The Peerless Prognosticator is ON THE AIR!!!
The Washington Capitals hit the ice for the third of their
four-game home stand when they host the Ottawa Senators on Wednesday night at
Capital One Arena. The Caps will be looking to prevent suffering consecutive
losses on home ice since they endured a three-game home ice losing streak in
mid-October.
The Senators will come to Washington looking for a measure
of revenge after the Caps defeated them in Ottawa on Opening Night, 5-4, in the
trick shot competition. This will be just the third road game for Ottawa this
month and seventh of the season. The road has been a welcoming place for the
Senators, who enter this game with a record of 4-1-1 outside of Canada’s
capital.
Mark Stone has found the road an especially hospitable
place, leading the Senators in goals (four, tied with Mike Hoffman) and points
(eight), with a team-leading plus-6 (tied with Derick Brassard). Now in his
sixth year with the Senators and fourth full-time season, Stone has become a
very consistent goal scorer for the Sens. In his three full seasons preceding
this one, Stone recorded 26, 23, and 22 goals. He also displayed an ability to
contribute at both ends of the ice, having earned votes for the Selke Trophy as
the league’s best defensive forward in each of the last three seasons, finishing
sixth in the voting last year. He is threatening to demolish his career-best in
goal scoring, having posted 13 goals in 19 game so far overall, tied with
Washington’s Alex Ovechkin for third in the league. Only six of 443 skaters to
record at least 20 shots on goal this season have a better shooting percentage
than Stone (25.0). He is 3-1-4, plus-4, in ten career games against the Caps.
Erik Karlsson is the gold standard among NHL defensemen in
this era. Over the previous six seasons he won the Norris Trophy as the
league’s top defensemen twice, was a finalist on two other occasions and was in
the top-ten in voting five times. Even when he appeared in just 17 games of the
abbreviated 2012-2013 season he finished 18th in Norris voting. This season started
slowly for Karlsson, missing the first five games due to an injury that he
sustained at the end of the 2016-2017 season, two torn tendons in his foot. It
took him a while to get into the lineup, but he hit the ice at full speed. His
17 points (1-16-17) is tied for third in the league in scoring among
defensemen, despite his having played at least six fewer games than the six
defensemen ahead of him or with whom he is tied. If there is an odd quality
about his statistical profile this season it is in his ice time. Eight times
this season he logged more than 25 minutes, but Ottawa has a record of just
1-3-4 in those games. Karlsson is 2-16-18, minus-6, in 24 career games against
Washington.
1..Ottawa opened the season with three straight trips to the
freestyle competition and lead the league with five shootout appearances. They
are 1-4 in those games.
2. The Senators
deploy rookies in odd ways. Eight rookies have dressed for Ottawa so far this
season but have appeared in a combined 21 games (none more than four). By way
of comparison, Jakub Vrana has appeared in that many games for the Caps as a
rookie by himself.
3. Ottawa does not
beat themselves in one respect. Their 62 minor penalties taken is third-fewest
in the league, more than only Columbus (54) and Carolina (48). It means they
have been shorthanded just 55 times this season, more than only the Blue
Jackets (54) and the Hurricanes (47).
4. If you can hang
close, the Senators can be caught, or at least scored upon late. Montreal is
the only team in the Eastern Conference to have allowed more third period goals
(26) than Ottawa (25). Oddly enough, the Senators have not lost a game in
regulation in which they led at the second intermission, although they do have
three extra time losses in those games, tied with Buffalo for most in the
league.
5. One might think
the Senators spend a lot of the post-game icing down and in the whirlpool. They
are tied for second in the league in blocked shots (319, with Arizona).
1. How is it that the
Caps’ two top scorers for the month of November are “minus” players? John
Carlson (2-8-10) is a minus-4, while Evgeny Kuznetsov (2-6-8) is a minus-2.
They also happened to be tied for the team lead in power play points for the
month (six apiece).
2. Tom Wilson, who
averaged 155 minutes in penalties per season over his first four years, is on a
pace to finish this season with a career high 238 minutes. He is also on a pace to finish with nine
goals, which would be a career high.
3. All eight
defensemen to dress for the Caps this season have points, and five of them have
at least one goal. All 14 forwards to have dressed for at least five games have
at least one goal.
4. This could be a
high-scoring game late. The Caps are tied with Ottawa in allowing the
sixth-highest total of third period goals in the league this season (25).
5. Only Buffalo has
lost more games when outshot by opponents (ten times, once in extra time) than
the Capitals (nine times, once in extra time).
The Peerless’ Players to Ponder
Ottawa: Craig Anderson
There have been 33 goalies to dress for the Ottawa Senators
over their franchise’s history. None have done so more times than Craig
Anderson (308 games). He is the all-time franchise leader in wins (158), losses
(104), and losses in extra time (37). His .919 career save percentage is second
among the 13 goalies in franchise history appearing in at least 50 games
(Andrew Hammond: .923 in 55 games). Only Patrick Lalime has more shutouts for
the Senators (30) than Anderson (25). Now in his 15th NHL season, Anderson has
had a roller coaster of a year so far. It breaks down loosely into three parts.
In the first, covering his first four appearances, Anderson was 2-0-2, 1.65,
.937, with a shutout. He followed that up with a seven-game stretch in which he
was 3-3-1, 4.07, .874. He since recovered, going 2-2-0, 2.01, .914 in his last
four contests. What does seem to matter is shots faced. In nine games in which
he played the entire contest and faced 30 or fewer shots, Anderson is 4-3-2,
1.97, .923, with one shutout. However, in four games playing the entire contest
and facing more than 30 shots, he is 2-1-1, 4.28, .887. OK, small population size.
In 20 career games against the Caps, Anderson is 11-7-2, 2.39, .922, with two
shutouts.
Washington: Devante Smith-Pelly
Devante Smith-Pelly has had the sort of season – his first
in Washington – that fans might have expected. He gets modest ice time as
generally a bottom-six forward (13:10 per game), he plays with some edge (32
credited hits, sixth on the club), kills penalties (1:28 in shorthanded ice
time per game), and makes the physical sacrifices the team needs from that
position (22 blocked shots, most among forwards). But he also has had some time
on the top line, a reflection of the very unsettled and inconsistent nature of
the Caps lineup these days, where continuity has given way to trying to find
chemistry among the lines to allow the Caps to sustain some level of success.
He has been shooting in a bit of bad luck, compared to his career numbers. His
two goals on 36 shots on goal is, so far, his worst career shooting percentage
for a season (5.6 percent). While being a 20-goal scorer is not a requirement
of his position, it would be nice for him and for the Caps to see that number
tick up a bit. That might be a problem in this game, however. The Senators are
one of three teams in the league against which Smith-Pelly does not have a
career point (0-0-0, minus-3, in seven career games).
In the end…
We keep pounding on this point, but the Caps really need to
stockpile wins and points in this home-weighted portion of the schedule. They
currently occupy the second wild-card spot in the standings (pending Tuesday’s
results), but there are three teams within a point of them, and all of them
have games in hand: Carolina (three games), the New York Rangers (one game),
and their opponent in this game, the Ottawa Senators (three games). No team in
the East has completed more of their season schedule than the Caps, and at some
point, the wasted opportunities to put distance between themselves and the
also-rans could come back to haunt them and turn them into one of those very
also-rans. The Senators are one of six teams in the league to have scored and
allowed more than three goals per game, so for the Caps there is the
opportunity of getting untracked offensively, but by the same token, the
Senators have the ability to make the Caps pay for mistakes and too many trips
to the penalty box, as Calgary did on Monday.
Capitals 4 – Senators 3
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