The Peerless Prognosticator is ON THE AIR!!!
The Washington Capitals play their third game in four days
on Sunday afternoon when they host the Philadelphia Flyers in a Sunday
afternoon tilt. The Caps will be looking
to halt a two-game losing streak on their post-bye schedule, while the Flyers
will be looking to extend a successful run of late, having won seven of their
last nine games.
What the Flyers will be looking to exploit is a somewhat
leaky Capitals defense that has allowed three or more goals in six of their
last seven games. Given that the Flyers
have scored five or more goals in four of their last nine contests, it will be
a challenge for the Caps.
Sean Couturier leads the Flyers in goals (nine) and points
(13) in the Flyers’ 7-2-0 run of late. Couturier
has found his goal scoring touch in a big way this season, having already
obliterated his career high in goals scored (15 in 2014-2015) with 26 this
season, tied for fourth in the league.
And when he scores, the Flyers are successful, going 13-3-5 in the 21
games in which he scored a goal. In this
current run of success for the Orange and Black, three of his goals were
game-winners, one of them in overtime.
He has three multi-goal games in his last six contests and points in
nine of his last 11 games (10-5-15). One
noteworthy number he has is his 20 even strength goals, twice as many as the
Flyer with the next highest total (Claude Giroux with ten). Couturier is 6-5-11, plus-4, in 22 career
games against the Caps.
Speaking of Giroux, he is second on the club in points in
their 7-2-0 run of late. He did it by
spreading the good cheer around, 11 of his 12 points in that run coming on
assists. Giroux is having a rebirth of
sorts, his 14 goals this season already tying his total for all of last season
and his 55 points just three shy of last year’s total of 58. Giroux topping 50 points is nothing new,
though. This is the seventh time in the
last eight seasons he had done so, the only time he fell short being in the
abbreviated 2012-2013 season when he had 48 points in 48 games. The odd thing about Giroux this season,
though, is the Flyers’ lack of success when he gets heavy minutes. Philadelphia is just 6-9-4 when Giroux skated
more than 21 minutes. In 34 career games
against Washington, he is 18-18-36, plus-3.
Last season, Ivan Provorov finished fourth among rookie
defensemen in scoring with 30 points. He
is on a pace to top that this season with 23 points in 46 games. His nine goals (he scored his ninth yesterday
in the Flyers’ 3-1 win over the New Jersey Devils) is already well clear of
last year’s total of six goals. In the
Flyers’ 7-2-0 run he is 4-4-8 to lead the Flyers’ blue line in goals and
points. With 52 career points in his
second season, he is already just the ninth Flyer defenseman in franchise
history to record more than 50 points in his first two seasons, and he is just
the sixth defenseman in Flyer history to post 15 goals over his first two
seasons. In five career games against
the Caps, Provorov is 0-1-1, plus-2.
1. Little things…the
Flyers are the best team in the league in taking draws, winning 52.9 percent of
the faceoffs they have taken.
2. The Flyers might
just as soon be on the road insofar as their power play is concerned. At 23.4 percent, it is the fourth-best power
play on the road in the league and more than five percentage points better than
their power play at home (18.1 percent).
3. Only three teams
have fewer wins when leading after the first period than the Flyers (seven
wins). Then again, only the Vancouver
Canucks (eight) and the Buffalo Sabres (eight) have taken fewer leads to the
first intermission than the Flyers (nine/7-0-2).
4. Scoring first is
usually a good indicator of success, but not for Philadelphia, which ranks 24th
in winning percentage when scoring first (.650/13-4-3).
5. Getting out of the
gate quickly has been an issue for the Flyers.
Only four teams have fewer first period goals than Philadelphia (33).
1. No team in the NHL
has spent less time with a 5-on-3 man advantage than the Caps this season. Their total is just 20 seconds on one such
opportunity.
2. The third period
of games have not been kind to the Caps in one respect. Only three teams have a worse time
differential between power plays and shorthanded situations (minus-26:44).
3. Scoring first
matters to the Caps. They have the
fifth-best winning percentage when scoring first in games (.809/17-2-2).
4. Only three teams
have a better winning percentage in one-goal games than Washington
(.650/13-3-4).
5. So the Caps get
out-shot a lot. Thirty times in 47
games, in fact. Their 17 wins in those
games is third-most in the league, trailing only Colorado (18) and Nashville
(19).
The Peerless’ Players to Ponder
Philadelphia: Wayne Simmonds
In the long arc of history for the Philadelphia Flyers,
Wayne Simmonds might not get as much attention as he should. With 179 goals as a Flyer, he ranks 17th
in club history. He among the most
reliably productive goal scorers in the league, having topped 25 goals in five
of the last six seasons preceding this one, the only time he missed being the
abbreviated 2012-2013 season in which he scored 15 goals in 45 games. He has
been on a run of late with five goals in his last nine games. And when he scores, it is all but certain the
Flyers win. They are 13-0-1 in the 14
games in which he recorded a goal so far this season. In fact, Philadelphia has lost just one game
in regulation this season in which Simmonds recorded a point (they are
17-1-4). The key might be to try to get
him off his game and off the ice. The
Flyers are just 4-5-3 in the 12 games in which he logged penalty minutes. Simmonds is 6-9-15, minus-3, in 29 career
games against the Caps.
Washington: Evgeny Kuznetsov
If Evgeny Kuznetsov records a point on Sunday, it would tie
his longest points streak of the season at four games. And since the Caps are 19-5-3 when Kuznetsov
records a point, his contribution is certainly welcome. Although his goal scoring is off a bit
lately, he is averaging more goals per game (0.28) than in any of his previous
four seasons. That recent goal scoring
is something to take notice of, though. He
has just three in his last 18 contests.
The good thing here is that eight of his 13 goals this season have been
scored on home ice. Kuznetsov is slowly
working his way up the all-time points list for the Caps, too. His next point will break a tie with Gaetan
Duchesne for 34th place on the all-time list, both with 225 career
points with the Caps. Doing it against
the Flyers might be a good bet.
Philadelphia is one of seven teams against which Kuznetsov has at least
ten career points (2-8-10). However, he
is also a minus-4 in his 13 career games against the Flyers, the worst
plus-minus number he has against any team.
In the end…
Oddly enough, last season the Caps broke a two-game losing
streak coming out of the bye week with a win over the Flyers. It was a game for the top-sixers, Kuznetsov getting
a pair of goals, Nicklas Backstrom and T.J. Oshie getting the others, and
Backstrom, Oshie, Kuznetsov, Alex Ovechkin, and Justin Williams recording
multi-point games. Sounds like a formula
that could work again against a team playing its second game in 24 hours.
Capitals 4 – Flyers 1
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