The Peerless Prognosticator is ON THE AIR!!! -- Game 43: Flyers at Capitals, January 15th

The Peerless Prognosticator is ON THE AIR!!!

It is a marquee matinee matchup as the Washington Capitals host the Philadelphia Flyers in a 12:30 puck drop at Verizon Center on Sunday afternoon (note: game time has been changed to 1:00).  The Caps will be looking to extend their season-long winning streak to nine games.

This is the second of four meetings in the regular season between the teams, the Flyers having won the first meeting, 3-2, in a Gimmick back on December 21^st.  Life has not been kind to the Flyers since then, the orange and black going 2-6-2, since then, including a 6-3 loss to the Boston Bruins on Saturday afternoon.

In their last ten games since defeating the Caps, the Flyers have done one thing well.  Their power play is 8-for-29 (27.6 percent).  That power play will come into the game with the Caps with goals in each of its last three games (5-for-10/50 percent).

Not much else has gone right, though.   Philadelphia has been out-scored , 38-21, in those ten games, despite outshooting opponents, 313-289.  Their penalty killing has come up short stopping opponents, going just 27-for-36 (75.0 percent).

For Jakub Voracek, the team’s leading scorer, it has not been so much a lack of production as it has been being victimized by opponents when he is on the ice.  Voracek is 2-4-6 in the Flyers’ last ten games, but he was a minus player in eight of those games, going minus-7 overall.  What has been missing from Voracek’s game, though, has been goal-scoring.  The two goals he had against the New York Rangers in a 5-2 loss to the New York Rangers on January 4^th are his only goals in his last 15 games.  Voracek is 11-8-19, plus-6, in 26 career against the Caps.

Another Flyer whose goal scoring has dried up is their leading goal scorer, Wayne Simmonds.  In his first 28 games this season, Simmonds potted 15 goals, a healthy 44-goal pace.  However, he has just three goals in his last 17 games. It hasn’t been for lack of shooting.  Those three goals have come on 50 shots (6.0 percent).  One thing on his record he might not want to which he might not want too much attention paid is the fact that he is one of just two players this season with two games of 15 or more penalty minutes (Dallas’ Antoine Roussel is the other). He had 15 minutes in a 4-2 win over Dallas on December 10^th (much of it part of a slashing duel with Roussel in the last moments of that contest) and 16 minutes in a 4-0 loss to New Jersey on December 22^nd.  Simmonds is 5-8-13, minus-2, in 25 career games against Washington.

With Michal Neuvirth getting the call against the Bruins on Saturday, it would seem Steve Mason will be the netminder of choice on Sunday against the Caps.  At the moment, Mason has some things to sort out.  In his last eight appearances he had save percentages under .900 six times and posted a record of 0-5-2 (one no-decision), 3.78, .860. Mason is currently tied with Roman Cechmanek and Bob Froese for fourth place in all-time wins for the franchise (92).  A win against the Caps would lift him into a tie for third with Wayne Stephenson, trailing only Bernie Parent (232) and Ron Hextall (240).  Mason is 9-5-2, 2.65, .911 with two shutouts in 17 career appearances against the Caps.

1.  The Flyers have their troubles early and late in games.  Only three teams have fewer first period goals than Philadelphia (26), and they have a minus-10 first period goal differential.  Their third periods are the same in a different way.  Only Vancouver has allowed more third period goals (52) than Philadelphia (50), and the Flyers have another minus-10 goal differential in the final 20 minutes of games.

2.  No club has allowed more goals this season at 5-on-2 than Philadelphia.  Their 94 goals allowed is tied with the Colorado Avalanche for most in the league.

3.  That goals against problem extends, oddly enough, to the Flyer power play.  No team has allowed more shorthanded goals this season that Philadelphia (eight).

4.  On the offensive end, scoring first comes infrequently to the Flyers.  Only 16 times in 45 games have they scored a game’s first goal (9-4-3).  Only Vancouver (15) and Colorado (13) have scored first fewer times than the Flyers this season.

5.  It is not as if the Flyers are a poor possession team.  They do rank 11^th in Corsi-for at 5-on-5 overall this season (51.14 percent), and they are eighth overall on the road (51.65 percent; numbers from Corsica.hockey).

1.  Where the Flyers are weak early and late, the Caps are strong.  Washington is first in the league in first period goal differential (+24) and fourth in third period goal differential (+14).

2.  There are only two teams in the league this season who have not had games with two or fewer penalty minutes charged to them – the Anaheim Ducks and the Caps.

3.  Only the New York Rangers (96) have scored more 5-on-5 goals than the Caps (90; tied with Pittsburgh going into Saturday’s games) this season.

4.  No one has more wins than the Caps when out-shooting opponents.  The Caps are 19-5-3 in those games.

5.  Teams have scored on just 2.72 percent of their shot attempts at 5-on-5 against the Caps at Verizon Center this season.  That’s the third-best record in the league (numbers from Corsica.hockey).

The Peerless’ Players to Ponder

Philadelphia:  Ivan Provorov

Last season, it was Shayne Gostisbehere as the “it” guy as a rookie on the Flyer blueline.  This season, it’s Ivan Provorov, especially with Gostisbehere suffering through something of a sophomore slump.  Provorov is second among rookie defensemen in total scoring this season (3-17-20), trailing only Columbus’ Zach Werenski (6-20-26).  He is third in that rookie class in average ice time (21:23), trailing only Boston’s Brandon Carlo (21:31) and Toronto’s Nikita Zaitsev (22:24).  More ice time is not necessarily a good thing, though.  The Flyers are just 9-8-4 when Provorov skates more than his game average, 13-9-2 when he logs less than his average.  He did not record a point and was plus-1 in his only career appearance against the Caps.

Washington:  Daniel Winnik

There are 13 players in the league this season who have appeared in 30 or more games, average less than 15 minutes per game, and have a plus-minus of plus-10 or better.  The Caps have two of those players – Jay Beagle (13:13 per game/plus-13) and Daniel Winnik (12:21 per game/plus-11).  Winnik has quietly put together a pretty good season for a player getting fourth line minutes.  His goal scoring pace (0.19 per game) is the best of his career, and he has a pair of game-winners among the six goals he has this season.  He has been extraordinarily efficient shooting the puck, his 15.8 percent shooting on 38 shots being the first and only time in his career he has been over ten percent shooting the puck.  And back to that plus-minus, Winnk has been a minus player only once (minus-1 against Toronto on January 3^rd) in 32 games this season.  The Caps have yet to lose a game in regulation when he records a point (9-0-1).  He is 1-1-2, plus-3, in 15 career games against Philadelphia.

In the end…

A team giving up almost four goals per game over their last ten contests like the Flyers is going to get a handful in the Caps, who have outscored opponents by a 43-17 margin in 11 games since they lost in a Gimmick to the Flyers, 3-2, back on December 21^st.  The Caps, who seem impervious to getting too high for games these days, do have the added incentive being able to jump over Columbus for the top spot in the league standings with a win (the Blue Jackets lost to Florida, 4-3, on Saturday night).  It does not mean all that much in January, but it is a useful marker on just how well the Caps have been playing of late as they look to extend the league’s longest active winning streak by one more game.

Capitals 5 – Flyers 2