The Peerless Prognosticator is ON THE AIR!!!
What’s that smell? It
smells vaguely like coal ash and…herring?
That must mean the Pittsburgh Penguins are coming to town. That’s right, Caps fans, the dumpy skating
penguin logoed team from The Confluence (featured as the underground river of
slime in “Ghostbusters 2,” or so we are told) waddle into Capital One Arena on
Friday night to try to put some more distance between themselves and the Washington
Capitals in the Metropolitan Division Standings.
The Caps are currently on the outside, looking in at playoff
eligibility, and if you think such considerations are too early to…consider, remember who is in and out of the mix on November 1st actually
matters (see “Thought 29” here).
Through Wednesday night’s games the Penguins sat atop the
Metropolitan Division, but then again, no team in the division has played more
games than the Pens so far (17), either.
New Jersey was one point back with three games in hand going into
Thursday, Columbus was one point back with a game in hand, and the New York
Islanders were two points back with two games in hand. Only four points separated the top seven teams
in the division on Thursday morning. It
is a crowded division at the top.
Evgeni Malkin has done the most damage to the back of
opponents’ nets in road games this season with five goals in 11 road
contests. He had all of them in a six
game stretch from October 17th through November 1st,
although the Pens managed just a 3-2-0 record in those games in which he had a goal (two of those five
road goals are game-winners, but the Pens are just 3-3-1 in the seven road
games in which he has a point). He
opened the season without a goal in his first three road games and is without
one in his last two. Malkin is 16-35-51,
minus-1, in 37 career games against the Caps.
Phil Kessel leads the club in total points on the road so
far this season (2-10-12 in 11 games).
It is a bit out of character for Kessel, who over his career had
significantly more success in home games (166 goals and 353 points in 423 games
played on home ice) than on the road (135 goals/315 points in 426 road
games). He has been consistent on the
road this season, too. Kessel has points
in eight of 11 road games, but the Pens are just 3-5-0 in those games. What he did not have this season was a point
in the first meeting of the teams this season, in Washington, a game that
Pittsburgh won, 3-2, back on October 11th. In 40 career games against the Caps, Kessel
is 8-18-26, minus-7.
Last season, the Penguins suffered through quite a few
injuries, but to the extent they hit the goaltenders, they weathered that storm
pretty well. Matt Murray (47 starts) and
Marc-Andre Fleury (34 starts) started all but one regular season game for the
Penguins (Tristan Jarry got the other one).
This season, with Fleury a member of the Vegas Golden Knights, the
Penguins have already dressed four goaltenders, three of them getting starts,
and one of those three – Antti Niemi (0-3-0, 7.50, .797 with the Pens) – waived
and claimed by the Florida Panthers.
Murray is the undisputed number one goalie, and a good one
he is. His regular season numbers are a
bit of a mix, his 2.43 goals against ranking just 18th among 52
goalies playing at least 50 games over the last three seasons and his save
percentage of .921 ranking fifth in that group.
His playoff numbers are another story.
Of 17 goalies appearing in at least ten postseason games over the last
three seasons, Murray’s goals against average (1.95) ranks second, and his save
percentage (.928) ranks third. His four
shutouts are tied for first in that group.
But, valuable as he has been in the postseason, he has had injury
issues. A head injury, a broken hand,
and a lower body injury (twice) are on his record, the latter of those lower
body injuries causing him to miss Pittsburgh’s last 11 playoff games last
season. He has started 13 of the team’s
17 games so far this season and has rather ordinary numbers (2.90/.906 with one
shutout). He has been even worse in
recent road games, going 1-3-0, 3.71, .875 in his last four road appearances,
alternating good performances (against Minnesota and Edmonton) with awful ones (against
Winnipeg and Vancouver). In five career
appearances against the Caps, Murray is 3-2-0, 3.88, .870.
2. If you’re going to
get the Penguins, get them early. The 22
goals they allowed in the first periods of games this season is second-most in the
league through Wednesday’s games (Montreal: 24). The 19 goals allowed in the second period is
tied for sixth-most.
3. Just don’t let
them get a lead. It doesn’t happen
often, but the Penguins are undefeated when taking a lead to the first intermission
(5-0-0). Only seven teams have taken
fewer leads into the first intermission than the Penguins.
4. Only three teams
have allowed five or more goals in a game more frequently than the five times
the Penguins allowed that many (Arizona: 8; Florida and Toronto: 6 apiece).
5. Odd stat for the
Penguins… Pittsburgh has seen diminishing returns in shot attempts-for
percentages at 5-on-5 over the last four seasons – 52.81 in 2014-2015, followed
by 52.72, 50.14, and 49.87 so far this season (numbers from NHL.com).
