The Peerless Prognosticator is ON THE AIR!!!
The Washington Capitals finish up a weekend back-to-back set
of game when they host the Montreal Canadiens at Verizon Center on Saturday
night. The Caps, fresh off a 4-3 trick
shot win over the Carolina Hurricanes on Friday night, carry a six-game winning
streak into the contest. Montreal , who
will be playing their own second game in two nights after a 4-2 loss to the San
Jose Sharks on Friday night, will be bringing a two-game losing streak into
their meeting with the Caps.
Montreal was once 13-1-1 this season, but since that
sizzling 15-game start, they are 6-6-3.
Over those 15 games the Canadiens are averaging a reasonably healthy
2.87 goals per game, but that number is somewhat inflated by the 10 goals they
pinned on the Colorado Avalanche in a 10-1 win last Saturday. Take that one away, and the Canadiens are
averaging 2.36 goals per game in the other 14 games. Their goals allowed per game over their last
15 games is a respectable 2.47 per game, and they haven’t allowed more than
four goals in any of those 15 games. It
has been a consistently decent scoring defense, but not a stifling one.
And that brings us to goalie Carey Price, expected to get
the start in this contest. He, like the
team in front of him, has had two very different seasons so far. In his first ten appearances, Price was
10-0-0, 1.40, .957, with two shutouts.
He was the early favorite to win this season’s Vezina Trophy and might
have been on a few early Hart Trophy ballots, too. His last 12 appearances, though, showed him
to be a bit more mortal, if a bit unlucky, too.
In those 12 appearances he is 6-4-2, 2.41, .938. The unlucky part for Price has been that in
eight of those 12 appearances he allowed two or fewer goals but is 5-2-1 in
those games (he was 9-0-0 when allowing two or fewer goals in his first ten
games). If there is an odd part about
his season to date, it is that he has just five appearances in road games, 16
appearances on home ice. Only two of
those road games have been played east of the Mississippi (at Boston and at
Detroit, both wins). Price is 3-2-0,
2.17, .928 in those five road games. He
is 5-9-4, 3.08, .898, with one shutout in his career versus Washington.
Montreal has just one player with more than ten goals so
far, and that is Max Pacioretty. He has
been a very consistent scorer in recent years for the Canadiens, posting 30 or
more goals in each of his last four full seasons (not including the abbreviated
2012-2013 season) coming into this one. His
12 goals in 30 games so far puts him on a pace for another 30-plus goal season,
although that 12-goal total includes a four-goal outburst in the 10-1 win over
Colorado last Saturday. On the other
hand, that four-goal game is part of a run in which Pacioretty has seven goals
in six games. In 23 career games against
the Caps, he is 2-8-10, minus-3.
Shea Weber was one-half of one of the biggest
player-for-player trades in the NHL in recent years when he was traded to the
Canadiens from the Nashville Predators for defenseman P.K. Subban. Weber, who was coming off his second 20-goal
season with the Predators, was seen in some quarters as a risk, given that he
still had ten years remaining on a contract with an average annual value of
$7,857,143 per year. That risk aside,
Weber has been a valuable commodity this season. He is second in the league among defensemen
in goals (eight, to Brent Burns’ 13) and is tied for 12th in points
(18). His seven power play goals leads
all league defensemen, and his ten power play points is tied for third. He does not have a goal in his last ten
games, though, and has just one point in that span. Weber is 3-7-10, plus-2, in 12 career games
against the Caps.
1. Shea Weber’s seven
power play goals are more than any team’s total complement of defensemen except
St. Louis (nine goals).
2. Weber has a thing
for the number “18” at the moment – 18 points, 18 penalty minutes, and plus-18.
3. Montreal is tied
for the second-best third period goal differential in the league (plus-15, with
Columbus), trailing only Pittsburgh (plus-24).
4. The Canadiens lead
the league in wins when scoring first (16), one ahead of the Caps. When opponents score first, though, Montreal
is 3-5-2, ranking just 20th in winning percentage (.300).
