeter to Alex Ovechkin for a one timer that Lack stopped but could not control.  The puck popped up and dropped to his left where Johansson, left uncovered, swept it into the net to make it 5-0 at the 14:12 mark to wrap up the scoring, giving the Caps their tenth straight win on home ice and with a mark of 11-0-1 in their last dozen games on Verizon Center ice.

Other stuff…

-- The shutout by Braden Holtby was the tenth for the Caps this season.  That is a new franchise record for team shutouts in a single season.  They have five shutouts in their last eight home games.

-- The Caps got off to a sluggish start, recording only three shot attempts (one on goal) in the first nine minutes.  The closed the first period with a rush, recording 16 shot attempts, six on goal, and two goals.

-- When Alex Ovechkin scored on the power play in the first period, he broke a tie with Joe Sakic for 14^th place in all-time power play goals, scoring his 206^th career goal on the man advantage.

-- The Caps outscored the Hurricanes, 2-0, in the first period.  That makes the Caps plus-35 in first period goal differential, best in the league (58 for, 23 against).

-- Lars Eller’s goal in the third period made it 10-for-10 – ten Capitals with ten or more goals this season.  The Caps had only eight players hit that mark last season.

-- Marcus Johansson’s power play goal in the third period made it nine home games in a row the Caps scored five or more goals, a franchise record.  Over those nine games, the Caps outscored opponents by a 48-11 margin.

-- The Ovechkin goal made it 16 times in their last 18 games that the Caps scored the game’s first goal.

-- Washington had four players with multi-point games: Matt Niskanen (0-2-2), Alex Ovechkin (1-1-2), Brett Connolly (1-1-2), and Marcus Johansson (1-1-2).

-- There were two strange numbers that came out of the game.  Nicklas Backstrom was 1-for-11 on faceoffs, while Jay Beagle was 3-for-12.

-- In his last eight appearances on home ice, Braden Holtby is 7-0-0 (one no-decision), 1.36, .950, with three shutouts.  His seven shutouts for the season tied Los Angeles’ Peter Budaj for the league lead.

In the end…

The Caps are now at that point in their winning streak where you just don’t want to think about it, just enjoy it.  Streaks like this do not happen often, and the thing of this one is, if you are looking for signs or cracks that signal it is coming to an end, they’re not there.  It is a team at the top of its game.

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

The Peerless Prognosticator is ON THE AIR!!!

The Washington Capitals bring their three-game winning streak to the Verizon Center ice on Tuesday night when they host the Carolina Hurricanes, who will be bringing a three-game winning streak of their own to the contest.  The Caps will be taking the ice with an nine-game winning streak on home ice, a streak that has seen them outscore opponents by a staggering 45-12 margin and in which the Caps have recorded five or more goals in each of their last eight home wins.

On the other hand, the recent Hurricane winning streak masks an inconvenient truth.  They have been poor on the road.  They have yet to win consecutive road games this season (although that is what they will be trying to do against the Caps), and they are a dismal 4-11-2 in their last 17 road contests dating back to November 24th.  Their 20 standings points off a 7-14-6 road record is the second lowest in the Eastern Conference (the New York Islanders have 16 points with a 6-10-4 record, holding seven road games in hand on Carolina).

Jordan Staal has struggled on the road this season, especially over the last two months.  He got off on the right foot, recording goal sin three of his first six road games and four in his first nine contests, but he has had just one goal in his last 12 games away from Raleigh.  That one came against the Caps, Carolina’s only goal in a 6-1 loss to Washington at Verizon Center on January 23^rd.  He does show evidence of being on a more productive run of late, going 1-3-4, plus-4 (two assists in a 5-4 road win in Brookly over the Islanders last Saturday) in four games since the Hurricanes dropped that decision in Washington.  Staal is 10-7-17, minus-2, in 40 career games against the Caps.

Viktor Stalberg has one of the strangest facts attached to his resume this season.  Of 156 forwards to have played in at least 25 road games this season, Stalberg is the only one not to have recorded an assist on the road this season.  He is 5-0-5 in 26 road games so far.  And as far as his goal scoring is concerned, that seems to have dried up on the road, too.  Stalberg brings a 12-game streak on the road without a goal.  In 13 career games against the Caps, he is 2-1-3, plus-3.

It seems like yesterday that Cam Ward was skating around the ice, one of the least likely Conn Smythe Trophy winners in NHL history, leading the Hurricanes to a Stanley Cup in 2006 as a rookie having played just 28 regular season games.  Today, only 12 of 84 goalies to dress for an NHL game this season are older than Ward, who will turn 33 at the end of the month (he is a February 29^th baby).  He has never duplicated that early career success and has never really been a member of the elite niche of goaltender in the NHL, but he is the all-time franchise leader in games played by a Carolina Hurricane/Hartford Whaler goalie (608), the leader in wins (290), losses (224; 298 if you include overtime/shootout losses), .  shutouts (25), and total minutes (34,952).  He, like many of his teammates, has struggled on the road this season, going 6-11-5, 2.86, .895.  It has been more of a struggle lately, Ward going 2-5-0, 3.74, .866 in his last seven road appearances. 

