The Peerless Prognosticator is ON THE AIR!!!
The Washington Capitals have 50 games under their belts in
the 2017-2018 season with 30 wins to show for it. They will add to the former and look to add
to the latter when they visit Pittsburgh to take on the Penguins in a Friday
night “Metro Matchup” of some significance.
Washington will go into Pittsburgh with a six-point lead in
the Metropolitan Division and two games in hand on the Penguins. But they will do so against a team that is
9-3-0 in the 2018 portion of their schedule and playing the sort of hockey that
propelled them to consecutive Stanley Cup championships over the past two
seasons.
When the 2017 portion of the season ended, the Penguins were
mired in seventh place in the eight-team Metropolitan Division. Since then, their 9-3-0 record is best in the
league, their power play (33.3 percent) is best in the league, only the San
Jose Sharks (47 in 14 games) have more goals than the Penguins (45), and they
have the fourth-best shot attempts-for percentage (53.16 percent; numbers from
NHL.com).
“Explosive” would be the word to describe the Penguins on
offense in the new year. They have 11
different instances so far of a player recording three or more points in a
game, none with more than Evgeni Malkin, who has four such games in the new
year and leads the team with 12 goals in 12 games in 2018. Malkin also happens to have 12 penalty
minutes in those 12 games, adding to his sense of symmetry. Malkin is moving up the rankings of
Russian-born players in NHL history and is within sight of reaching another
rung on that ladder. Should he record a
hat trick (heaven forbid), he would pass Vyacheslav Kozlov (356) for seventh
place on the all-time list of Russian-born goal scorers. If all three goals were to come on power
plays, he would pass Alex Kovalev (133) for fifth place among Russian-born
players in career power play goals scored.
Three power play points, and he would pass Alexander Mogilny (349) in
career power-play points). His chances
of doing it? Well, he has been a
productive performer against the Caps, going 16-36-52, minus-1, in 38 career
games against Washington.
Sidney Crosby leads the team in points in the new year
(3-18-21, plus-6, in 12 games). It is
quite a turnaround from what for him was a lackluster 2017 portion of the
schedule (14-21-35, minus-13, in 40 games).
He has been blanked on the score sheet just once in the 12 games played
so far in 2018, that in a 4-0 loss to the Carolina Hurricanes on January 4th. Since then, Crosby has points in ten straight
games, but maybe he’s getting worn out. In
the first five of those ten contests he recorded multi-point games, going
3-10-13 overall. But in the most recent
five games he has one multi-point game and is 0-7-7. Crosby gets his points, but it might be keeping
him from hitting the back of the net that will be key. Pittsburgh is 12-2-1 in the 15 games in which
he recorded a goal this season. Then
again, they are 14-5-0 when his points come solely from assists. One thing the Caps will not want to see is Crosby celebrating his 400th career goal. He has 399. Crosby is 20-41-61, even, in 43 career games
against the Caps.
The odd part about the scoring from the defense in the 2018
portion of the schedule is its balance.
Each of the seven defensemen to have dressed have points, but none have
more than four in the 12 games played to date.
Three defensemen share that total, perhaps the most surprising being
Jamie Oleksiak (2-2-4, plus-3). Oleksiak
came to the Penguins in a mid-December trade from the Dallas Stars for a conditional
fourth-round pick in the 2019 draft. He
is among the biggest defensemen in the league at 6’7”/255 pounds, something of
an anachronism in today’s smaller, speedier NHL. He has struggled to find a permanent place in
the league, never having dressed for more than half of his team’s games in any
of his six NHL seasons (he dressed for 41 games last year with Dallas). Although this season will be split between
two teams, he does seem to be a certainty to set a personal record for games
played, having dressed for 38 games with Dallas (21) and Pittsburgh (17). Oleksiak has had limited exposure to the
Caps, going without a point and plus-1 in three career games against
Washington.
1. In their nine wins
since the calendar turned over, the Pens have wins of three or more goals in
six of them.
2. Pittsburgh has two
or more power play goals in 13 games this season. Five of them have come since the beginning of
the new year.
3. When the Penguins
allowed two power play goals to San Jose in a 5-2 win over the Sharks on
Tuesday, it broke a 28-game streak in which they did not allow an opponent
multiple power play goals in a game (77-for-84 penalty killing/91.7 percent).
