The Peerless Prognosticator is ON THE AIR!!!
One game, one win. So
far, so good. The Washington Capitals
try to make it two-in-two when the San Jose Sharks come to town on
Tuesday. The Sharks come into this game
– this season, actually – as one true enigma in terms of their history. Since the NHL went to a 30-team league in the
2000-2001 season, only one team has more wins than the San Jose Sharks (612),
the Detroit Red Wings (656). But despite
that regular season success and reaching the postseason in 12 of 14 seasons
since the league went to 30 teams, the Sharks have yet to reach a Stanley Cup
final in their 24-season history coming into this season.
Last season, the Sharks missed the show for just the second
time in 17 seasons, and it cost head coach Todd McLellan his job. Enter Pete DeBoer, late of the New Jersey
Devils and before that the Florida Panthers.
DeBoer, a low key sort, is the kind of coach who can be underrated. However, he did bring a winning career
record, based on standings points (217-200-77), into this season.
The team DeBoer inherits from last season is not radically
different from last year’s edition of the Sharks. Of the 18 skaters to dress for the team in their
first two games, 15 of them skated for San Jose last season. Two of the three additions reveal a bit about
what the Sharks’ approach is this season.
Defenseman Paul Martin signed a four-year/$19.4 million
contract with the Sharks this past off-season.
Martin joined the Sharks having appeared in 697 career regular season
games and another 85 postseason contests. However, he missed 65 games over the
past six seasons, and at the age of 34, there are questions about his
durability. There is also the matter of
declining production at the offensive end.
Once a reliable almost-half point a game performer in his years with the
New Jersey Devils (0.45 points per game in his last three years with the
Devils), his production dropped to 0.37 points per game in five seasons with
Pittsburgh before moving on to San Jose.
He does remain a minutes-eater when he is in the lineup. In 11 seasons entering this one he never
averaged less than 20 minutes a game and has not averaged less than 22:30 per
game since his rookie season.
The other veteran the Sharks signed in the off-season was
former Capital Joel Ward. He is coming
off his two most productive seasons in the NHL with 43 goals recorded over
those two years. He became a quite
efficient shooter with the Capitals, shooting to a 15.8 shooting percentage
over his last three years in Washington.
As he prepares to return to Verizon Center to face the Caps, here is
your odd Joel Ward fact. The Caps are
the only team in the league against which he has not recorded a point in his
career. Sure, it is only four games of
history he has against the Caps, but still, it is the only one of 30 against
which he is looking for his first career point.
In goal is where the Sharks might have made the biggest
changes in the offseason. Last season, Antti Niemi took the bulk of the work,
appearing in 61 games. He was not
especially impressive. His 2.59 goals
against average ranked 24th
of 30 goalies appearing in at least 41 games; his .914 save percentage ranked
20th. In nine of his 61
starts he had a save percentage of .850 or worse, tied for the fifth highest
total of such games in the league in that group and the 10th highest
share of starts.
Niemi is in Dallas now, with the Stars, and Martin Jones
appears to have the number one duties. Jones
took a bit of a roundabout path to San Jose last summer, going from the Los Angeles Kings
to the Boston Bruins last June, along with a 2015 first round draft pick (13th
overall) for Milan Lucic. The Bruins
then turned around and sent Jones back to the west coast for a 2016 first round
draft pick and a prospect from the
Sharks.
Jones had a noteworthy first year in the NHL, going 12-6-0,
1.81, .934 with four shutouts in 2013-2014.
He slipped a bit last season, going 4-5-2, 2.25, .906 with three shutouts. He is off to a fine start with the Sharks,
though, winning both of his starts and allowing just one goal on 47 shots
against the Anaheim Ducks and Los Angeles Kings. He has never faced the Caps.
Here is how the clubs fared last season…
1. Since 2006-2007,
only two teams have two players ranking in the top 20 in goals scored, all of
those goals scored with just one team.
Pittsburgh is one (Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin), San Jose is the
other with Patrick Marleau (7th with 271 goals) and Joe Pavelski (20th
with 229 goals).