1.  Carolina is a team that does not rank highly in the edgier parts of the game – 28^th in credited hits (922), 26^th in blocked shots (683), 30^th in penalty minutes (6:08 per game), 30^th in minor penalties (132), 30^th in fighting majors (5).

2.  It does not happen often in the NHK, so the .250 winning percentage when trailing after two periods might not sound impressive.  However, it ranks tied for fifth-best in the league (by way of comparison, the Caps’ winning percentage is .200).

3.  No team has more losses when out-shooting the opposition than Carolina (17, tied with Boston).

4.  Only Colorado has allowed more goals at 5-on-5 this season (117) than Carolina (111, tied with Winnipeg).

5.  What Carolina does do well is compile good possession numbers.  The Hurricanes rank fourth in the league in Corsi-for at 5-on-5 (51.76 percent), but those numbers are good only to a point.  Adjusted for score, zone, and venue, Carolina ranks 12^th (50.84 percent; numbers from Corsica.hockey).

1.  Only Max Pacioretty has scored more goals on home ice this season (17) than Alex Ovechkin (16).  No player has more power play goals on home ice than Ovechkin (7), who is tied with three other players (Patrik Laine, Patric Hornqvist, and Brayden Schenn).

2.  The Caps lead the league in wins when leading after two periods (27, five more than San Jose). No team has taken a lead into the third period more often than the Caps (29 games).

3.  Washington has the second-fewest number of losses in regulation when trailing after two periods.  Those eight losses represent the lion’s share of the 11 losses in regulation they suffered to date.

4.  Since January 1^st, the Caps have more goals scored than any team in the league, and it’s not close.  The Caps have 78 goals in 18 games (4.33 per game), while Minnesota has 58 goals in 15 games (3.87 per game).

5.  Odd thing about that record since January 1^st.  The Caps rank 25^th in shot attempt percentage overall (47.94 percent) but seventh in shot attempt percentage when the game is tied (52.21 percent; numbers from NHL.com).

The Peerless’ Players to Ponder

Carolina: Justin Faulk

Justin Faulk is in only his sixth NHL season, but he is already third on the all-time franchise list for points by a defenseman (179), trailing only Dave Babych, who recorded 240 points with the Hartford Whalers, and Glen Wesley, with 227 points.  He was named to the All-Star game roster for the fourth time this season.  Unfortunately, he also happens to rank dead last in the NHL in plus-minus in road games among defensemen this season (minus-21).  No defenseman has spent more time in minus territory on the road this season, Faulk tied with Nikita Zaitsev in games finishing with a minus (16).  Only four times in 24 road games this season did he finish as a plus player and never better than plus-1.  Faulk is 3-6-9, minus-1, in 23 career games against the Capitals.

Washington: Brooks Orpik

Plus-minus is that forlorn statistic that has fallen out of favor, but sometimes it matters.  For instance, if you are not a big offensive contributor on defense, every goal scored against you at even strength is likely to be a blemish on that plus-minus record.  And so it is with Brooks Orpik, but lo and behold, Orpik has been a minus player once in his last 28 games (minus-1 in a 3-0 loss to Ottawa on January 24^th).  He is a plus-22 over those 28 games.  No defenseman in the league has a better plus-minus over that span (teammate Dmitry Orlov is plus-19).  Not bad for a defenseman who ranks just 113^th of 146 defenseman in average ice time over that span (minimum: 20 games played) and who has only six points (all assists).  He has been the epitome of the “stay-at-home” defenseman, the stable partner who lets his running mate jump into the play without undue worry that he won’t be backstopped.  In 43 career games against Carolina, Orpik is 1-10-11, plus-7.

In the end…

Carolina is a poor road club, and they have had little practice in playing on the road recently, playing only six road games so far this calendar year with a record of 2-4-0.  You would have to think they are a team ripe for the taking, especially since one of those road games was a 6-1 loss to the Caps on January 23^rd.  But in the first three games of the season series to date, the Caps have just a 2-1-0 record against the ‘Canes, one of the wins coming in the trick shot competition.  Washington holds just a 10-9 edge in goals scored, and they have allowed a power play goal to Carolina in each of the three games played.  Nothing comes easy.  But then again, you have a juggernaut on home ice facing a team that is a quite different team on the road than it is at home, and not in a good way.

Capitals 5 – Hurricanes 2

"Never Stop Fighting 'Til the Fight is Done" -- What Super Bowl LI Can Teach

Ten lessons from Super Bowl LI…

-- A team with skill and experience is never out of it, especially when falling behind early.  That team does its things its way, and fidelity to and faith in that approach yields dividends.

-- On the other hand, if you get out to a lead, pay attention to how you got there.  Was it the product of your philosophy, or was it mere circumstance, like a turnover or a fluke?  A shot from the perimeter that bounces off two bodies and a post for a goal is not evidence of playing the right way.  Don't mistake circumstance for getting results from your devotion to philosophy.