4. Only the Florida
Panthers have more instance this season with 40 or more shots on goal (14) than
the Penguins (11). The funny thing is,
Pittsburgh has unremarkable success in those games (6-4-1). On the other hand, allowing high shot volumes
seems to matter a bit. In eight games in
which the Penguins allowed more than 35 shots, they are just 3-5-0.
5. Teams can get
under the skin of the Penguins. In their
12 games so far in 2018 they have 44 minor penalties. Only the Anaheim Ducks have more (46).
1. Washington has
compiled 274 minutes in penalties in road games this season. That is fourth-highest in the league. Forth of those minutes are from misconduct
penalties, the Caps’ four infractions topped only by the Nashville Predators. With
six of those on the road.
2. The Caps might
need to step up their road game performance.
Through Wednesday night’s games, their 11-8-4 record was ranked 16th
in the league.
3. Washington has
recorded 640 shots on goal in road games this season, last in the league. They also have a shot differential in road
contests of minus-127, or 5.5 shots per game.
4. The Caps are the
only team in the league with fewer than 300 blocked shots in road games this
season (289). The New York Rangers and
Detroit Red Wings have the next fewest (311).
5. Unblocked shot
attempts-for percentage at 5-on-5 in road games. A long term, but let’s just say “Road Fenwick”…
45.32 percent. Worst in the league (numbers from NHL.com).
The Peerless’ Players to Ponder
Pittsburgh: Phil Kessel
No player in his draft class (2006) has appeared in more
games or has more goals than Phil Kessel (884 games, 317 goals). He is second overall in points (708). And this is a draft class that includes
Jonathan Toews, Jordan Staal, Nicklas Backstrom, Claude Giroux, and Brad
Marchand. Since he came into the league,
only Alex Ovechkin has more goals scored per game in the postseason (0.47) than
Kessel (0.44) among players appearing in at least 50 playoff contests. And, there are the two Stanley Cups. He has done rather well for himself. This year, the word to best describe him
might be “consistent.” Only twice this
season has Kessel gone as many as two straight games without a point, and he
has points in 38 of the 52 games for which he has dressed, those 38 games with
points recorded tied for most overall in the league with Tampa Bay’s Nikita
Kucherov. Of particular concern for the
Caps in this game is that he has been much more productive at home (14-22-36,
plus-2, in 26 home games) than he has on the road (7-16-23, minus-10, in 26
road games), and he has been held off the score sheet entirely only four times
in 26 home games this season (all of them, it turns out, losses). If the Caps can get a lead and make head
coach Mike Sullivan give him more minutes, that might be a good thing. Pittsburgh is just 4-9-1 in 14 games this
season in which Kessel logged more than 20 minutes of ice time. In 41 career games against the Caps, Kessel
is 9-18-27, minus-7.
Washington: Alex Ovechkin
Alex Ovechkin has led the league in power play goals,
outright or tied with others, in each of the last five seasons coming into this
one. This year he is tied for fourth,
and the slip in rankings, if it is that, might be a product of his power play
production on the road. He is without a
power play strike over his last ten road games, not since he recorded one as
part of a hat trick in a 4-2 win over the Maple Leafs in Toronto back on
November 25th. It is one of
just three power play goals scored by Ovechkin on the road so far this season
and the only one he has in his last 18 road contests. This might be an opportunity for Ovechkin to
get back on track on the road, since the Penguins are something of a
middle-of-the-road penalty killing group at home, just 81.6 percent for the
season (16th overall) and allowing three power play goals on ten chances
in their last two home games. In 50
career games against the Penguins, Ovechkin is 31-22-53, plus-13, 15 of those
goals coming on power plays.
In the end…
No meeting of the Capitals and Penguins is “just another
game.” However, being too aware of the
rivalry, and the attendant pomp and attention devoted to it can overwhelm early
in games. Balance that against the
somnambulistic style employed by the Caps against the Philadelphia Flyers on
Wednesday night when they fell behind, 2-0, and one hopes the Caps can find a
middle path – focused, but not manic; calm, but not sluggish. This will, however, be quite a challenge for
the Caps, facing a team that has been steamrolling opponents for the most part
since the first of the year.
The Penguins’ recent record aside, a good bet here would be
a close game. In the Ovechkin/Crosby
era, the teams have played 24 regular season games in Pittsburgh. Half of them were one-goal decisions, half of
those settled in extra time, the Caps with a 4-4-4 record in those 12 one-goal games. After Friday night, make that “5-4-4.”
Capitals 3 – Penguins 2