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.
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 21st. 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 4th 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 10th (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 22nd.
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 11th 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 3rd) 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 21st. 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