The Peerless Prognosticator is ON THE AIR!!!
The bleeding continues for the Washington Capitals, who head
to New Jersey on Saturday afternoon to face the Devils in a 1:00 pm start after
losing a third consecutive game on Thursday night, a 4-3 overtime decision to
the Montreal Canadiens at Capital One Arena.
The Devils will be trying to cobble together wins in consecutive games
after edging the San Jose Sharks, 2-1, on Thursday night.
Then and Now…
The Capitals and Devils will meet for the 218th
time in the all-time regular season series on Saturday afternoon. Washington has a 113-76-15 (13 ties) record
against the Devils, 47-46-7 (seven ties) in New Jersey. Since 2005-2006, the Caps are 31-17-11
against New Jersey, 14-10-4 in the Garden State. This game will complete the four-game season
series between the clubs, the Caps having won twice (6-3 in New Jersey on
December 20th and 5-2 in Washington on January 16th),
while the Devils have one win (5-1 in Washington on January 11th).
Active Leaders vs. Opponent…
Noteworthy Opponents…
The sell-off has begun for the New Jersey Devils with Monday’s
trading deadline approaching, long time defenseman Andy Greene sent to the New
York Islanders and Blake Coleman, who was in his fourth season with New Jersey,
sent to Tampa Bay. It would not be
surprising to see the Devils make more moves between now and 3:00 on Monday
afternoon, which would mean that the Devils’ last 20 games would be left in the
hands of what they hope will be a young core around which they can continue to
build.
No one is more important to that young core than the
youngest skater on the team, Jack Hughes, the number one overall pick in last
summer’s Entry Draft. Hughes has had a
good, if not outstanding rookie season so far.
His seven goals in 52 games ranks tied for 14th in this year’s
rookie class. His 13 assists are good
for a tie for 12th in that group, and his 20 points are tied for 11th. With 0.38 points per game, Hughes ranks 14th
among rookies appearing in at least 25 games.
One statistic he might not want to highlight is his minus-22, the price
a top rookie pays for playing a big role on a bad club. That minus-22 is tied for worst in this year’s
rookie class with the New York Rangers’ Kaapo Kakko, the second overall pick in
last summer’s draft.
Hughes has dealt with intermittent injuries this season, a
lower body injury that led him to miss three games in December and an upper
body injury resulting in a five-game absence in January. In 16 games since returning from the latest
injury, his production has waned – 1-3-4, minus-12, in 16 games. He has been shooting in some bad luck over
that stretch, posting just the single goal on 34 shots (2.9 percent
shooting). He goes into Saturday’s game
without a point in his last five games.
Hughes will be in search of his first career point against the Caps in
Saturday’s game, having gone without one in two games to date.
Then there are the pair of 21-year old “Jespers,” Boqvist
and Bratt. The former played 34 games
with the Devils, scoring four goals, before being sent down to Binghamton in
the AHL, a move that the team might have made sooner but for his contract situation. As for the latter, Jesper Bratt has dressed for 51 games this season, tying a
career high in his third NHL season after being drafted in the sixth round (162nd
overall) in the 2016 Entry Draft. Fun
Bratt Fact… no player taken later than the second round of the 2016 Entry Draft
has appeared in more NHL games to date than Bratt (176). Bratt ranks 11th in games played in his draft
class to date (176), seventh in career goals scored (33), and is eighth in
points (93). With 12 goals this season
he is within one of the career high of 13 he set as a rookie in 2017-2018. Not that his goal scoring has mattered a lot;
the Devils have been just good enough to lose in such instances, going 4-3-4 in
the 11 games in which Bratt has a goal.
It is not a lot better when he posts points generally, the Devils going
9-4-7 in the 20 games in which he recorded points.
Bratt has had a distinct home-road split in terms of production. In 26 games on home ice he is 10-9-19, plus-6,
while on the road he is just 2-4-6, minus-12.
He has been productive of late, botin 4-5-9, plus-2, in 11 games
overall. In eight career games against
the Caps, Bratt is without a point and has an even rating.
Miles Wood is a different kind of young player for the
Devils. Now in his fifth season with the
club, the 24-year old Wood has compiled more penalty minutes in his first five
seasons with the Devils (312) than any player since David Clarkson logged 554
penalty minutes in his first five seasons, from 2006-2007 through
2010-2011. Wood’s five-year offensive
production to date (47-46-93 in 260 games) also resembles Clarkson’s (52-48-100
in 298 games) and can resemble it more closely with 22 games remaining in the
Devils’ season.
Wood has become, if not a prolific scorer, then a consistent
one. He has ten goals this season,
matching his total from last year and is his third straight season in double
digits (he had 13 in 2017-2018). With 20
points this season, he seems likely to top last year’s 24 points, although
reaching his career high of 32 points in 2017-2018 seems a stretch. And, while his penalty minutes have been
significant in the historical context of the franchise, they are down this year
from 91 in 63 games last year to 51 minutes in 60 games to date this season,
the first time in four full seasons that he has been under a penalty minute per
game. Keeping those penalty minutes to a
minimum does not seem to have mattered much in the broader scheme of things, the
Devils going 7-9-3 in the 19 games in which he served penalty box time, 16-18-7
in games where he spent no time in the penalty box. Wood, who is without a goal in his last seven
games and without a point in his last four, is 4-1-5, minus-6, in 13 career
games against the Caps.