-- It’s a team sport; that’s how you advance through a single-elimination tournament or a best-of-seven series, but stars have to step up in big moments.

-- In football, that means the quarterback…you don’t see lead running backs or tight ends playing that role.  In baseball, it is usually your ace pitcher.  In hockey, that generally means player of a unique position -- a center (Wayne Gretzky, Mario Lemieux, Sidney Crosby, Jonathan Toews) or a goaltender (Patrick Roy, Bernie Parent, Ken Dryden).  There is only so much a winger – even a really good goal-scoring winger – can do (ten wingers have won a Conn Smythe in 51 tries, none more than once).  It is important Alex Ovechkin raise his game in the spring, perhaps more so that Nicklas Backstrom does so, or Braden Holtby.

-- The sports gods really don’t care what you think is fair or who you think should win.  Really…outside of New England, who roots for Tom Brady?  There are no sympathetic characters or villains in how the sports gods deal with wins and losses.

-- The road to victory is neither straight nor smooth. 

-- Panic and urgency are not the same thing.  Behave like you’re playing as if you were ahead, even if you are playing from behind. 

-- Someone a casual fan has never heard of is going to make a difference…but you can bet that guy is known, and respected, in the locker room.

-- Teams take their cues from their coaches.  You don’t find many teams – and fewer successful ones – where the personality of the players as a group is at odds with the personality of their coaches.

-- Remember what Eliot Ness said…

…here endeth the lesson.

A TWO-Point Afternoon -- Game 53: Washington Capitals 5 - Los Angeles Kings 0

The Washington Capitals put the “super” into Super Bowl Sunday, scoring early, scoring late, and getting excellent goaltending for 60 minutes as they defeated the Los Angeles Kings, 5-0, on Sunday afternoon at Verizon Center.  Washington gots goal from five different players and points from 11 different skaters in the win, but it was really goalie Philipp Grubauer’s show, stopping 38 shots for his third shutout of the season.

Lars Eller got things going for the Caps in the game’s fourth minute.  Andre Burakovsky rushed the puck up the right side to the Los Angeles line where the puck slid off his stick and down into the corner to the left of goalie Peter Budaj.  Burakovsky pursued it into the corner, pressuring Alec Martinez enough to give it up to Brent Connolly, who managed to slide it to the middle to the waiting Eller.  From the low slot, Eller had time to pull the puck to his forehand and snap it past Budaj’s right pad to make it 1-0 just 3:16 into the game.

Washington doubled their lead late in the period when Evgeny Kuznetsov hustled down the left side with the puck, stopped just inside the Kings’ blue line and fed Marcus Johansson in the middle for a shot that beat Budaj on the blocker side as the goalie was peeking out the other side of a screen his own teammate – Jake Muzzin – set in front of him.  The goal at 18:12 of the period gave the Caps a 2-0 lead going into the first intermission.

The Caps piled it on in the second period with a pair of goals, the first coming early on Brett Connolly’s tenth of the season.  The play started with Karl Alzner poking a loose puck in the neutral zone away from the stick of Brayden McNabb.  It made its way to Tom Wilson, who carried it down the right wing into the Los Angeles zone on a 2-on-1 break.  Wilson feathered the puck into open space for Connolly, who took it in stride, made one move of Budaj to fake him to the ice, and wrapped it around his left pad to make it 3-0 at the 3:43 mark.

Late in the second period, T.J. Oshie made it 4-0.  From the defensive zone, Dmitry Orlov fed the puck up to Alex Ovechkin standing in front of the players’ bench.  Ovechkin bump-passed the puck to Nicklas Backstrom skating toward the Kings’ end.  Backstrom carried the puck into the offensive end, circled around the Los Angeles net, and fed Oshie in the right wing circle for a one-timer that beat Budaj over his left shoulder on the near side, exploding the water bottle resting on the top of the net.  At the  16:24 mark, it was 4-0, Caps.

Justin Williams capped the scoring late in the third period.  Muzzin tried to feed the puck up along the wall in the defensive end, but it made it only as far as Johansson, who knocked it down and fed it into the middle for Williams. Before Muzzin could close the distance to defend, Williams pulled the puck to his backhand and beat relief goalie Jeff Zatkoff on the blocker side to make it 5-0, 16:38 into the period.  All that was left was to preserve the shutout for Grubauer, and the Caps did just that to skate off with the 5-0 win.

Other stuff…

-- Brett Connolly became the ninth player to record ten goals for the Caps this season, the number surpassing last year’s total of eight players to reach double digits in goals.

-- Karl Alzner recorded an assist to reach the ten-point mark for the season, the 18^th Capital to reach that mark this season.  Last season, 16 players reached that total.

-- Philipp Grubauer’s third shutout of the season made it nine shutouts for the Caps this season, tying a franchise best for a single season, set in 1995-1996 and tied in 2014-2015.

-- The Caps sure did spread the peanut butter.  Every Capital finished a “plus” player except for Daniel Winnik (even), and every King finished a “minus” player except for Drew Doughty (even).

