The Peerless Prognosticator is ON THE AIR!!!
The Washington Capitals break the seal on the home portion
of their 2016-2017 season on Saturday night when they host the Montreal
Canadiens at Capital One Arena. This is
the second time in four seasons that the Caps opened at home against Montreal,
the previous instance – the only other time the Caps faced the Canadiens in a
home opener – being a 2-1 Gimmick loss to open the 2014-2015 season.
The Caps are coming off a come-from-behind, 5-4 Gimmick win
over the Ottawa Senators, a contest in which Alex Ovechkin recorded his 18th
career hat trick. Montreal also won
their season opener in a Gimmick, Jonathan Drouin potting the game-deciding trick
shot in a 3-2 win over the Buffalo Sabres on Thursday night. It was also a
come-from-behind affair for the Canadiens, who twice fell behind the Sabres by
a goal.
The Caps won last season’s series in an odd fashion, winning
both games played at Bell Centre in Montreal (by scores of 4-1 and 3-2), but
they lost the only contest at Capital One Arena (then Verizon Center), 2-1.
The Canadiens have had, if not quite as long as the Caps, a
string of postseason frustrations of their own.
Since they won the Stanley Cup in 1993, they have reached the postseason
only 15 times in 23 seasons, and since reaching the Eastern Conference final in
2014, failed to get out of the second round in their two playoff appearances in
three seasons since. They will try to
improve upon that in Claude Julien’s second season in what is his second tour
as Montreal head coach He began his NHL head coaching career with Montreal serving from 2003-2006). Strangely
enough, his winning percentage as a coach is worst behind the Canadiens’ bench
(.552) than it was in either of his two other postings, with Boston (.614 over
ten seasons, including a Stanley Cup in 2011) and New Jersey (.646 in his only
season with the Devils).
1. Montreal had a
strange penalty profile last season.
They were one of only four teams (along with San Jose, Edmonton, and
Anaheim) to be charged with at least one of every category of penalty: minor,
major, misconduct, game misconduct, match, and bench.
2. If possession on
power plays means something, Montreal did a poor job in starting power plays
with it. Only one team in the league had
fewer than the 189 power play faceoff wins than Montreal had last season
(Columbus had 178). Then again, the
Canadiens had the fourth-fewest power play opportunities in the league (229).
3. The Canadiens had
the best winning percentage in the league last season when trailing games after
two periods (.314) on a record of 11-20-4.
4. If the Capitals
had their challenges scoring at 4-on-4 last season (they did not have a 4-on-4
goal in the regular season), Montreal was not far behind. The Canadiens had one such goal. They did, however, do a better job in
disallowing 4-on-4 goals yielding two to the Caps’ four.
5. Extra time was
good to the Canadiens last season. They
had the second-highest number of overtime goals (11) while allowing seven (tied
for tenth). Added to their 3-2 record in
the Gimmick, Montreal was 14-9 in extra time games. They were 33-26 in games settled in
regulation.
1. The Capitals trail
the all-time series against Montreal, 69-71-5, with 17 ties. However, consider the Caps went their first
five seasons without a win over the Habs (0-30-2). The Caps have not lost a season series to
Montreal since the 2006-2007 season, when they lost three of four games to the
Canadiens. Over the last ten seasons the
Caps are 23-8-4 against Montreal overall and 9-6-2 at home.
2. Last season the
Caps won two of three games against Montreal and outscored them, 8-5. Nicklas Backstrom had three of the goals, one
in each game. No other Capital had more
than one in the season series.
3. Evgeny Kuznetsov
recorded his fourth career game-deciding trick shot in the win over Ottawa,
tied with Matt Hendricks for fourth-most in Caps history (Ovechkin leads with
ten).
4. Backstrom
(3-1-4) and Alex
Ovechkin (1-3-4) led the club in scoring against Montreal last season.
5. It would surprise
no one that Alex Ovechkin is the Caps’ all-time leader in goals scored against
Montreal (23 in 42 games). What might be
mildly surprising is that he is tied for the franchise lead in assists against
the Habs, and not with Nicklas Backstrom.
Ovechkin and Mike Gartner have 21 assists against the Canadiens as
Capitals.
The Peerless’ Players to Ponder
Montreal: Carey Price
If Braden Holtby is not the best goaltender in the NHL (you
Sergei Bobrovsky fans notwithstanding), Carey Price seems the likely owner of
that description. Since he arrived in the
NHL in 2007-2008, he is one of four goaltenders to appear in at least 200
games, post a goals against average of 2.40 or lower, record a save percentage
of .920 or better, and put at least 30 shutouts on his resume (Holtby is in that group, too). After appearing in just 12 games of the
2015-2016 season, due to a knee injury, Price rebounded smartly in 2016-2017,
finishing eighth in goals-against average (2.23), 12th in save
percentage (.923), while posting three shutouts and 37 wins (minimum: 1000
minutes). It was a performance good
enough to earn him a finalist spot in the voting on the Vezina Trophy for the
league’s top goalie (he finished third, behind Holtby and the winner,
Bobrovsky). Price had a rather typical,
for him, season against the Caps in 2016-2017, going 1-2-0, 2.69, .911. It was entirely consistent with his career
record against the Caps of 6-11-4, 3.03, .900, with one shutout. He has been better in Washington, though,
going 4-3-1, 2.23, .926 in eight appearances in D.C.
Washington: Braden Holtby
In recent years, the Washington-Montreal match-up has had a
subtext to it, that being the Braden Holtby-Carey Price match-up. And Holtby has not lacked for success against
the Canadiens. Holtby has a sparkling
10-1-2, 1.62, .941 record in 14 games against Montreal, with a pair of shutouts
added to that line. The odd part of that
line is how little of it has come at home.
Holtby has only five appearances against Montreal on home ice, where he
is 2-1-1, 2.00, .923.
What Holtby will be competing with to extend his mastery
over the Canadiens is his propensity for slow season starts. Coming into this season he was 2-3-2, 3.50,
.881 in seven “first games” of his season.
While he improved generally in his “second games” – 4-2-0 (one
no-decision), 2.73, .915, with one shutout – his cannot be called a “Holtby-like”
level of performance in those games. In his first appearance of the 2017-2018
campaign, Holtby was, unfortunately, true to form, even if he did get the win –
28 saves on 32 shots (a .875 save percentage).
In the end…
When two elite goalies lock horns, things might come down to
a moment, a mistake, or a mental lapse.
The Caps had more than a few against the Ottawa Senators in the 5-4 season
opening win (note: Ottawa scored four or more goals just 19 times last season,
24th in the league).
Hopefully, it was an example of the Caps working out some early season
kinks as they fold a number of new ingredients into the recipe. If it is an indicator of the level of support
Holtby will get over the course of the season, or for too much of the early
part of it, it will be a hard season ahead.
This game might be a decent test, the Caps facing a team that ranked
just 15th in scoring offense last season, tied for 18th in
scoring offense on the road. Additions
such as Jonathan Drouin and Alex Hemsky might make the Canadiens a more
formidable offense, but the Caps need to button things up.
Capitals 4 - Canadiens 2
No comments:
Post a Comment