The Peerless Prognosticator is ON THE AIR!!!
Washington Capitals take to the ice on Sunday afternoon in the third game of their four-game home stand, hosting the Philadelphia Flyers in the last game of their season series. The Caps come into the game having lost each of the first two games of the home stand, a 5-4 overtime loss to the Tampa Bay Lightning on Wednesday night and a 2-1 loss to the Minnesota Wild on Friday night.
Washington Capitals take to the ice on Sunday afternoon in the third game of their four-game home stand, hosting the Philadelphia Flyers in the last game of their season series. The Caps come into the game having lost each of the first two games of the home stand, a 5-4 overtime loss to the Tampa Bay Lightning on Wednesday night and a 2-1 loss to the Minnesota Wild on Friday night.
The Flyers will be going into this game as the back half of
a back-to-back set of games, following up on their Saturday afternoon contest
at home against the New York Islanders.
They are in desperation mode, going into the Islander game five points
out of a playoff spot with eight games left to play. Despite the desperate straits in which the
Flyers find themselves, they are just 8-6-1 in their last 15 games, a record
that has allowed them to pick up only one point over that span on the team
immediately in front of them, the Montreal Canadiens.
And if the Flyers are going to make a bigger dent in their
deficit, they are going to have to defend better. Despite allowing 49 goals over those 15 games (3.27 per game), the issue is not goaltending. Over the last 15 games, the three goalies to
dress for the team – Brian Elliott, Carter Hart, and Cam Talbot – have had a
tightly grouped save percentage, ranging from .913 (Elliott) to .918 (Talbot)
and a respectable .915 in the aggregate.
Hart seems to have regained his swagger after spending some
time out of the lineup with an injury and then struggling against the Caps in
his return on March 14th (27 saves on 31 shots in a 5-2 loss). In his last three games, he has stopped 114
of 118 shots (.966), but that shot total is indicative of the problem – 39.0
shots faced per 60 minutes. But these
last three games for Hart have not been all that unusual. Through Friday’s games, there were 49
instances this season of a rookie goaltender facing at least 30 shots and
logging a save percentage of .940 or better while playing at least 50
minutes. Hart has 11 of those
instances. No other rookie goalie has
more than eight (New Jersey’s MacKenzie Blackwood). If he gets the call, this will be Hart’s
second career game against the Caps.
Claude Giroux has had a lot of success lately spreading the puck around. He has 15 assists in his last 15 games (18 points overall, tied for the
team lead in that span). Only five
players have more assists since February 18th, when that 15-game run
started, and only Edmonton’s Connor McDavid has more (18) in fewer games
(13). It is not surprising, given that
Giroux is second on the franchise list of assist leaders (522, trailing only
Bobby Clarke’s 852), and he is 12th in that category among active
players. However, he is about to climb a
rung on the all-time Flyer list of goal scorers. His next one will be his 235th
career goal, tying him for 10th place with Rod Brind’Amour. His next point will give him 80 for the
season, making it his fourth career season with 80 or more points. Coupled with the 102 points he recorded in
last year’s career season, he has 181 points over the last two seasons, fifth
in the NHL, trailing Sidney Crosby by one point for fourth place through Friday’s
games. Giroux is 20-20-40, plus-6, in 40
career games against the Capitals.
If the Flyers are going to have a late surge, they will need
more secondary scoring, and that shines a light on forward Ryan Hartman. Obtained from Nashville with a fourth-round
2020 draft pick for Wayne Simmonds at the trading deadline, his production has
been somewhat disappointing. Not nearly
as much as Simmonds’ performance with the Predators to date (1-1-2 in ten
games), but underwhelming nonetheless (1-2-3, minus-4, in 11 games through
Friday). Hartman has not been a
top-shelf scorer in his five NHL seasons, but he was on a pace to make a run at
his third straight 30-point season in what would be his third full NHL season before
the trade.
Hartman is skating for his third NHL team in 13 months. He was drafted 30th overall in the 2013 entry draft by the Chicago Blackhawks, for whom he had a cup of coffee in the 2014-2015 (five games) and 2015-2016 (three games) seasons. He broke through with the Blackhawks in 2016-2017, going 19-12-31, plus-13 in 76 games. However, after going 8-17-25, plus-5, in Chicago through 57 games the following season, Hartman was traded to Nashville with a 2018 fifth round pick for Victor Edjsell, and first and fourth round picks in the 2018 draft. Just as he has in Philadelphia, he struggled some in Nashville after the late-season trade, going 3-3-6, minus-4, in 21 games. And now, he is trying to avoid repeating that history with the Flyers. Hartman is 1-3-4, even, in nine career games against Washington.