-- Grubauer’s 38-save shutout ties for the seventh highest total of shots faced by a goaltender in Caps history in recording a shutout.  Brent Johnson holds the record with a 46-save shutout in a 1-0 win over the Ottawa Senators on April 1, 2006.

-- This was the 12^th time in team history that the Caps scored five or more goals in a game on 20 or fewer shots (they had 20 in this game).  It happened to be the second time they did it in less than a month, scoring seven goals on 18 shots in a 7-1 win over the St. Louis Blues on January 19^th.

-- Marcus Johansson’s goal , his 16^th, was just the fifth he scored on home ice this season and the first since December 23^rd.

-- The Caps recorded their eighth straight game on home ice scoring five or more goals.  They scored 43 goals on home ice in that span (5.38 per game).

-- Three goaltenders in the NHL have played more than 500 minutes, have a goals against average of less than 2.00, have a save percentage better than .925, and have more than one shutout.  The Caps have two of them – the only team in the league that can say that – in Grubauer and Braden Holtby.  Devan Dubnyk is the other.

-- More Grubi… He loves his home cooking.  Among 53 goalies with at least 250 minutes played on home ice, Grubauer has the best goals against average (0.64), the best save percentage (.977) and is tied for the second highest number of shutouts (three, with three other goalies, behind teammate Braden Holtby, who has five shutouts on home ice).

In the end…

Is there a less hospitable host in the NHL than the Caps?  With this shutout, that makes eight times in 27 games at Verizon Center they denied their guests as much as a single goal.  No other team in the league has more than three shutouts on home ice this season.  Those shutouts have come against eight different teams, four from the East, and now four from the West.  One might try to explain this afternoon’s result as being the product of the Kings having played an overtime game the previous day, three time zones from home.  There might be some merit in that.  But even if one thinks that might have been a factor in this game, the Caps played a game of their own the previous day and had their back-up goaltender playing in this game.  It was a very efficient dismantling of the Kings, a balanced effort.  Having outscored opponents over the last eight games on that ice sheet by a 43-11 margin, other teams can be considered on notice that coming to Verizon Center is not likely to be a pleasant experience.

Washington Capitals: That Was The Week That Was -- Week 17

If Week 17 seemed a lot like Week 16 for the Washington Capitals, that’s because it was.  The same look on offense and defense, power play and penalty kill, and even strength.  That’s not necessarily a bad thing, but neither was it all good, although ringing up their fifth straight winning week – extending their longest streak of winning weeks this season – is certainly a plus.

Record: 2-1-0

There are some teams this season that just seem to give the Caps fits.  Ottawa was one of those teams, even though the Caps did win two of three from the Senators in their season series.  One team that gave the Caps a devil of a time this season and against which they did not fare as well was the New York Islanders.  Washington lost the first game of the week to the Isles, 3-2, their third loss to New York in the five-game season series, now ended.  They are the only team against which the Caps have played more than one game this season and have a below .500 standings points record (they lost to San Jose in the only meeting of the clubs so far).  Washington earned just four of a possible ten points against the Islanders.

On the other end of the spectrum were Boston and Montreal.  The Caps made it two-for-two this season against the Bruins and eight wins in a row since they lost to the Bruins in March 2014.  The domination of the Bruins has been outright spooky.  The three goals the Caps allowed to the B’s on Wednesday was the most they scored against the Caps in any of the eight losses, tying their goal total in the first meeting this season, but Boston still has scored a total of just ten goals in the eight games and has been shut out three times.

Then there is the matter of “Verizon Center North.”  If the Caps’ dominance of Boston has a spooky quality to it, their success in Montreal is outright bizarre.  Beating the Canadiens, 3-2, to end the week, the Caps extended their run of success at Bell Centre to 12-0-2 in their last 14 meetings there dating back to November 2009.  And what is more, the scores there have not been particularly close.  The 3-2 win on Saturday was the exception, seven of the 12 wins on Bell Centre ice having been of the multi-goal variety, including a 4-1 win on January 9^th.

Offense:  3.33/game (season: 3.25 /game; rank: 5th)

Week 17 was a week for the stars to shine when it came to scoring goals.  Alex Ovechkin (2), Nicklas Backstrom (2), Evgeny Kuznetsov (2), and T.J. Oshie led the way, but the Caps also got goals from the supporting cast.  Brett Connolly, Andre Burakovsky, and Jay Beagle chipped in, too.  Beagle’s goal to open the scoring against Montreal was paired with a Caps win, hardly an unusual occurrence.  The Caps record when Beagle records a goal over his career is now 32-1-5.

Backstrom had a hand in half of the goals for the week, adding three assists to his two goals to lead the team in overall scoring.  He had points in all three games for the week after going consecutive games without a point as the week started.  In his last 15 games he is 6-16-22, plus-8.

The Caps scored the first goal in all three games for the week, which made the loss to the Islanders on Tuesday unusual.  The Caps finished the week with the most wins (29) and best winning percentage (.784) when scoring first.

