The Peerless Prognosticator is ON THE AIR!!!
The Washington Capitals are 14-1-4 in their last 19 games,
compiling the best record in the league over that span. In all those games, however, there is one
thing they did not do. They did not face
the team with the best record in the league.
On Friday night, the Caps will do just that as they head to Nashville to
take on the Predators.
Nashville is not quite as hot as the Caps at the moment, but
they are not far off that pace. The Predators will face the Caps holding a
six-game winning streak on home ice.
Overall they have won four in a row and have points in nine straight
games (7-0-2).
If there is a theme in the Nashville 7-0-2 run over their
last nine games, it is “everyone in the pool!”
The Predators have 15 different players sharing in the 35 goals scored,
and they have a whopping 21 skaters recording points. Even goalie Pekka Rinne got involved in the scoring with an
assist in Nashville’s 5-4 Gimmick loss to the Chicago Blackhawks on December 29th.
Colin Wilson is the goals and points leader in this recent
set of games (6-8-14). Wilson, a seventh
overall draft pick of the Predators in 2008, is having a breakout season. Coming into the 2014-2015 season Wilson had
three 30-point seasons and had a career high of 16 goals set in 2010-2011, his
sophomore season. In 40 games so far
this season he has 14 goals, already in striking range of his career high. The same applies to his 30 points, just five
off his career high of 35, set in 2011-2012 in 68 games. He has points in nine of his last 11 games
overall (8-9-17) and comes into this game on a personal four-game points streak
(3-5-8). In six career games against the
Caps he is 1-1-2, minus-1.
What is amazing about Wilson’s production is that he is
doing it from the second line. The top
line of Mike Ribeiro, Filip Forsberg, and Craig Smith has been even more
productive. The trio has combined for 37
of the Predators’ 126 goals scored, almost 30 percent of the total. In the 7-0-2 run, though, the goals have been
a bit less frequent. Smith has three,
and Forsberg has two. Ribeiro has not
lit the lamp, but he does have ten assists in those nine games.
Forsberg, as every Caps fan knows, was a Washington draft
pick. OK, the trade that sent him to
Nashville for Martin Erat and Michael Latta didn’t go quite as planned. Move on.
Forsberg is in his first full season, and while he is a rookie, he is
displaying a consistency that one would expect of a veteran. He has not had more than two straight games
without a point since he had a three-game streak (his only one) back in late
November. He has a six-game goal streak
to his credit this season, and he leads all rookies in goals (15, tied with
Ottawa’s Mike Hoffman) and points (39, seven more than Calgary’s Johnny
Gaudreau). He has been a fixture on
Nashville’s power play to the point where his 11 power play points is
comfortably ahead of all other rookies (Gaudreau has eight power play points).
On defense, Nashville has five defensemen in double-digits
in points. Two – Shea Weber and Roman
Josi – are pushing up against 30 points (Weber: 29; Josi: 27). Weber, a perennial in terms of Norris Trophy
discussion, is well known to hockey fans.
Josi is perhaps less well known.
Last season, Josi came into his own.
His 40 points in 72 games more than doubled his point total combined
over his first two seasons (34 in 120 games).
This season, he might do even better.
With a a scoring line of 7-20-27 in 42 games, he is on a pace to finish
14-39-53.
Here is how the teams stack up against one another overall:
1. Mike Ribeiro does
not have a goal in his last dozen games.
He does, however, have a dozen assists in those dozen games. It has allowed him to climb into a tie for
seventh overall in assists (29, tied with Tyler Johnson and Nicklas Backstrom).
2. Nashville seems to
jump on teams early, then stand on their throats late. The Predators have a plus-10 goal
differential in the first period of games so far and a plus-17
goal-differential in the third period of games.
3. What is odd about
the first period goal differential is that the Predators have so few instances
of carrying a lead into the first intermission.
They have done so only 14 times in 42 games; 12 teams have done it more
often.
4. Nashville can play
teams close, and they can blow them out.
Only two teams – Anaheim (21-0-6) and Florida (14-3-9) – have earned points in more one-goal
decisions than the Predators (18-4-4).
Nashville also has the best winning percentage in games decided by three
or more goals (.889/8-1).
