The Peerless Prognosticator is ON THE AIR!!!
Two of the hottest teams in the league – well, the league’s
two hottest teams – renew an old and bitter rivalry on Wednesday night when the
Pittsburgh Penguins visit Verizon Center to meet the Washington Capitals. Pittsburgh will bring the league’s
second-longest active winning streak to the contest – five games, trailing only
the Caps, who have wins in their last six contests and points in their last
seven.
As you might expect, Sidney Crosby leads the Penguins in
both goals and total points in the five-game streak (3-4-7). In one of the odd circumstances of his season
so far, his league-leading 26 goals in 33 games is a 65-goal pace per 82 games
(the number of goals Alex Ovechkin scored for a career-best in 2007-2008 in one of those Kennedy-Lincoln/Lincoln-Kennedy
coincidences, in a manner of speaking). Crosby
has also shown a certain “Ovechkinian” consistency in his goal scoring, too. He
played his first 23 games this season without suffering consecutive games
without a goal, and his season high streak without one is three games, a number he
could tie if the Caps can keep him from finding the back of the net on Wednesday night. Crosby is 19-36-55, plus-1, in 39 career
games against the Caps.
Defenseman Kris Letang has points in seven of his last nine games (1-9-10). Trouble for the Penguins is that he has only
played in nine games since December 1st, missing seven games with a
lower body injury. It is his second bout
with injuries this season, having missed five games to an upper body injury in
late October. And now, he is listed as "day-to-day" with what appears to be the flu. His availability will be a game-time decision. It is not as if the
Penguins have suffered much in his absence, though. The Penguins are 18-6-3 with Letang in the
lineup; 8-2-2 when he is out of the lineup.
What might be of some concern to the club is the dropoff in his goal
scoring from the blue line. After
posting double-digit goal totals or on a pace to do so (as in the abbreviated
2012-2013 season) in each of the last five seasons, he is on a pace to finish
with eight goals this season. He has one
goal in his last 15 games. Letang is
4-9-13, minus-15, in 29 career games against Washington.
With Matt Murray injured and in “day-to-day” status (he has
not played since December 28th), the goaltending duties are squarely
on the shoulders of Marc-Andre Fleury again.
He is riding a personal five-game winning streak into this contest with
a 1.84 goals against average and a save percentage of .941. He has been streaky this season, though. Over his last 19 games, Fleury has a
three-game winning streak followed by a six-game losing streak, then another
three-game winning streak followed by a two-game losing streak before embarking
on his current winning streak. One thing
that hasn’t been streaky, at least not in a good way for the Penguins, is his
road record. He is 2-3-3, 3.83, .886 in
ten road appearances this season.
Against the Caps, Fleury has a career record of 20-11-2, 2.56, .914,
with three shutouts in 35 appearances.
1. Pittsburgh it
taking a page from the Caps’ 2015-2016 notebook. They have yet to lose consecutive games in
regulation time this season. Last season
the Caps went the entire 82-game schedule without losing consecutive games in regulation.
2. Over their last 11
games, Penguin penalty killers are 31-for-34 in killing penalties (91.2
percent).
3. Pittsburgh will
pose a special challenge to the league’s top scoring defense. The Penguins are averaging 4.38 goals per
game over their last 16 contests and have scored more than five goals five
times.
4. Who scores first
hardly seems to matter to the Pens. When
scoring first, they are 13-4-3 (.650 winning percentage). When opponents score first, they are 13-4-2
(.684 winning percentage).
5. For their sterling
record, the Penguins are not an especially dominant possession team. Overall, they rank tenth in Corsi-for at
5-on-5 (51.40 percent; numbers from Corsica.hockey), but they do seem to
tighten up when on the road (52.50 percent/4th).
1. On Thanksgiving, the
Metropolitan Division standings looked like this:
After Monday’s games, the standings looked like this:
The records of the teams between Thanksgiving and Tuesday
morning looked like this (ranked in order of points earned):
The Caps, playing at a slightly better pace (121 points)
than they played over 82 games last season (120 points), lost ground to Columbus
and barely tread water against Pittsburgh and the Rangers. Is the Metro bonkers, or what? You could have a Stanley Cup final four of
these teams, at least the way they’ve played over the last six weeks, and not
be cheated in terms of worthiness or talent.
2. In the six-game
winning streak, the Caps have outscored opponents by a 20-9 margin, are
2-for-14 on power plays (14.3 percent), and are 28-for-31 killing penalties
(91.2 percent). That minus-17
differential in power plays-to-shorthanded situations is a problem.