What was not unusual was the Caps scoring five goals at home in the middle game of the week, the 5-3 win over Boston.  It was the seventh straight game on home ice the Caps scored five or more goals, over which they averaged 5.43 goals per game.

Defense: 2.67/game (season: 2.12 /game; rank: 1st)

It was not an awful week on defense, and in some ways it was not bad at all.  Washington did face two top-ten teams in scoring offense in Week 17 – Montreal (ranked seventh at week’s end) and the Islanders (eighth), both on the road, where Montreal ranked even higher (fourth at week’s end).  The Caps held them to a total of five goals.  Even against Boston, the third goal allowed was a bit of window dressing for the B’s, coming as it did with just 1:31 left in a 5-2 game.

The Caps did have a good week in terms of their 5-on-5 play.  In 145 minutes at 5-on-5 they finished with a 52.67 percent Corsi-for and held the three opponents to just over 51 shots per 60 minutes at 5-on-5 (numbers from Corsica.hockey).  They held both road opponents – the Islanders and Canadiens – under 30 shots on goal, making it three straight road games doing so. The odd thing about that is how well they have been able to clamp down on Montreal.  The Caps held the Habs to 22 shots on goal after holding them to 23 shots on goal in their previous meeting on Bell Centre ice on January 9^th.  In the 12-0-2 streak the Caps have in Montreal, they held the Canadiens to fewer than 30 shots nine times and fewer than 25 five times.

Goaltending:  2.00 / .933 (season: 2.01 / .928 / 8 SO)

With a back-to-back set of games to start the week, the Caps split the goaltending duties, Philipp Grubauer getting the Islander game in Brooklyn on Tuesday and Braden Holtby getting the nod the following night against the Bruins in Washington.  Holtby then got the last game of the week in Montreal. 

Grubauer played rather well against the Islanders and might have deserved better than to suffer the loss.  He stopped 26 of 28 shots, the first time he allowed fewer than three goals in a game since shutting out the Philadelphia Flyers on January 15^th.  He had allowed three goals in each of his three appearances after that before holding the Islanders to a pair.

Holtby wrapped up the week with a pair of appearances that reflected his season to date in some respects.  He stopped 44 of 47 shots at even strength against Boston and Montreal (.936 save percentage), but stopped just four of six shots when the Caps were shorthanded (.667).  That was not unusual.  Among goalies appearing in more than ten games this season, Holtby is second in even strength save percentage (.940 to Devan Dubnyk’s .942) but 46^th in that group in save percentage when the Caps are shorthanded (.840).

Power Play: 2-for-8 / 25.0 percent (season: 20.9 percent; rank: 11th)

For the fourth straight week, the Caps finished with a power play of 35 percent or better.  Over that span they are 13-for-36 (36.1 percent), lifting them into 13^th place in the league’s power play rankings.  It might have been better but for getting only one power play opportunity against the Islanders to open the week.  It was the sixth time this season that the Caps were awarded one or no power plays in a game, compared to seven times all of last season.

Overall it was an effective week performance-wise, as the 25.0 percent conversion rate suggests, but the efficiency wasn’t really there.  In 14:15 of power play ice time, the Caps managed just seven shots on goal.  Part of that is mitigated by the fact that Alex Ovechkin scored on the only power play shot he took against Boston, and Nicklas Backstrom did the same against Montreal, but it really was not that great of a week on the power play.  The seven shots might be categorized as “perimeter” shots since six of them came from Ovechkin (2), Backstrom (2), Andre Burakovsky, and John Carlson.  Only Justin Williams recorded a shot on goal from the middle of the power play for the week.

Penalty Killing: 5-for-8 / 62.5 percent (season: 84.2 percent; rank: 5th)

After hitting their season high point of 87.1 percent after Week 13, the Caps’ penalty kill has been sliding.  The 62.5 percent in Week 17 was their worst week since Week 1 of the season when they killed two of four shorthanded situations (50.0 percent).  Since that Week 13, Washington is just 32-for-43 (74.4 percent).

Unlike the power play, which was effective but not efficient, the penalty kill was neither.  The Caps gave up three goals on 11 shots on goal in 13:41, the shots per minute saved by shutting out Montreal on two shots in six minutes of shorthanded ice time.  For the optimistic, it is that last bit that is the takeaway.  The Caps ended the week holding the Canadiens off the board on their power play, which finished the week as the tenth-best power play on home ice in the league.

Faceoffs: 82-for-157 / percent (season: 50.6% / rank: 11th)

It was a very good week in the faceoff circle in that the Caps were over 50 percent in all three games and over 50 percent in two of the three zones for the week.  Only a 49.0 percent finish – one under 50 percent (24-for-49) -- in the offensive zone blemished the week.  At the game level, they won in the offensive zone once in three games (against Boston), in all three games in the defensive zone, and in two of three games in the neutral zone (against the Islanders and Canadiens).  Perhaps most impressive was the Caps holding their own (53.6 percent, their best mark of the three games) against the third-best team in the league in taking draws (Boston).