Hartman is skating for his third NHL team in 13 months. He was drafted 30th overall in the 2013 entry draft by the Chicago Blackhawks, for whom he had a cup of coffee in the 2014-2015 (five games) and 2015-2016 (three games) seasons. He broke through with the Blackhawks in 2016-2017, going 19-12-31, plus-13 in 76 games. However, after going 8-17-25, plus-5, in Chicago through 57 games the following season, Hartman was traded to Nashville with a 2018 fifth round pick for Victor Edjsell, and first and fourth round picks in the 2018 draft. Just as he has in Philadelphia, he struggled some in Nashville after the late-season trade, going 3-3-6, minus-4, in 21 games. And now, he is trying to avoid repeating that history with the Flyers. Hartman is 1-3-4, even, in nine career games against Washington.
1. The Flyers have
been one of those teams whose performance aligns with production on defense.
They rank 27th in scoring defense (3.30 goals against per game) and
rank 21st in shot attempts-for percentage at 5-on-5 (48.54).
2. It is hardly
surprising in that context that seven of the eight defensemen to dress for the
Flyers this season are at or below 50 percent in individual shot attempts-for
percentages at fives.
3. Only four teams
have allowed more goals at 5-on-5 than the Flyers (165): San Jose (166),
Chicago (172), New Jersey (173), and Ottawa (199).
4. The Flyers are 40-minute strugglers. They have a minus-19 goal differential in the
first periods of games and a minus-minus-9 goal differential in the middle
frame. They do have a plus-9 goal
differential in the third periods of games this season.
5. Philadelphia wins
close, but they lose big. Only five
teams have more one-goal wins than do the Flyers (17), but only four teams have
more three-goal losses than Philadelphia (18).
1. Even with the 2-1
loss to Minnesota on Friday night, the Caps have only five one-goal losses in
regulation this season. Only two teams
have fewer: San Jose (three) and Tampa Bay (two).
2. Only four teams
have had more power play chances on home ice than the Caps (126): Florida
(133), Colorado (135), Tampa Bay (136), and Nashville (136).
3. On the other side,
only Anaheim has been shorthanded more often on home ice (127) than the Caps
(124).
4. Washington has not
lost consecutive games on home ice since January 14th and 18th
against St. Louis and the New York Islanders.
5. The one goal that
the Caps scored against the Wild on Friday night was their lowest offensive output
on home ice and the first time they scored fewer than three goals since they
were shut out, 1-0, by Boston on February 3rd. The Caps had scored 40 goals over nine home
games until Friday.
The Peerless’ Players to Ponder
Philadelphia: Shayne Gostisbehere
In the Flyers’ 8-6-1 run of late, they do not have a single
point from a defenseman on the power play. Given that Shayne Gostisbehere averaged 2:58
with the man advantage, more than the combined power play ice time averages of
the other six defensemen to dress over that stretch (2:25), his performance
stands out. In fact, he has not had a
power play point since recording a pair of assists in a 5-4 win at Minnesota on
February 12th, his streak now at 17 games. There might be another number of more concern
for the Flyers: 20. It seems more ice
time is not better ice time for Gostisbehere and the Flyers. In the 38 games in which he skated at least
20 minutes this season, Philadelphia is 12-22-4, but they are 21-8-4 in the 33
games he skated less than 20 minutes. He
has been scoring points overall lately, going 2-15-17, plus-1, in his last 24
games, while averaging 18:46 in that span and logging more than 20 minutes 11 times
(the Flyers being 4-6-1 in those games).
Gostisbehere is 1-7-8, plus-3, in 14 career games against the Caps.
Washington: Alex Ovechkin
When Alex Ovechkin takes the ice on Sunday afternoon, it
will have been 40 days since his last goal on home ice. Not that the Caps have spent a lot of time at
home since Ovechkin had a goal in the Caps’ 6-4 win over the Los Angeles Kings
on February 11th, but it is six games and counting for Ovechkin
without a goal at home, tied with his longest streak of this season, one that
straddled the 2018 and 2019 portions of the season. In fact, that goal against the Kings is his
only goal on home ice since he had a hat trick against San Jose on January 22nd,
a span of 11 home games with that single goal.
He has mitigated that dry spell with a fair number of assists (11 in
those 11 games since facing the Sharks), but it is odd given that Ovechkin has
327 goals scored on home ice in his career. Only 17 players in the league have
more total goals scored than that home total since Ovechkin came into the
league in 2005-2006. If Ovechkin is going to break out, it could be against
this team. He has 34 career goals
against the Flyers, more than any player since he came into the league but one
(Sidney Crosby has 41 goals in 15 more games played against the Flyers than
Ovechkin). Overall, he is 34-24-58,
minus-6, in 52 games against Philadelphia.
In the end…
The Caps will start their Sunday in first place in the
Metropolitan Division, but pending the results for the New York Islanders in a
back-to-back set of games Saturday and Sunday, they might not finish the day in
first place. And, if the Penguins beat
Dallas on Saturday, the weekend could come to a close with the Islanders, Caps,
and Penguins separated by two standings points (in that order). Winning would take care of that scenario for
the Caps, who if they do beat the Flyers would hold, at worst, a one-point lead
on the Islanders and three on the Penguins with all three teams having six
games remaining. NASCAR should hope for
such finishes.
Capitals 5 – Flyers 3