The Peerless Prognosticator is ON THE AIR!!! -- Game 49: Sharks at Capitals, January 22nd

The Peerless Prognosticator is ON THE AIR!!!

The Washington Capitals close the books on the home portion of their pre-All-Star Game schedule on Tuesday night when they host the San Jose Sharks at Capital One Arena.  The Caps are stumbling in the run-up to the break, carrying the burden of a five-game losing streak overall and a three-game losing streak on home ice.

The Sharks are visiting Washington in the back half of a back-to-back set of road games that wrap up a four-game road trip. They dropped the front half of that set, 6-2, in Florida to the Panthers on Monday night.  The loss extended San Jose’s own losing streak to three games.  It is a slap in the face for the Sharks, who before their current losing streak won seven in a row and nine of ten contests.

San Jose, their current struggles notwithstanding, have been among the better teams in the league since December 1^st.  Their 16-7-2 record over that span is fifth-best in the league.  The Sharks have done it with an uncommon mix of volume and balance in their scoring.  In those 25 games since December 1^st, six skaters have at least 20 points.  That group is led by defenseman Erik Karlsson, who has 28 points in only 21 games played, but he is being shut-down until after the All-Star Game break with a lower-body injury.  With Marc-Edouard Vlasic having been absent from the lineup since January 3^nd with a wrist injury (he was placed on injured reserve on Monday), the Sharks are thin on the blue line.

They still have Brent Burns on the back end, though.  Burns has stepped up in a big way over the last 25 games, going 6-21-27, second on the team to Karlsson in points over that span.  Not that this should be surprising.  Burns leads all NHL defensemen in overall scoring (53 points) and is tied for eighth in goals (nine).  He is second in power play scoring (20 points) to Florida’s Keith Yandle (24) and is tied for third in power play goals (five, with Florida’s Aaron Ekblad and Los Angeles’ Drew Doughty). 

Burns has produced at a consistently high level in recent years – tied for second in points among defensemen last season (67, with Dallas’ John Klingberg) to Washington’s John Carlson (68); he led the league’s defensemen in scoring in 2016-2017 (76 points); he was second in scoring in 2015-2016 (75 points) to Karlsson (82 with Ottawa); tied for second the previous year (60 points).  You get the point.  In fact, over the last five seasons, no defenseman has more goals than Burns (94) or points (331).  Burns is 6-9-15, plus-1, in 16 career games against Washington.

Tomas Hertl leads the club in goals (13) since December 1^st.  He had a big night recently.  Recall that in only his third NHL game, against the New York Rangers on October 8, 2013, he had four goals in a 9-2 win over the Blueshirts.  He would go 367 games without another hat trick.  Until last Tuesday night, that is.  Hertl put the hurt on the Pittsburgh Penguins with a hat trick, the last goal being an empty-netter, in a 5-2 win over the Pens.  It was also his 100^th career goal.  He became the 12^th player in Sharks’ history to hit the 100-goal mark for the club, and his next one will put him in the top-ten, tying him with Mike Ricci and Ryane Clowe for 10th on the team’s all-time goal scoring list.  Hertl is 1-1-2, plus-1, in eight career games against the Caps.

Goaltending might get overlooked when a team is scoring four goals a game over a 25-game stretch, but Martin Jones has not been playing up to his level of performance over his first three years in San Jose, and it is part of a season-long problem.  In those three seasons he posted save percentage in the mid-.910’s, but this year his save percentage has dropped.  Of 46 netminders with at least 1,000 minutes, he ranks 38^th at .897.  It has not been much better recently, Jones posting a .901 save percentage in 20 games since December 1^st, 29^th of 44 goalies with at least 500 minutes played.  That he leads the league in wins over that span (13, tied with Vegas’ Marc-Andre Fleury) is a product of the goal support he is getting.  Nine times in 19 appearances since December 1^st he allowed three or more goals, 11 goals on 47 shots in his last two appearances (.766 save percentage).  Jones is 4-2-0, 1.51, .944, with two shutouts in six career appearances against the Caps.

1.  San Jose is the only team in the league to record 100 goals since December 1^st.  They have exactly 100 in 25 games.

2.  If the Sharks do not want Jones to start back-to-back games in goal, Aaron Dell would get the call.  Here is the thing about that.  Since he posted shutouts in consecutive appearances in November, his record in seven games he started and finished is 2-4-1, 4.41, .844.  At the moment, goaltending is an issue for this club.

