The Peerless Prognosticator is ON THE AIR!!!
Having split their first two games since coming out of the
All-Star Game break, the Washington Capitals take to the road on Saturday to
face the Montreal Canadiens in a Saturday afternoon contest. The Caps will be looking to sustain a quality
effort for 60 minutes, a feature missing from their repertoire in their last
two games, while the Canadiens will be trying to get off the treadmill that has
seen them more or less alternating wins and losses for almost a month.
Starting with a 4-1 loss to the Caps on January 9th
that snapped a three-game winning streak, the Canadiens are 5-6-1, failing to
win consecutive games in that 12-game stretch.
Over those dozen games the Canadiens averaged a respectable 2.67 goals
per game, but their scoring defense has been a problem, allowing 3.08 goals per
game. And that makes one wonder about
goaltender Carey Price.
Price has appeared in and been the goaltender of record in
10 of the 12 games in this recent skid.
Over those contests he is 3-6-1, 3.12, .902. It is not that he had faced an significantly elevated
volume of shots (31.7 per game in this stretch versus 30.0 per game for the
season), but the profile of his opponents has been telling. The four games in that stretch in which he
allowed four or more goals came against four of the top five scoring offenses
in the league – Pittsburgh, the New York Rangers, Minnesota, and the Capitals. Price has shown signs of emerging from his
personal slump, posting more Price-like numbers of a 2.21 goals against average
and a .936 save percentage in his last five games, going 2-2-1. He is 6-10-4, 3.02, .908, with one shutout in
20 career appearances against the Caps.
There has been a bit of an all-or-nothing quality to the
goal scoring aspect of Max Pacioretty’s game recently. In his last dozen games he does have five
goals, but three of them came as a hat trick against the lowly Buffalo Sabres
last Tuesday. He still leads the club in
goals (24) and ranks in the top five in the league. He is still on a pace to finish with his
fourth straight 30 goal season (38) and his fourth straight 60-pont season
(66). Discounting the abbreviated
2012-2013 season, this would be his fifth straight full season hitting those
marks, making him one of the most consistent point producers in the
league. Pacioretty is 2-9-11, minus-4,
in 25 career games against the Capitals.
Injuries have hit the Canadiens defense hard. Only one defenseman – Shea Weber – has appeared
in all 52 games so far this season. The club
has employed 12 defensemen so far. It
has required young guys to step up. One
of them, at least in the offensive end, is Nathan Beaulieu, the youngest
defenseman on the club to have appeared in at least five games this season (24
years old). In the 46 games in which he
has appeared, his numbers are precisely those he posted last season in 64 games
– two goals, 17 assists, and 19 points.
In the Canadiens 5-6-1 run of late, though, Beaulieu is a minus-8, not a
good number even if he is called upon to log big minutes (averaging almost 23
minutes per game in this stretch compared to just over 20 per game for the
season). In nine career games against
Washington, Beaulieu is 0-1-1, minus-3.
1. Montreal’s special
teams are quite special at home. The
Canadiens rank ninth in home power play efficiency (21.4 percent) and seventh in home penalty killing
(84.6 percent). They are one of just
three teams to rank in the top ten on both sides of special teams at home
(Minnesota and Columbus are the others).
2. The Canadiens do
not work and play well with others.
Montreal is tied for fourth (with Anaheim) for most minor penalties
taken this season (199), and no team has been hit with more game misconducts
(three, tied with Dallas and Toronto).
3. Even with the
arbitrariness associated with the numbers, the takeaway-to-giveaway ratio for
the Canadiens is horrible. That ratio
(0.62) ranks 25th in the league.
4. Montreal is a
remarkably consistent team in one respect.
They are just one of three teams in the league (Minnesota and Columbus
being the others) with a positive goal differential in all three regulation
periods this season overall – plus-5 in the first periods of games, plus-9 in
the second periods, and plus-14 in the third periods. If you are wondering, the Caps have a
positive differential in the first periods of games (plus-31) and third periods
(plus-23), but they are even in the second periods of games.
5. Montreal does do
the possession thing well. They rank
third in Corsi-for at 5-on-5 overall (52.28 percent) and third in Corsi-for
adjusted for score, zone, and venue (52.93 percent; numbers from
Corsica.hockey).