At the individual level, Nicklas Backstrom stood out, winning 31 of 53 draws (58.5 percent), including 15 of 19 against Montreal.  Jay Beagle also finished above 50 percent for the week among the four Caps taking at least ten draws (14-for-26).  The other two Caps in that category finished under 50 percent for the week (Lars Eller: 13-for-28; Evgeny Kuznetsov: 13-for-30).

Goals by Period:

Giving up first period goals has started to creep into the Caps’ game.  Although the Caps still do lead the league in fewest first period goals allowed (23), they allowed one to both Boston and Montreal to end the week.  Worse, though, was the four goals allowed in the third periods of games.  One of them was an empty netter against the Islanders, and one was a window dressing goal scored late by the Bruins, but one still would like to see better (read: stingier) finishes in games.

The goals allowed covered up, to an extent, the strong starts and finishes in games for the week.  The Caps scored goals in the first and third periods in all three games.  In fact, the only period of the nine in which they did not score a goal was the second period against the Islanders in the first game of the week. 

In the end…

The Caps finished the week with 52 games on their record and the top spot in the league’s standings, a spot they have occupied since January 15^th.  Going 2-1-0 might not sound especially impressive for a single week, but if the Caps do that over their last 30 games, they will finish with 116 points, the third highest standings points total in team history, and as likely as not their second straight Presidents Trophy (116 points has been exceeded for the prize six times in 10 full seasons since the 2004-2005 lockout, twice by the Caps).

Washington will be hard-pressed to sustain their success going into Week 18.  It is a four-game week with teams in a variety of circumstances – the Los Angeles Kings trying to hold onto, at a minimum, the wild card spot their currently occupy in the Western Conference; the Carolina Hurricanes, just a few points on the outside looking in on the playoffs; the Detroit Red Wings, desperately trying to extend their streak of postseason appearances to a 26^th season; and the Anaheim Ducks, trying to overtake the San Jose Sharks for the top spot in the Pacific Division.

This is a team that has risen to a variety of challenges through 52 games this season in their climb to the top of the league standings.  They appear to have shaken off most of the rust that accumulated over the All-Star break in winning Week 17.  Week 18 will be another challenge to be met and overcome.

Three Stars:

• First Star: Nicklas Backstrom (2-3-5, plus-2, 1 GWG, 3-for-53 (58.5 percent) on faceoffs)
• Second Star: Evgeny Kuznetsov (2-2-4, plus-1)
• Third Star: Matt Niskanen (0-3-3, plus-1, 5 blocked shots, almost 23 minutes of ice time per game)

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

The Peerless Prognosticator is ON THE AIR!!!

The Washington Capitals finish off their weekend set of back-to-back games with a noon tilt against the Los Angeles Kings at Verizon Center.  The Caps will take the ice fresh off a 3-2 win in Montreal against the Canadiens on Saturday, while the Kings will be wrapping up their own back-to-back set of games, taking a 1-0 overtime decision from the Philadelphia Flyers on Saturday afternoon.

The Caps bring a 15-2-1 record over their last 18 games into this contest, having broken their recent alternating win-loss-win trend over a five-game stretch with their second consecutive win on Saturday.  On the other hand, the Kings seem to finally have a rhythm to their game, winners of five straight, tying their longest winning streak of the season set in Games 18-22 in late November.

In their five-game winning streak, the Kings outscored their opponents by a 15-3 margin.  All of those wins belong to goalie Peter Budaj, who might be on the best streak of his career.  Budaj has been thrust into the limelight these days with Jonathan Quick only back to practicing after suffering a groin injury on Opening Night of the 2016-2017 season.  He has done quite well in his unexpected turn as the Kings number on netminder, going 25-14-3, 1.96, .923, with seven shutouts in 45 games.  In the five-game winning streak, all of them with Budaj in the crease, he has three shutouts (all of them coming in his last four contests), posting a 0.60 goals against average and a .975 save percentage.  For a player with a journeyman record of 150-121-39, 2.66, .905 and 18 shutouts with three clubs over 11 seasons, this is about as good as it gets.  If you are thinking he will not get the second game of the back-to-back after Saturday’s win, he has played in back-to-back games six times this season.  He has won both ends twice, lost both ends in regulation three times, and had a win and a no-decision (40 minutes in a 4-3 win over Arizona on December 1^st).  Budaj is 1-2-2, 2.51, .900 in seven career appearances against the Caps.

Jeff Carter has three of those 15 goals in the five-game winning streak to lead the club.  He seems on his way to doing something he has not done in his five-plus seasons in Los Angeles, hitting the 30-goal mark, even though on a per-82 game basis he has been just that for the Kings (32.5).  Carter is second in the league in goal scoring, one behind league leader Sidney Crosby going into Saturday night’s games, and leads the league in game-winning goals (nine).  He is on a pace to finish with 43 goals, which would be second-most in his career (he had 46 with Philadelphia in 2008-2009).  In 28 career games against the Caps, Carter is 11-13-24, plus-2.