5. If there is a
weakness here, there are no teams in the league with fewer power play goals at
home than the Predators. They are tied
with Buffalo and Florida with seven man advantage goals on home ice, and they
are tied with Buffalo for the lowest conversion rate at home (10.4 percent).
1. This will be the
first time that the Caps have played outside the Eastern time zone since
November 20th, when they beat the Colorado Avalanche in Denver, 3-2.
2. The Caps have not
lost to a Western Conference team on the road since November 15th,
when they lost at St. Louis, 4-1. That
loss is the Caps’ only one to a Central Division team so far this season
(4-1-0).
3. The Caps have
settled into a consistency, whether they are at home or on the road. Goals for: 2.90 at home, 2.91 on the
road. Goals against: 2.38 at home, 2.40
on the road. Power play: 23.9/23.2. Penalty kill: 83.1/75.7. OK, that road penalty kill is a problem. They are a little better lately, 81.5 percent
over their last six road contests (22-for-27).
4. The Caps (which
you can read as meaning “Braden Holtby”) have allowed two or fewer goals in six
of seven games to start the new year.
5. When Holtby beat
the Flyers, 1-0, on Wednesday, he became the first Capital to record a 1-0
shutout win since Tomas Vokoun beat Pittsburgh by that score on January 11,
2012. Holtby lost a 1-0 “shutout” when
Tampa Bay defeated the Caps, 1-0, in a Gimmick to close the 2013-2014 season.
The Peerless’ Players to Ponder
Nashville: Carter Hutton
Pekka Rinne suffered a sprained knee in the third period of
Nashville’s 5-1 win over Vancouver on Tuesday and is expected to be out 3-5
weeks. That means that the goaltending duties fall to Carter Hutton. It is worth noting that Rinne has all 29
Nashville wins this season. Hutton has
appeared in six games without earning a win (0-3-2, one no-decision). His goals against average is substantially
worse than Rinne’s (2.60 to 1.96), and his save percentage is similarly below
that of Rinne (.905 to .931). This
should surprise no one, since Rinne is an annual focus of Vezina Trophy
discussion at this point of his career (when he is healthy). Hutton’s 2014-2015 numbers are, however,
consistent with his career numbers (20-15-6, 2.63, .909, one shutout). Nashville has enough offense so that Hutton
need only limit mistakes; he does not need to be Rinne-like in his performance
for Nashville to maintain its lofty status in the West. He has one career appearance against the
Caps, a 4-3 win last March 30th in which he stopped 23 of 26 shots.
Washington: Brooks Laich
With the Caps facing a backup goaltender thrust into a
starting role, one of the things the team might want to attend to is get in his
line of sight and crowd the crease. It
would be nice if Brooks Laich could fill that role. Well, it would apply to Troy Brouwer, Joel
Ward, Jason Chimera, or Eric Fehr, too.
It would be particularly good to get Laich going, though. He had the game-winning goal in the Caps’ 6-2
win over Toronto on January 7th, his second goal in consecutive games
at the time. Those, however, are his
only two goals in his last 16 games, and he is on a pace to finish the season
with 12 goals. Against a team like
Nashville, which possesses considerable depth on offense, getting secondary
scoring from Laich (or Brouwer, or Ward, or…you get the point) could be the key
to success. Laich is 1-2-3, minus-1, in
eight career games against Nashville.
In the end…
This will be a measuring stick game, even if Nashville is
without Pekka Rinne in goal. The
Predators have the league’s best home record (17-2-1) and have not lost at home
since dropping a 3-1 decision to Chicago on December 6th. Since then, Nashville is 6-0-0 on home ice
and has outscored opponents by a 20-10 margin.
The Caps have had some odd, well…luck of a sort
recently. Against Florida, starting
goalie Roberto Luongo was injured, and the Caps won. They beat Detroit when starting goalie Jimmy
Howard went down to injury. They beat
the Flyers’ number three goalie on Wednesday.
Now, they get Nashville without Pekka Rinne available for duty. No one wishes that kind of misfortune to hit
any team, even opponents, but these are games to be won, no matter what the
circumstances.
Capitals 3 – Predators 2
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