3.  The Sharks are not being rewarded for tilting the ice in their favor on the road.  They have out-shot opponents by a 918-783 margin in 26 road games and are second in the league on the road in shot attempts-for at 5-on-5 (55.33 percent).  In spite of that, only three teams have allowed more road goals than the Sharks (98) – Chicago (99), Florida (103), and Ottawa (103).

4.  What special teams giveth, they taketh away for the Sharks.  Their power play on the road (25.0) ranks fifth in the league, but their penalty kill (78.3 percent) ranks 22^nd).

5. San Jose is a rude visitor.  Their 264 penalty minutes on the road is third-most in the league, trailing only Florida (266) and Edmonton (267).

1.  The Caps can’t win for losing.  The five goals they scored against Chicago on Sunday were more than they scored in their previous four games (four).  They lost anyway, 8-5.

2.  Here’s one to impress your friends with.  The eight goals allowed on Sunday to Chicago was the 73^rd time in team history that Washington allowed eight or more goals.  Total standings points earned over those 73 games?  One.  They scratched out a point in an 8-7 overtime loss to Pittsburgh on January 16, 2017.  Their 0-72-1 record includes an overtime loss to the New York Islanders in 1983, but standings points were not awarded for overtime losses back then.

3.  Only two teams in the Eastern Conference have committed more minor penalties on home ice than the Caps (85) – Montreal (88) and New Jersey (91).

4.  Montreal and Tampa Bay are the only teams in the East with more power play chances on home ice (86 and 91, respectively) than the Caps (84).

5.  Since December 1^st, forwards Lars Eller, Evgeny Kuznetsov, Andre Burakovsky, and Devante Smith-Pelly have combined for a total of five goals in 83 man-games.  T.J. Oshie has five goals in 19 games (and he’s fourth among forwards on the team since December 1^st).

The Peerless’ Players to Ponder

San Jose: Evander Kane

It took a while, but Evander Kane might finally have found a place where he could produce consistently and with a minimum of issues.  Injuries and off-ice issues were a feature of his early career with the Atlanta Thrahsers/Winnipeg Jets and Buffalo Sabres, but since he was acquired by the San Jose Sharks in a trade with Buffalo for Daniel O’Regan and two conditional draft picks last February, he is averaging 0.41 goals per game in 68 games, a higher average than any of his previous stops in the NHL (that is a 34-goal pace over 82 games).  Kane has been especially effective on the road of late.  In his last 11 road contests he is 7-5-12, plus-1. 

However, there is the matter of timing, and Kane’s was poor in the Sharks’ loss to the Panthers last night.  His double-minor penalty for high-sticking less than two minutes into the third period of a 2-2 game led to power play goals scored by Florida just nine seconds apart on the ensuing power plays.  He then took an unsportsmanlike conduct and ten-minute misconduct penalties with under a minute to play, the Panthers converting that power play into their last goal in their 6-2 win.  It brought his penalty minute total over those same 11 road contests to 36, and his total this season to 74 penalty minutes on the road, most in the league.  Kane is 14-6-20, minus-3, in 30 career games against the Caps.

Washington:  Jakub Vrana

If there is one thing one might be picky about in Jakub Vrana’s performance this season, it is his production on home ice.  The youngster already has a career-high 15 goals in 48 games, surpassing the 13 he had in 73 games last season, his first full-time season in the league.  However, only six of those goals have come in the 24 games in which he has played at Capital One Arena.  That total is tied for fifth on the team with Tom Wilson (whose production has come in only 13 games on home ice).  It is not for a lack of shooting.  He has 50 shots in 24 games on home ice (a 12.0 percent shooting rate) and 46 shots on goal on the road (19.6 percent).  Half of that home ice goal production came over two games straddling the end of the old year and the beginning of the new, breaking what was a stretch in which he had just one goal in 12 home games, but he will go into this game without a goal in three straight games on home ice.  Vrana is 1-0-1, even, in three career games against San Jose.

In the end…

In the baseball movie, “Bull Durham,” Crash Davis tells pitching phenom Nuke LaLoosh the secret of getting out of a slump…

“You know what the difference is between hitting .250 and hitting.300?  I got it figured out.  Twenty-five hits a year in 500 at bats is 50 points. Okay?  There's six months in a season, that's about 25 weeks -- you get one extra flare a week -- just one -- a gork, a ground ball with eyes, a dying quail -- just one more dying quail a week and you're in Yankee Stadium!”

For the Caps, score one off a post, ricochet one off a skate, a shot from the point with eyes that snakes through a maze of players, and you’re back in the lead in the division, or at least closer to it.  That might be what it takes more than some fancy tic-tac-toe passing play or a deke-and-a-shot off a breakaway.

Capitals 4 – Sharks 3