Marian Gaborik missed more than six weeks to start the season with a broken right foot.  His return to the lineup has not been much in the way of a spark, although he does seem to be finding his footing, so to speak, more recently.  He has just six goals in 29 games this season, but five of them have come in his last 13 games, four of those goals coming in wins.  Still, while Gaborik was once one of the most prolific goals scorers in the league with seven 30-plus goal seasons in his first 11 seasons in the league, he has just 68 goals in his last 241 games over four and a half seasons, a 23-goal pace per 82 games.  Gaborik is 8-8-16, plus-1, in 26 career games against Washington.

1.  Los Angeles’ special teams move in opposite directions on the road.  Their 14.6 percent power play ranks 27^th in the league, while their penalty kill ranks seventh (84.7 percent).

2.  If the Capitals play a “heavy” game, then what would be the appropriate adjective for the Kings?  They lead the league in credited hits (1,560) more than 10 percent more than the second place club (Anaheim: 1,401).

3.  The more subtle form of separating an opponent from the puck – the takeaway – is something the Kings do not do well.  They rank last in the league in credited takeaways (204).

4.  In the glass half full/glass half empty file, the Kings have the second-best winning percentage in the league when leading after 20 minutes (.857).  On the other hand, they have taken a lead into the first intermission just 14 times in 52 games this season.

5.  Los Angeles is second in the league in Corsi-for at 5-on-5 overall (54.39 percent; numbers from Corsica.hockey) and second in Corsi-for adjusted for score, zone, and venue (53.42 percent).  They are one of just three teams to hold opponents under 50 shot attempts per 60 minutes at fives (the others being St. Louis and Boston).

1.  There are 134 line combinations in the NHL having skated at least 100 5-on-5 minutes.  The combination of Lars Eller, Brett Connolly, and Andre Burakovsky has the fourth-best Corsi-for among that group (61.11 percent).  It’s all about denial.  They have allowed the fourth-fewest shot attempts per 60 minutes at fives (42.10; numbers from Corsica.hockey).

2.  When the Caps held Montreal to two goals, it was the 31^st time this season that they held an opponent to two or fewer goals, tied with Anaheim for most in the league.  The Caps are 27-1-3 in those games.

3.  Washington has 34 non-Gimmick wins this season, and they have spread the joy around in terms of game-winning goals.  Fifteen different Caps have game-winners this season.

4.  The Caps have scored first in 37 of 52 games this season and have both the most wins when scoring first (29) and the best winning percentage (.784).

5.  When Karl Alzner records his next point, the Caps will have six defensemen with ten or more points this season, equaling the number they had last season.  The Caps have employed only seven defensemen this season.

The Peerless’ Players to Ponder

Los Angeles: Devin Setoguchi

Back in 2008-2009, his first full season in the NHL, Devin Setoguchi scored 31 goals for the San Jose Sharks and got as many All-Star votes at year end as Patrick Kane (okay, it was two, but still).  It looked as if the sky was the limit.  Then, the air slowly leaked out of his balloon, and he fell out of the sky.  His goal scoring dropped into the low 20’s the next two season, then into the high teens the two seasons after that, then into the low teens before he recorded no goals in 12 games with the Calgary Flames (his fourth team) in 2014-2015.  Last season he played in Europe with Davos in the Swiss league.  He was given a professional try-out contract with Los Angeles in early September and played well enough to get a one-year/two-way contract with the club.  He has been in and out of the lineup this season, playing in 44 of 52 games for the Kings, and is not nearly the goal-scorer he was coming into the league (four in 44 games, none since December 22^nd), but he seems for the moment to have authored a second act to his NHL career.  Setoguchi is 1-5-6, minus-1, in nine career games against the Caps.

Washington: John Carlson

When John Carlson took the ice against Montreal on Saturday, he became the 26^th player in Washington Capitals history to appear in 500 games with the club and 11^th defenseman to do it.  His next goal will break a tie for eighth place, with Al Iafrate, in goals scored by a Capitals defenseman (currently 58), and he is currently in eighth place among defensemen in franchise history in points (253).  What he has had to deal with over the last two seasons that he did not in his first five full NHL seasons is missing games to injury.  Carlson has missed six games this season, bringing his two season total of 32 of 102 games played by the Caps.  It is not as if the Caps experienced a big dropoff in performance in Carlson’s absence.  Over the last two years the Caps earned 1.48 standings points per game with Carlson in the lineup, 1.41 without him.  Carlson is without a point in his last four games, his longest streak since going six games without a point in Game 3-8 last October.  He is 0-1-1, minus-3, in seven career games against the Kings.

In the end…

This game will conclude the tenth back-to-back set of games played by the Caps this season.  In their previous nine back-to-backs, the Caps won both ends twice, went 1-0-1 twice, and went 1-1-0 five times.  It suggests that things will not go well for the Caps in their Sunday afternoon contest, having failed in five of seven attempts to sweep the two games after winning the first.  Add to that the fact that Los Angeles comes to town on five-game winning streak in which they have been all but impenetrable, and things look even worse.  On the other hand, this game is a big jump in weight class in competition for the Kings, just the fourth time in 13 games they will have faced a playoff-eligible team.  And it is not as if any of the three teams they shut out in their last four games are juggernauts.  Carolina, Colorado, and Philadelphia rank in the bottom half of the league in scoring offense.  See where we are going with this?  The Kings haven’t allowed more than two goals in five straight games.  They won’t make it six.

