The Peerless Prognosticator is BACK ON THE AIR!!!
When last we were together, we were in shock at the sight of
Braden Holtby lying on his back in his own crease while a clot of blue-jerseyed
New York Rangers were celebrating a game-winning, series-clinching overtime
goal in Game 7 of the 2015 Eastern Conference semi-finals.
Such endings, all too often in Caps history, make for early
springs and long summers. But autumn, in
the inexorable march of time, is here at last, and a new NHL season dawns. So much has happened between that end and
this new beginning…
- The Caps drafted a Russian goaltender in the first round – Ilya Samsonov. Imagine that. They haven’t done that since, oh, back in ought-six, when they took Semyon Varlamov. Let’s hope it works out better this time.
- We bid adieu to Joel Ward, Troy Brouwer, Mike Green, and Eric Fehr. Among them, they compiled a total of 1,563 regular season and 178 playoff games with the Capitals. They will be missed.
- The team welcomed Justin Williams and T.J. Oshie to the club, the latter setting off one of the saddest reactions by a fan imaginable, and then a heartwarming reconciliation.
- The Caps held development camp, an opportunity for fans to exclaim with certainty that all these young guys will be all-stars inside of three years.
- New Horizons conducted a close fly-by of Pluto, the first spacecraft to visit that planet (ok, it’s NOT a planet, Dr. Tyson).
- Cuba and the United States reestablished diplomatic relations, ensuring that Havana is now on the list of potential NHL expansion cities.
- Scientists announced the discovery of Homo naledi, a newly identified early human species. It was nicknamed, “Raffi Torres.”
- NASA found water on Mars, setting off speculation that Mars would be actively explored as a potential NHL expansion site.
- The Caps held rookie camp… Oh wait, they didn’t. They took the rooks to Florida for a tournament. They won one and lost a pair.
- Pope Francis made his first visit to the United States and, while in Washington, managed to name a saint, end gridlock on the streets by forcing everyone to telework, inspired a Speaker of the House to quit, and do the impossible, get members of Congress to behave for an hour.
- The U.S. House of Representatives had their Speaker quit in mid-session, have the presumptive replacement up and quit his campaign for the position, had a scandal bubble up over involving hanky-panky, then turn to a guy who lost an election as a Vice Presidential candidate. He doesn’t want the job.
- Washington did NOT shutdown.
- Trevor Noah debuted as the new host of The Daily Show. He’s got a lot of material to work with these days.
- The Nobel Prize in Medicine was split and shared jointly by two researchers who made important discoveries in the fight against parasitic infections, and another researcher for her discovery of new therapies to combat malaria. Guess we’ll have to wait until next year for the Prize to go to the researcher who finds a cure for the scourge of “lower body injuries.”
- The Caps invited veteran Derek Roy to camp on a professional tryout contract. He looked pretty good but was not tendered a contract by the club. He signed with SC Bern in the Swiss National League A. SC Bern, it is worth noting, has one of the creepiest hockey logos you’ll find…
We are not quite sure if that is a bear eating a hockey
stick or something intended for adult audiences.
But here we are, Game 1 of the 2015-2016 regular season, the
Capitals hosting the New Jersey Devils.
The Caps beat the Devils in four of five games last season. It wasn’t pretty, if you were a Devils fan…
Last Season
Three wins by three or more goals, shutting out the Devils’
power play for the season. The only
Devils win was something of a fluke. Braden
Holtby looped around his net to stop a dump-in by the Devils. He then turned to look for an outlet on the
opposite side, but when he sent the puck along, he put right on the stick of
Mike Cammalleri. The results were
predictable…
Absent that miscue by Holtby, he might have finished the
year tied for the league lead in shutouts (he trailed by one), since this was
the game’s only goal.
The History
This will be the 199th regular season meeting in this
rivalry that dates back to 1974 when the Capitals and the Devils (then the
Kansas City Scouts) were in their inaugural seasons in the NHL. The Caps hold a 98-74-13-13 edge, but most of
that occurred in the early days of the rivalry when the Caps went 52-20-4
against the Devils from 1980-1981 through the 1991-1992 season.
The last time the Caps opened their home season against New
Jersey, they pasted the Devils, 7-2, back on October 9, 2010. It was a game that had everything – power play
goals (one for the Caps), shorthanded goals (one by each team), a penalty shot
(missed by Alex Ovechkin), no fewer than four fights, including this memorable “sort
of” scrap between Mike Green and Ilya Kovalchuk:
The Here and Now
Much is expected of the Capitals this season. For the Devils, it is part of their
Post-Brodeur/Post-Lamoriello rebuilding period.
It just is not a very good team.
They return only two players who recorded more than 40 points last
season: Adam Henrique (43) and Mike Cammalleri (42). Only one other returning player had more than
25 points last season, Patrik Elias (34).