3. The Caps are tied
for first in the league in wins when outshooting their opponents (18, with
Pittsburgh). Both teams also happen to
have seven wins and four losses in regulation when out-shot by opponents.
4. For all the
shorthanded situations faced, the Caps still have the sixth-fewest penalty
minutes per game in the league (8:37), largely a product of there being only
two teams having taken more major penalties than the Caps’ five such
infractions (Chicago and Carolina with four apiece).
5. Odd fact…only one
team in the league (Colorado) has skated fewer 5-on-5 minutes than the Caps
this season (1,800; numbers from Corsica.hockey).
The Peerless’ Players to Ponder
Pittsburgh: Chris Kunitz
Time doesn’t wait for anyone, and it doesn’t seem to be
inclined to wait much longer for the end of Chris Kunitz’ career. After scoring a career-high of 35 goals in
2013-2014 (nine more than his next highest season and only 30-plus goal
campaign), the 37-year old veteran of 13 seasons and almost a thousand regular
and post-season NHL games has a total of 38 goals in 187 games since. Once a very efficient shooter (he had only
one season in his first nine full seasons below 10 percent shooting and that,
in in 2009-2010, was 9.9 percent), he is down to 10.0 percent in his last
two-plus seasons and currently at a career-low (for a full NHL seasons) 6.7
percent. He has shown signs of life
recently, recording goals in two of his last three games. On the other hand, he hasn’t scored a goal on
the road in more than two months (in a 5-0 win over the Sharks in San Jose on
November 5th, his only road goal this season). Kunitz is
10-8-18, plus-7, in 31 career games against the Capitals.
Washington: John Carlson
John Carlson’s mystery season continues. It is not his worst scoring season, but it
has so far interrupted the incremental progress he made in goal scoring and
points on a per-game basis over the previous six seasons. He is not having his worst plus-minus season,
but it is a drop-off (plus-7) from what he posted last year (plus-16 in just 56
games). It is not his worst possession
season, but he is under 50 percent Corsi-for at 5-on-5 (49.45) after a pair of
seasons over 50 percent; numbers from Corsica.hockey). He is not logging an inordinate amount of ice
time, his 23:23 in average ice time exceeded by last year’s average (23:42) and
that of 2013-2014 (24:31), and is about one shift per game more than his career
average (22:47).
But something seems, well…off with Carlson. Perhaps it is his suffering in comparison to
Mike Green as a power play quarterback, at least in fans’ eyes. Perhaps it is unfortunate timing, his being
on ice for critical goals (the Caps are 4-6-2 when he records a “minus”
game). Perhaps it is a lingering
hangover (or injury) from his World Cup participation. His ice time has been reined in a bit; he has
had more than 24 minutes only twice in his last ten contests. But that ice time does seem to matter
somewhat, if only coincidentally. The
Caps are 12-3-1 in games in which he skated 23 minutes or less; 14-6-4 in games
in which he skated more than 23 minutes.
In two games against the Penguins this season he skated more than 24
minutes in each, the Caps winning one and dropping the other in a Gimmick. Go figure.
Carlson is 4-8-12, plus-7, in 26 career games against Pittsburgh.
In the end…
When the Penguins take the ice on Wednesday night, they will
have played one game of hockey over the first ten days of January (a 6-2 win
over the Tampa Bay Lightning last Sunday). Rest or
rust? No matter. The Caps need to jump on this team early,
just as they did with a three-goal first period on their way to a 7-1 victory
over the Penguins on November 16th.
And as for that five-game winning streak the Penguins are bringing into
this game, they beat New Jersey in both ends of a home-and-home, Carolina,
Montreal (in overtime), and Tampa Bay, Montreal the only one of those teams
currently playoff-eligible. They haven’t
beaten a playoff-eligible club on the road since before Thanksgiving, when they
beat the New York Rangers, 6-1, at Madison Square Garden on November 23rd.
The difficulty for the Caps, as it always is against this
team in particular, is that they don’t know the difference between embracing
the moment and getting lost in it. Add
in the attention being paid to Alex Ovechkin’s pursuit of his 1,000th
NHL point in front of a national television audience, and being able to
distinguish between the two and playing appropriately matters even more. Lately, the Caps are a team that plays with
focus and resolve, going 13-2-3 since they lost to the New York Islanders, 3-0,
back on December 1st, the last time the Caps lost a game by more
than one goal. This could be a nail
biter of a game. Then again, it might
not. We’ll go with the latter.
Capitals 4 – Penguins 2
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