1. New Jersey is the
only team in the league with at least ten wins, at least ten losses in
regulation, and at least ten losses in extra time on home ice (11-10-10).
2. Only Edmonton has
allowed more shorthanded goals on home ice (six) than the Devils (five, tied with
Detroit, Montreal, and Toronto).
3. The Devils finish
games poorly on home ice. Their minus-16
goal differential in third periods at home (26 for, 42 against) is second-worst
in the league (San Jose: minus-19).
4. No team has fewer
wins when scoring first at home than the Devils (three), and their winning
percentage (3-5-8/.188) is worst in the league by almost 250 percentage points
(Detroit: 5-6-1/.417).
5. New Jersey has the
worst shot attempts-for percentage at 5-on-5 on home ice in the league (46.3
percent).
1. Since December 23rd,
the Caps are 11-11-1. Only seven teams
have fewer standings points in that span, and the .500 points percentage is
tied for 21st in the league with San Jose.
2. Over that 23-game
span, the Caps have the third-worst scoring defense in the league (3.48 goals
against per game).
3. Over that same
span of games, the Caps net power play (accounting for shorthanded goals
against) is third-worst in the league (10.7 percent).
4. In the “attention to detail” department, the Caps have
the second-worst faceoff percentage (46.4 percent) in the league over their
23-game slide, the New York Rangers worse (46.4 percent) without rounding.
5. Scoring first is a
very good indicator of who wins and who loses.
That the Caps are 11-11-1 over their last 23 games despite being tied
for last in the league in games in which they scored first (eight, with
Dallas), might be encouraging.
The Peerless’ Players to Ponder
New Jersey: Wayne Simmonds
By the time you read this, or perhaps by the time these
teams take the ice, Wayne Simmonds’ brief stay in New Jersey might be
over. Vancouver is said to be interested
in the veteran forward.
Perhaps the Penguins are as well.
Small wonder. Simmonds is precisely the
sort of asset teams looking to the playoffs might be interested in. He is in his 12th NHL season with
more than 900 regular season games (901) on his resume, so he checks the
experience box. He has appeared in 44
postseason games in his career, so he checks that box. He brings a certain physicality and orneriness
(21st among active players in credited hits (1,642), sixth among
active players in penalty minutes (1,121)) that teams seem to crave. He is an unrestricted free agent on a $5
million expiring contract, so the risk is low.
On the other hand, his production is in decline. After posting 31 goals in 82 games in
2016-2017 with the Philadelphia Flyers, he dropped to 24 goals with the Flyers
the following season, fell to 17 goals in a 2018-2019 season split between
Philadelphia and Nashville, and again to seven goals in 60 games so far this
season (a ten-goal pace). He has a total
of eight goals in his last 87 games played dating back to last February with
the Flyers, and he has just three in his most recent 41 games this season with
New Jersey. It is as if his offensive
game is drying up in pieces; he posted no shots on goal in five of his last
nine games, despite averaging 15:34 in ice time per game. In 36 career games against the Capitals,
Simmonds is 10-11-21, even.
Washington: Ilya Samsonov
With the Capitals playing back-to-back afternoon games this
weekend, it would be reasonable to expect that they split the goaltending
duties between Braden Holtby and Ilya Samsonov.
The two goaltenders have had their performance trends reverse of late,
Holtby playing better over his last five appearances (125 saves on 136
shots/.919 save percentage) than he did over his previous 11 appearances (229
saves on 272 shots/.842), while Samsonov has stumbled of late, stopping 70 of
82 shots over his last four appearances (.854) after an impressive
11-appearance run (253 saves on 269 shots/.941, with a shutout).
That .854 save percentage over his last four appearances is
fourth-worst among the 65 goalies to dress over that span, and his even
strength save percentage (.851) is lower than every goalie in the league except
the Islanders’ Thomas Greiss (.848).
And, despite winning all four of his decisions in his last five road
games (one no-decision), Samsonov carries a .907 save percentage in his last five road appearances
going into this game. Samsonov faced the
Devils twice so far in his rookie season, earning wins in both games with a
2.50 goals against average and .918 save percentage.
In the end…
The Capitals are in a bad place right now, and it is
tempting to think, while in the middle of the misfortune, that the team is
headed for failure. That might be true,
but consider these two teams…
Team 1:
- Record: 9-9-4
- 1-goal games: 3-3-4
- 2-goal games: 3-2
- 3-goal games: 3-4
- Scoring offense: 2.91/game
- Scoring defense: 3.32/game
- Power play: 27.1%
- Penalty kill: 80.6%
- SAT%: 47.1
Team 2:
- Record: 11-11-1
- 1-goal games: 4-5-1
- 2-goal games: 5-3
- 3-goal games: 3-4
- Scoring offense: 3.35/game
- Scoring defense: 3.48/game
- Power play: 19.1%
- Penalty kill: 80.8%
- SAT%: 53.2
Team 1 is the 2017-2018 version of the Caps in Games 46-67
of the regular season, while Team 2 is the team that will take the ice Saturday
against the Devils over Games 38-60. The
point is that the current slump might be a reflection of a team with deeper
problems than a mere slump, but it also might be a reflection that good teams go
through slumps. Even teams that end up
winning championships. It would be nice
if the Caps started playing more like potential champions, starting with this
game.
Capitals 4 – Devils 3
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