Capitals 3 – Kings 2

A TWO-Point Afternoon -- Game 52: Washington Capitals 3 - Montreal Canadiens 2

The Washington Capitals cast their spell over the Montreal Canadiens and Bell Centre once more on Saturday afternoon, defeating the Canadiens, 3-2, to extend their points streak in Montreal to 14 games (12-0-2).

The Caps got off on the right foot early in the contest when Jay Beagle opened the scoring in the fourth minute of the contest.  Daniel Winnik collected a loose puck and the Montreal blue line and skated it into the offensive zone.  From the top of the left wing faceoff circle, he fed it across to Beagle skating down the middle.  Beagle cradled the puck and rifled a shot off the post to the left of goalie Carey Price and in to give the Caps a 1-0 lead just 3:02 into the contest.

Alexander Radulov tied the game mid-way through the period when the Caps were unable to get the puck out of the defensive zone.  Nate Schmidt tried to move the puck up along the wall, but no Capital was there to collect it.  Phillip Danault took control and fed Alexander Radulov, who snapped a shot past goalie Braden Holtby’s blocker, and the game was tied 7:32 into the period.

That would be how the score stood going into the second period, but the Caps broke that tie as the game approached the half-way mark.  Brett Connoly weaved his way down the left wing wall until he crossed the Montreal blue line.  Pulling up above the left wing circle, he fed the puck across to Andre Burakovsky all alone on the right side.  From the right wing dot, Burakovsky wristed a shot that beat Price cleanly to the top corner over Price’s left shoulder, making it 2-1, 9:26 into the second period.

Washington made it 3-1 with a power play strike early in the third period.  Off a T.J. Oshie faceoff win, Matt Niskanen and Nicklas Backstrom played catch with the puck at the top of the offensive zone.  Backstrom took a return pass from Niskanen, stepped up, and wristed a shot past Price, who got caught peeking around the wrong side of a Marcus Johansson screen as the puck sailed under his left arm at the 5:16 mark.

Less than three minutes later, Montreal closed the gap to a goal on a score by Max Pacioretty from between the hash marks, but that would be as close as Montreal would get as the Caps skated off with the 3-2 win.

Other stuff…

-- The last Caps loss in regulation time in Montreal was January 10, 2009.  Only three current Caps played in that 5-4 loss – Karl Alzner, Nicklas Backstrom, and Alex Ovechkin.  Even in that game, the Caps got within 22 seconds of forcing overtime.  Sergei Kostitsyn scored in the last minute for that win.

-- The magic of Jay Beagle continues.  He scored a goal, and the Caps won.  The Caps are 9-0-0 this season when Beagle scored a goal, and they are 32-1-5 in Beagle’s career when he scores a goal.

-- Beagle set a career high in goals scored in a season with his goal, his 11th of the season surpassing the 10 he had in 2014-2015.

-- Nicklas Backstrom’s power play goal was his first game-winning goal on the road this season.  He had two game-winners on home ice (against Pittsburgh on November 16^th and against Boston on December 7^th).

-- The Caps went 1-for-4 on the power play. Starting with their 4-1 win on the same Bell Centre ice sheet on January 9^th, the Caps are 8-for-25 (32.0 percent) on the power play in their last eight road games.

-- In one respect, John Carlson is back from his recent injury hiatus.  He skated 24:16, the most ice time he logged since he skated 25:35 in a 2-1 Gimmick loss to the New Jersey Devils back on December 29^th.

-- Alex Ovechkin had an odd game.  He skated just 18:02 and had five shot attempts (all shots on goal).  He had no other marks on his score sheet.

-- Stopping 20 of 22 shots, Holtby earned his tenth career win against Montreal.  He is 10-1-2, 1.62, .941, with two shutouts in 14 career appearances against the Canadiens.

-- Nicklas Backstrom was 15-for-19 in faceoffs.  His 78.9 percent winning percentage was his best on the road this season and topped only by his 9-for-11 effort (81.8 percent) in a 6-0 win over Chicago on January 13^th.

-- The Caps dominated the shot attempt numbers, out-doing Montreal by a 43-32 margin at 5-on-5 (57.33 CF%).  They out-shot the Canadiens at fives, 25-16.

In the end…

“We’re playing the best team in the league.  They’re a heavy team, but I thought we put up a good fight.”  That was the view from Canadiens’ head coach Michel Therrien in the Montreal locker room after the game.  It is a measure of just where the Caps stand these days, a team that inspires “we played pretty good” quotes in the loser’s locker room.  It was a solid win, one that featured good, if not great play all around and in all three zones on an ice sheet that has been a second home for them for years now.  It was one of those games to file under “workmanlike” in terms of its description, and that is hardly a bad thing these days as the Caps check off another game on the schedule.