Monday, October 14, 2019

The Peerless Prognosticator is ON THE AIR!!! -- Game 7: Avalanche at Capitals, October 14th

The Peerless Prognosticator is ON THE AIR!!!

We have an abbreviated holiday version of the prognosto as the Washington Capitals return home on Monday for a 5:00 Columbus Day faceoff against the Colorado Avalanche at Capital One Arena.Here are some morsels to impress your friends and confound your adversaries:

1.  The Caps have a 44-31-1 record (with nine ties) in 85 games played against the Quebec Nordiques/Colorado Avalanche all-time. 

2.  The only overtime loss that the Caps suffered in this series came on October 17, 2000, when Peter Forsberg scored 2:37 into the extra session in Washington for a 4-3 Avs win.

3.  Since the Nordiques moved from Quebec to Colorado and became the Avalanche for the 1994-1995 season, Peter Bondra is the all-time leader in goals scored against Colorado (10).  If Alex Ovechkin gets a hat trick, he will tie Bondra for the top spot.

4.  Bondra, Ovechkin, and Evgeny Kuznetsov are the all-time points leaders against the Colorado incarnation of the franchise with 14 points apiece.

5.  Tom Wilson does not play well with others wearing a big swirly “A” on their jersey.  He is the all-time leader in penalty minutes against Colorado with 38 penalty minutes in just 12 games played.

6.  Olaf Kolzig and Braden Holtby are tied for the all-time lead in wins against Colorado with five apiece. Kolzig lost to the Avs six times in regulation and once in extra time (all this despite a career .932 save percentage against the Avalanche).  Holtby has only one career loss in regulation to Colorado.

7.  Although the special teams chances, power play and penalty kill, are almost identical all-time against the Avs (121 and 120, respectively), the Caps have been very good against Colorado on both sides of special teams – 23.1 percent on the power play and 85.0 percent on the penalty kill.

8.  The Caps have a rather high percentage of empty net goals scored to games played against Colorado.  In 33 games played against the Avalanche, Washington has seven empty net goals in the series.

9.  In the 15 games played between the teams since 2009-2010, for which the NHL has shot attempt data, the Caps are plus-100 in shot attempt differential at 5-on-5 and have a shot attempts-for percante at fives of 53.74.  This despite being 50 percent or better only seven times in the 15 games.

10.  The Caps take a five-game winning streak on home ice against Colorado into this game.

The Peerless’ Players to Ponder

Colorado: Andre Burakovsky

Now in his sixth NHL season, Andre Burakovsky is in his first year as a member of the Colorado Avalanche after five seasons skating for the Caps.  With a 2-2-4 scoring line through four games he has more goals and points at this point than any season since his rookie season in 2014-2015, when he was 2-3-5 through his first four games.  The two goals he has in four games is an improvement over the past two seasons in which he failed to record a single goal in his first four games.  He has points in three of four games and is coming off a goal/assist game for his first multi-point game since February 9th, when he has a pair of assists in a 5-4 overtime loss to the Florida Panthers while with the Caps.  His goal against Arizona in the 3-2 win was the overtime game-winner.  Both of his goals to date have been game-winners.  This will be Burakovsky’s first game against his former team.

Washington: Richard Panik

It has not been an easy introduction to the Caps for winger Richard Panik.  Signed in the off-season to a four-year/$11 million contract, Panik is looking for his first point as a Capital.  He is not a big scorer, but he is averaging 14.8 goals per 82 games over his career.  To date, he has only four shots on goal in six games, and in no game yet has he recorded more than one.  He started the season with a healthy dose of ice time, getting more than 14 minutes in each of his first three games.  That has been pared back, though, getting less than 13 minutes in each of his last three contests and averaging 12:00 per game.  He looked to be coming out of his slump against Dallas on Saturday but seemed to be suffering more from bad luck than lackluster effort.  In 13 career games against Colorado, Panik is 5-3-8, plus-6.

In the end…

This game begins a stretch for the Caps that poses different challenges from those they faced to open the season.  St. Louis, Dallas, Nashville, all of them very structured, very accomplished defensive teams (at least in last year’s scoring defense rankings).  Colorado today and Toronto on Wednesday are more up-tempo clubs that apply maximum pressure in the offensive zone, using speed and depth of skill to overwhelm opponents when things are going right.  The Caps played a fine all-around game against Dallas on Saturday after a disappointing effort against Nashville preceding it.  Washington will need to be even better, especially in the defensive end, to overcome the frisky Avalanche.

Capitals 5 – Avalanche 3



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