2. The Caps scored
six goals in their home opener this season, a 6-1 win over the Montreal
Canadiens. They have 10 goals scored in
five home games since then, nine in regulation.
3. Washington allows
a lot of shots, more than 33 per game (33.4 to be exact), but only the Winnipeg
Jets (27.5) have recorded fewer shots on goal per game than the Caps (28.9). Alex Ovechkin (78 shots on goal) accounts for
16.9 percent of the total.
4. The Caps do well
playing games close. They are 5-2-1 in
one-goal decisions, the five wins ranking tied for third in the league, behind
only Pittsburgh (7) and Tampa Bay (6).
5. The Caps do not
score first often. Maybe they should try
doing it more frequently. They are 4-0-1
when scoring the game’s first goal, tied for the fifth-best winning percentage,
but only the New York Islanders scored first fewer times so far, going undefeated
in four such games.
The Peerless’ Players to Ponder
Pittsburgh: Kris Letang
Since 2007-2008, when he took on a full-time spot on the
Penguins roster, only four active defensemen have more points per game (minimum:
200 points) than Kris Letang (0.64). Erik
Karlsson (0.83), Mike Green (0.67), Dustin Byfuglien (0.64), and Brent Burns
(0.64) isn’t a bad group. On the other
hand, Letang has one season in which he played a full schedule of games. Since he appeared in 82 games of the
2011-2012 season, he has played in barely two-thirds of the Penguins’ regular
season schedule (321 of 475 games).
His presence matters.
Since he became a full-time Penguin in 2007-2008, the Pens are
373-176-64 in games in which he appeared, a .608 winning percentage. They are 103-73-14 in games he missed (.542). He has appeared in all 17 games
for the Pens so far this season and has been especially effective in road
games, where he is 1-8-9 in 11 games and has points in eight of those
games. But on the downside, Letang is
dead last in the league in plus-minus this season (minus-15). It is, at the moment, his worst career plus
minus by a mile (he was minus-8 in 37 games in 2013-2014). He is minus-17 in 11
road games and is on the wrong side of the ledger in eight road contests. Letang is 5-9-14, minus-18, in 31 career
games against the Caps, and yes, the minus-18 is his worst against any team
over his career.
Washington: Brooks Orpik
Brooks Orpik is not going gently into that good night of his
career. In fact, he is averaging more
ice time (22:38) than in any season of his 15-year NHL career. It was not supposed to be that way, the Caps
using Matt Niskanen, John Carlson, and Dmitry Orlov to take big chunks of
minutes. After Niskanen was injured on
October 13th, Orpik stepped up in ice time, going from 22:03 in his
first six games (the last of which was the one in which Niskanen was injured)
to 22:54 per game since. The ice time
load seems to have agreed with Orpik so far, the Caps with a 4-0-0 record in
games he skated more than 24 minutes, 6-2-1 in games in which he skated more
than 22 minutes. What he won’t do is
provide much in the offensive end. He
has shots on goal in just five of 16 games so far (only six defensemen among 179
playing in at least ten games have fewer than his seven shots) and points in
only three, all of them on the road (the Caps are 1-2-0 in those games).
Orpik has not sacrificed the grittier pars of his game in
getting extra minutes. He is tied for 5th
in hits (43) among defensemen, and he is tied for seventh among defensemen in
blocked shots (37). It doesn’t seem to
have much effect on wins and losses, though, the Caps being 4-4-0 when he has
three or more hits, 4-3-1 when he has fewer than three. The Caps are 4-2-1 when he has three or more
blocked shots, 4-5-0 when he has fewer than three. Then again, they are 3-1-0
when he has three or more hits and blocked shots, so there is that. In 13 career games against the Penguins,
Orpik is 0-3-3, plus-11.
In the end…
It’s just a division game…it’s just a division game…it’s
just a division game. More than that,
and even more than it is a division game against the Penguins, it is a home
game. And no team has a worse standings
points-to-games played ratio in home games in the Metropolitan Division than
the Caps (six points in six games, same as the Carolina Hurricanes). Keep in mind that from the 2007-2008 season
through last season, only one team in the league (Pittsburgh, as it turns out) won more games
on home ice (256) than the Caps (253).
They simply have to be more productive in the offensive end to turn that
3-3-0 into the right direction. The
three wins came when they scored three or more goals, while the three losses
came when they didn’t reach that three-goal mark. The Penguins have allowed seven or more goals
in three of their 11 games this season.
The Caps might not get there in this game, but they are facing the team
that is 31st – dead last – in the league in goals for to goals
allowed ratio at 5-on-5. It could be a
breakout game of sorts.
Capitals 5 – Penguins 2
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