1. Only two teams in
the league rank in the top ten in both road power play efficiency and road
penalty killing (Toronto and the New York Rangers), but the Caps are almost
there. They rank seventh in road power
play (22.1 percent) and 11th in road penalty killing (83.3 percent).
2. The Caps could
stand to be a little more careful with the puck. Arbitrariness of the numbers aside, the Caps
have the fifth-highest total of giveaways in the league (542) and have the
sixth-highest average of giveaways per game (10.6).
3. No team has more
wins this season by three or more goals than the Caps (15, tied with
Pittsburgh).
4. The Caps are still
looking for that elusive first 4-on-4 goal this season. They are one of six teams without one, and
only Minnesota among the other five is playoff-eligible.
5. The Caps have
slipped a bit overall in their Corsi-for number at 5-on-5 (they now rank
seventh), but they still rank fourth in the league when adjusted for score,
zone, and venue (52.90 percent; numbers from Corsica.hockey).
The Peerless’ Players to Ponder
Montreal: Phillip Danault
Phillip Danault occupies a special place in Capitals history
for a player who was never a part of the organization. In 2011, the Capitals traded the 26th
overall pick in the entry draft to the Chicago Blackhawks for winger Troy
Brouwer. Chicago selected Danault with
that pick. Brouwer went on to play in
more than 300 regular season and playoff games for Washington, while Danault
started his climb up the developmental ladder.
He spent two more seasons in Canadian junior, and then he moved up to the
Rockford IceHogs in the AHL. He got a
cup of coffee (two games) with the Blackhawks in 2014-2015 and another 30 games
with the big club in 2015-2016, but at the trading deadline of the 2015-2016
season he was traded with Chicago’s second-round pick in the 2018 entry draft
to Montreal for Tomas Fleischmann and Dale Weise.
This season with the Canadiens, Danault is one of five
players to appear in all 52 games to date, and he has more than doubled his
career totals in goals (four prior to this season), assists (6) and points (10)
with his 10-17-27 scoring line. He is
0-1-1, minus-1, in two career games against the Caps. Danault’s odd place in Caps history is made a
bit more strange with this fact. In the
history of the club’s drafts before 2015, the 2011 draft (the one in which the pick used to take him was traded) is the only one for
the Caps in which no player ever played in as many as one NHL game with any
club. Four players were selected –
Steffen Soberg, Patrick Koudys, Travis Boyd, and Garrett Haar – none of them
advancing to the NHL.
Washington: T.J. Oshie
If Alex Ovechkin is the intoxicating spirit of the libation known as the Washington
Capitals, Nicklas Backstrom the ice that cools the drink, and Evgeny Kuznetsov
the secret ingredient, then T.J. Oshie is the straw that stirs it. With Oshie in the lineup this season, the
Caps are 29-8-5 and just 5-3-1 when he isn’t.
Washington is 15-0-1 in games in which Oshie recorded a goal, 19-0-1 in
games in which he recorded a point. In
addition to being second in goals and fourth in points on the club, he is one
of four forwards with more than one credited hit per game, leads all forwards
in blocked shots per game, and has a superb 1.72:1 ratio of takeaways to
giveaways. He is the only Capital forward
to average more than one minute per game on both power plays (2:48) and penalty
killing (1:06), and his performance in the trick shot phase of the game borders
on legendary (3-for-4 shooting this season, and since he came into the league
in 2008-2009 has the highest shooting percentage (55.1) of any player taking 20
or more shots). In his last 15 games he
is 9-10-19, plus-10, over which the Caps are 12-2-1, the two regulation losses
coming in game in which he did not record a point. In 11 career games against Montreal, Oshie is
4-5-9, minus-1.
In the end…
This is a contest between teams competing on the same space
of statistical turf. Both rank in the
top four in the league in score/zone/venue adjusted Corsi at 5-on-5 (Montreal
third, the Caps fourth). And, both teams
will be anchored by goaltenders thought to be among the best of the league’s
best, but who have had their own struggles of late. In other respects the teams have similar
numbers. What the Caps bring to this
game is what they bring to most contests, and advantage in depth, especially at
forward.
Oh, and an 11-0-2 record in their last 13 games in Montreal.
Capitals 4 – Canadiens 2