The Peerless Prognosticator is ON THE AIR!!!
Fresh off their 4-3 overtime win over the Detroit Red Wings
on Friday night, the Washington Capitals return to the friendly confines of
Capital One Arena on Saturday night to host the Florida Panthers.
The Panthers are coming off a Friday night match-up of their
own, losing 4-3 at home against the Pittsburgh Penguins. It brought Florida’s
record to 2-4-0. Against the Capitals they will be looking for their first road
win after dropping decisions in visits to the Tampa Bay Lightning, Penguins,
and the Philadelphia Flyers.
Florida has had some trouble keeping pucks out of their own
net in the early going. After they allowed 20 goals in their first five games
(4.00 per game) before last night, they allowed anotherfour to the Penguins.
Jonathan Huberdeau has been trying to live up to his third
overall draft pick status since he was selected in that spot by the Panthers in
2011. He won the Calder Trophy as the
league’s top rookie in the abbreviated 2012-2013 season on a 14-17-31 scoring
line in 48 games. But he has just one
20-goal season in this five NHL campaigns coming into this one, that one in
2015-2016. He topped 50 points twice,
his career high of 59 coming in that same 2015-2016 season. Last year he was held to 10 goals in 31 games
but lost 51 games to an Achilles tendon injury.
Huberdeau leads the team with three goals, all of them coming in road
games. In 14 career games against the
Caps, he is 4-6-10, minus-1.
Defenseman Aaron Ekblad is another top-three pick on the
Panther roster, the first overall pick of the 2014 draft. He has had little trouble living up to his
top-pick billing so far. In each of this
first three seasons he recorded ten or more goals from the blue line, although
he hit the ten goal mark last season despite missing 14 games to concussion and
neck injuries. As it is, Ekblad tops his
2014 draft class in games played (233), goals among defensemen (39), and points
among defensemen (101). He is already
2-3-5 in six games this season for the Panthers. In eight career games against the Caps, he is
1-1-2, even.
1. Through Thursday’s
games, Florida was recording a whopping 41.8 shots on goal per game, although
their plus-8.8 shot differential was just second to the Edmonton Oilers
(plus-11.5). Not that all those shots matter; Florida is 1-3-0 when outshooting
their opponent.
2. One the one hand,
the Panthers have scoring balance; eight players had four or more points
through Thursday’s games. On the other hand, they have three players with five
points (Evgenii Dadonov, Nick Bjugstad, and Jonathan Huberdeau), tied for 86th
in the league. They seem to lack a go-to scorer.
3. Only four teams had
more penalty minutes per game than Florida (14:35) going into Friday’s games,
but the Panthers actually had a positive differential in special teams ice time
(plus-8:45, seventh-best in the league).
4. Watch the first
period carefully. Through Thursday’s games, the Panthers scored one goal in
first periods in five games, lowest first period goal total in the league. Not
that they give up a lot; their four goals allowed is stingier than all but four
teams.
5. Florida had not
scored first in a game until they did so in their loss to Pittsburgh on Friday
night, the last team to score first in a game.
1. When the Caps
out-shot the Detroit Red Wings, 41-37, in their overtime win on Friday night,
it was just the second time in eight games that the Caps outshot an
opponent. They out-shot the New Jersey
Devils in a 5-2 win on October 13th.
2. The Caps should
outshoot opponents more often. They are
one of eight teams that have not yet last when doing so. The thing is, though, only the Los Angeles
Kings in that group has outshot teams more than twice (the Caps have done so
twice).
3. Only the St. Louis
Blues have allowed more third period goals (13) than the Caps (12).
4. The Caps have the
third-worst shot attempts-for percentage in the league when ahead in games
(39.18), ahead of only Ottawa and the New York Rangers.
5. The Caps have some
work to do for their top three of Evgeny Kuznetsov, Alex Ovechkin, and Nicklas
Backstrom to regain the top spots in league scoring that they held before
Friday’s games. Tampa Bay’s Steven
Stamkos and Nikita Kucherov now hold the top two spots, with Kuznetsov and
Backstrom tied for third.
The Peerless’ Players to Ponder
Florida: Radim Vrbata
Drafted in the seventh round by the Colorado Avalanche in
1999, spending parts of two seasons with the Avs, then off to Carolina, back to
Chicago, out to Phoenix, over to Tampa Bay, back to Phoenix, up to Vancouver,
back lone more time to Phoenix (by this time “Arizona”), and now in Florida.
Radim Vrbata has put on more miles over 16 seasons, it seems, than some Apollo
moon missions. He has quietly assembled an interesting body of work, ranking
11th in games played among active players (1,020; more than Eric Staal or
Henrik Zetterberg), tied for 21st in goals (279, with Patrick Sharp), 30th in
points (ahead of Claude Giroux and Chris Kunitz), and eighth in shots on goal
(3,031; ahead of Joe Thornton and Jeff Carter). Vrbata has yet to score a goal
for the Panthers, but with four assists he is in that large clot of players
that comprise the team’s leading overall scorers. Vrabata, who at 36 is the second-oldest
skater on the team (Derek MacKenzie is two days older), is coming off one of
his best years with a 20—35-55 scoring line with the Coyotes last season, and
he is 7-5-12, minus-6, in 20 career games against the Caps.
Washington: Brett Connolly
Last season, his first with the Caps, Brett Connolly started
slowly, scoring one goal in his first 11 games before finishing the season with
a career high 15 goals in 66 games. This
season, he is starting slowly again with one goal in eight games, that goal
coming on Opening Night in the Caps’ 5-4 Gimmick win over the Ottawa
Senators. When he recorded a shot on
goal against the Detroit Red Wings on Friday night, he broke a three-game
streak without a shot on goal. Only once
this season does Connolly have more than one shot on goal, that in the Caps’
4-3 overtime loss to the Tampa Bay Lightning on October 9th. It follows a similar patter to last season
when Connolly recorded only four shots over an eight-game stretch before
breaking out with a goal and an assist with four shots in a 3-1 win over
Buffalo in late November. In 13 career
games against Florida, Connolly is 0-3-3, minus-3.
In the end…
This is the second straight weekend that the Caps are
playing back-to-back games. The second
half of last weekend’s set did not go well, losing to the Philadelphia Flyers,
8-2. It was, however, the Caps’ third
game in four nights. They do not have
that problem in this game, the team getting two full days off after their loss
to Toronto on Tuesday before beating the Red Wings on Friday. And, they are at home for this contest.
Capitals 4 – Panthers 2
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