5. Montreal is among
the better teams overall in shot attempt dominance, with a 51.97 Corsi-for at
5-on-5 (eighth in the league). On the
road, the Canadiens rank fourth overall (52.60 percent; numbers from Corsica.hockey).
1. Washington’s trick
shot win over Carolina on Friday night was their first such win of the season,
becoming the 25th team this season to win in that phase. It was their first win in the Gimmick since
they beat the Anaheim Ducks, 2-1, last March 7th.
2. The Caps are on a
six-game winning streak, but that is just the third longest current streak in
the division. The Philadelphia Flyers
are on a ten-game winning streak, and the Columbus Blue Jackets extended their
streak to eight straight wins with a 4-1 win over the Calgary Flames on Friday
night. Pittsburgh had a seven-game
streak ended on Friday night, but their 1-0 loss to the Los Angeles Kings
extended their points streak to eight games.
3. The Caps have just
one one-goal loss in regulation this season.
Only the Pittsburgh Penguins are without one among the 29 other teams.
4. Washington has the
second-best first period goal differential in the league (plus-13). Only Columbus’ is better (plus-15).
5. There is an odd
discrepancy in Washington’s possession numbers.
While the Caps rank fifth in Corsi-for at 5-on-5 overall (52.54
percent), they rank just 13th in Fenwick-for at fives (51.24 percent;
numbers from Corsica.hockey).
The Peerless’ Players to Ponder
Montreal: Paul Byron
What is just five-feet, nine-inches tall, weighs 160 pounds,
and is second in goal scoring for the Montreal Canadiens. If you answered, Paul Byron, good for
you. Byron is one of those happy stories
of a low draft pick (sixth-round in 2007 by Buffalo) who knocks around from
team to team (Buffalo and Calgary) finds a measure of success after a long,
slow climb up the professional ladder. Byron,
who has ten goals in 30 games for Montreal this season (second on the club),
has never had more than 11 in any of his previous six seasons (that total
coming in 67 games with the Canadiens last season). But if there is an odd statistic Byron has in
addition to his goal scoring, it is that he is fifth on the team in hits
despite being only 13th in ice time per game. Byron is 0-2-2, even, in six career games
against Washington.
Washington: Alex Ovechkin
The last time Alex Ovechkin did not lead the league in shots
on goal was in 2011-2012, when he finished sixth with 303 shots on goal in 78
games. Ovechkin currently ranks second
in the league with 107 shots (Brent Burns has 133). Perhaps not coincidentally, that 2001-2012
season is the last one in which Ovechkin did not lead the league in goals; he
finished with 38, his second-lowest for a full season in his career. He scored his 14th goal on Friday
night, placing him in a tie for seventh in the league in goals and putting him
on a pace to finish with 40 goals. The
odd thing about Ovechkin’s shooting frequency is that the Caps have done better
when his shot total is light. When he records
four or more shots, the Caps are 9-6-3, but when he finishes with three or
fewer shots, the team is 10-1-0.
Ovechkin, who averages 4.3 shots per game over his career against
Montreal, is 22-18-40, plus-6 in 39 career games against the Canadiens.
In the end…
The Caps might be catching the Canadiens in an ornery
mood. They lost at home on Friday night
in a game in which Carey Price was pulled after giving up four goals on 18
shots in 26:44 of ice time, and have not had a win in regulation time on the
road in almost two months (a 3-2 win on October 26th against the New
York Islanders). They are 2-5-1 on the
road overall in their last eight road contests.
On the other hand, the Caps have been a model of consistency in their
six-game winning streak, scoring three or four goals in each game and allowing
two or fewer in four of them. The oddest
part of this game is that if the Caps extend the Canadiens’ frustration on the
road, they would jump over the Canadiens in the conference standings, giving
the Metropolitan Division the top four spots in the Eastern Conference (and if
the Philadelphia Flyers beat Dallas, the Metro will own the top five spots).
Capitals 3 – Canadiens 2
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