2. Marleau needs just
nine points to reach 1,000 for his career.
He probably will not reach this milestone against the Caps.
3. No goalie has as
many shutouts in as few career games as Martin Jones, ever. Eight shutouts in 36 games played.
4. Either the San
Jose Sharks are a young franchise, they haven’t been very good for much of
their history, or Logan Couture is one fine hockey player. Call it “all of the above.” Couture ranks seventh on the all-time list of
Sharks goal scorers, despite being in the league for just six-plus seasons and
381 games. He has 139 career goals.
5. Joe Thornton
reigns supreme among assist leaders since the 2004-2005 lockout. His 641 assists are 39 more than the 602 by
Henrik Sedin.
1. The race is
on. Who will be the next and 43rd
player in NHL history to reach the 500 goal mark? Chicago’s Marian Hossa stands at 486 (he has
none in three games so far this season), while Alex Ovechkin sits at 476 with
the goal he scored in the opener against the New Jersey Devils.
2. Ovechkin is three
points shy of 900 for his career. Only
seven active players have hit that milestone: Jaromir Jagr (1,804), Joe
Thornton (1,261), Jarome Iginla (1,228), Marian Hossa (1,058), Patrick Marleau
(991), Henrik Sedin (916), and Brad Richards (904).
3. The last time the
Caps opened the season with two games at home, the Caps won both – a 4-3
overtime win over the Carolina Hurricanes and a 6-5 trick shot win over the
Tampa Bay Lightning in 2011-2012.
4. It was one game,
but an offensive zone start share of 60.0 percent and a Corsi-for percentage of
47.1 at 5-on-5 against New Jersey qualifies as something to work on.
5. The Caps had five players record multi-point games in the opener. That has already tied the high for players with multi-point games last season, accomplished twice -- a 5-4 win at Columbus on December 18th and a 6-1 win against the Buffalo Sabres on March 7th.
The Peerless’ Players to Ponder
San Jose: Joonas Donskoi
Joonas Donskoi is the third Shark skater new to the club
this season so far. Donskoi, a former
fourth round draft pick (2010) of the Florida Panthers, is playing in his first
season of pro hockey in North America after signing an entry level contract
with the Sharks last May. Until this
season, the right winger has been playing in Finland, with Karpat Oulu, where
he had 19 goals and 49 points in 58 regular season games and was the Finnish
league playoff MVP last season. He had a
goal in his NHL debut against the Kings last Wednesday, and he is something of
a gifted shootout performer (see his effort against Sergei Bobrovsky 4:30 into
this clip).
Washington: T.J. Oshie
Only two players for the St. Louis Blues since the 2004-2005
lockout have more four-point games than T.J. Oshie – David Backes (4) and Alex
Steen (3). OK, so Oshie has two, but one
of those was against the San Jose Sharks, last January 3rd. He had a hat trick – one of two in his career
– in the Blues’ 7-2 win over San Jose.
Oshie did not record a shot on goal in the Caps’ 5-3 Opening Night win
over the Devils, a repeat of his opener against the New York Rangers last
season. He had a bit of a slow start
last season – no points in his first six games, no goals in his first eight contests,
but he did go 19-35-54 in his last 64 games.
There are some fans who might obsess about his being silent in his
opener with the Caps. Don’t. He’ll be fine.
In the end…
The Caps will move up in weight class with their opponent
for this game. San Jose has been good
through two games, a pounding of the Kings (5-1) and a whitewashing of the
Ducks (2-0) to open their season. Then
again, last season the Sharks were 7-7-2 in games played in the Eastern time
zone (they beat the Caps in a Gimmick at Verizon Center). You can think of this as the Sharks moving up
in weight class as well, if not in terms of the opponent, then in terms of the
circumstances.
For the Caps it is a chance to test their depth against a
team that is better than the Devils team they faced on Saturday. And, there will not be the distractions that
go along with an Opening Night celebration.
This game might not have the offensive fireworks that the opener had,
but it should have the same result.
Capitals 3 – Sharks 2
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