It is a team that will depend, entirely too much in all likelihood, on
goaltender Cory Schneider. That he went
26-31-9 last season, despite posting a 2.26 goals against average (ninth of 30
goalies appearing in at least half of his team’s games), a .925 save percentage
(fourth), and five shutouts (tied for eighth) speaks to the
offensively-challenged nature of the Devils.
1. Adam Henrique’s team-leading 43 points last season tied
for 127th in league scoring. Troy
Brouwer had 43 points for the Caps. He
was sixth on the team in points.
2. A total of 21 defensemen had more points than Adam
Henrique last season.
3. Cory Schneider
played more than 3,900 minutes last year and recorded 26 wins. Only one other goalie since 2005-2006 has
played in at least 3,900 minutes and recorded 26 or fewer wins – Carey Price
(3,944 minutes and 26 wins in 2011-2012).
4. The Devils had 20
players with at least 10 points last season.
Only 12 remain in the Devils organization.
5. New Jersey was one
of four teams with one 20-goal scorer last season (Cammalleri). It was not a neighborhood in which one wanted
to find oneself. The other teams were:
Arizona, Buffalo, and Carolina.
1. Over a six-draft
period (2004-2009), Caps players rank in the top-ten in points among four draft
classes: Alex Ovechkin in 2004 (first), Nicklas Backstrom in 2006 (first), John
Carlson in 2008 (ninth), and Marcus Johansson in 2009 (fifth). Add to that Andre Burakovsky in 2013 (currently
tenth) and that’s five Caps in ten draft classes (note: they did not have a
pick until the fourth round in 2011).
Tom Wilson is just outside the top ten out of his 2012 class (11th).
2. If Justin Williams
(227 career goals) and T.J. Oshie (110) had played their entire careers with
the Capitals, they would rank fourth and tied for 26th in team history in goals
scored with the club. Oshie would be
tied with Craig Laughlin.
3. Assuming Braden
Holtby starts the opener, it will be his fourth straight call as the team’s
goalie for the season opener. The last
time a goalie started the season opener in four straight seasons for Washington
was 2003-2007 (Olaf Kolzig).
4. The Caps and the
New York Rangers were the only teams in the league last season to rank in the
top-five in wins when leading after one period and when leading after two
periods.
5. While the Caps
were good at holding leads, they were not so good in coming back when
trailing. The ranked in the bottom five
in wins when trailing after one period (T-4th worst) and when trailing after
two periods (T-3rd worst).
The Peerless’ Players to Ponder
New Jersey: Mike Cammalleri
Mike Cammalleri has seen a lot in his 12 seasons in the
NHL. Five teams, 737 regular season games,
and another 32 postseason games. Now, in
his second season with the Devils, he is the oldest player on the New Jersey
roster (33). Durability has been an
issue with him over much of his career.
He played in more than 70 games just once in the last eight
seasons. It has not hampered his
effectiveness too much. Over those same
eight seasons he is one of 31 players to appear in at least 500 games while
averaging more than 0.30 goals per game and more than 0.70 points per game. Last year had 27 goals in just 68 games. There isn’t much reason to think he will slip
much this season, health notwithstanding, and the Devils will need that level
of production just to remain respectable.
Washington: Nate Schmidt
Here you go, kid… 68 games over two seasons, and you get to
start on Opening Night for a team that’s thinking big thoughts this
season. Oh, and we still don’t quite know who your partner is, yet. If any youngster can handle the new role and
the uncertainty accompanying it for the time being, Nate Schmidt might be that
youngster. He comes from a storied NCAA
program at the University of Minnesota and has spent parts of two seasons with
the flagship franchise in the AHL, the Hershey Bears. He’s played in places where much is
expected.
In the end…
It is easy to make too much of one game, but this game could
reveal some hints about the Capitals.
Two issues spring to mind. The
first is the obvious one, how will Oshie and Williams mesh with their new
teammates? That they don’t on Saturday
is no reason for Caps fans to inch their way to the ledge, but if they do,
right out of the box, it would be a shot in the arm for a team missing its top
line center.
The second issue is a bit more subtle. What is the “script” to which the Capitals
are “sticking?” Last year, the Caps were
looked at as playing a “heavy” style of hockey.
The “heavy” part had a chunk of it removed in the off-season. Joel Ward, Troy Brouwer, and Eric Fehr play
elsewhere. Oshie and Williams, while
hardly shrinking violets, do not impress as being quite as "heavy" as those players
they will be replacing. This will be, in all likelihood, a different style team
from the one the Caps iced last season, and we’ll get a look at what that means
early. All things considered, though,
this is one the Caps should put in the win column with some room to spare.
Capitals 5 – Devils 2
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