Monday, March 14, 2022

The Peerless Prognosticator is ON THE AIR!!! -- Game 61: Islanders at Capitals, March 15th

The Peerless Prognosticator is ON THE AIR!!!

After a successful trip to western Canada on which the Washington Capitals went 2-0-1, they return to Capital One Arena for a short, one-game stay, hosting the New York Islanders on Tuesday night.  The Caps head into this contest on a five game points streak (4-0-1) and a two-game winning streak at home, the first time they posted consecutive wins at Capital One Arena since mid-January, when they posted consecutive overtime wins against the Winnipeg Jets and Ottawa Senators.  The last time they posted consecutive wins in regulation was when they won four straight in November. 

The Islanders take to the road after winning three in a row at UBS Arena, outscoring Columbus, Winnipeg, and Anaheim by a 15-5 margin.  What they have not been is a successful team on the road, though.  Their 10-12-4 road record ranks 24th in the league in points earned (24) and their .462 points percentage ranks 22nd.  Their longest road winning streak this season is two (three times), only one of which has come since opening November with a pair of road wins.

New York is not a very formidable offensive team on the road, averaging 2.69 goals per game, 23rd in the league in scoring offense on the road.  Two Islanders have posted ten goals in road games to date – Anders Lee and Brock Nelson with ten apiece.  Lee was limited to 27 games last season as a result of a torn ACL.  Although one can never minimize such an injury, Lee seems to have treated it as a speed bump in his career progress.  Before his season ended prematurely last year, Lee posted four straight seasons with at least 20 goals, including a high of 40 goals in 82 games in 2017-2018.  Even last year he was on a pace to finish with 36 goals before injury struck.  With 21 goals in 50 games this season, he is on a pace to finish with 32 goals, which would be the second-highest total of his career.

Lee has been a consistent scorer in his home and road splits, posting 11 goals in 25 home games and the ten referenced above in 25 road games.  But the balance seems to be frayed in his recent performance.  While Lee has seven goals in his last four home games, he has two in his last eight road games.  The good news about that for Islander fans is that those four home games are the last four games he played.  But while Lee has been productive in goal scoring, it has not translated into wins.  The Isles are just 9-7-0 in the 16 games in which Lee recorded at least one goal.  Lee does seem poised, however, to jump into the top ten in all-time goal scoring for the Islanders.  He enters this game with 205 goals and needs seven more to pass Derek King for tenth place in team history.  Lee is 8-5-13, minus-10, in 29 career games against the Caps.

Brock Nelson has been another consistent goal scorer for the Islanders, he and Lee complementing one another very well.  He has six 20-plus goal seasons in his last eight and certainly would have had a seventh last season if not for the abbreviated schedule (he had 18 goals in 56 games).  He has already passed the 20-goal mark this season with 23 in 47 games. Nelson has been streaky of late.  Over his last 13 games he has a pair of four-game goal streaks, this after posting goals in consecutive games only once this year and that being back at the start of November when he followed up a four-goal performance against Montreal with a goal in his next game, against Winnipeg.

Nelson is 13th in all-time goal scoring for the Isles, one spot behind teammate Anders Lee.  With 195 goals in his career with New York, he could become the 13th player in team history to reach the 200-goal mark with the club.  He could climb into the to-15 in team history in points by year’s end, the 362 points he has to date being only seven behind Stefan Persson in 15th place.  His next game-winning goal will be his 30th with the club, the 12th player in team history to reach that mark, and his next overtime goal will be his seventh with the team, breaking a tie with Josh Bailey and Kyle Okposo for second place on the team’s all-time list.  Nelson is 10-9-19, minus-5, in 37 career games against Washington.

In as storied a franchise as the Islanders, it might seem a bit surprising that a career fourth-liner is closing in on getting into the top-ten in games played in team history.  Meet Matt Martin, who with 659 games played for the Islanders, could pass John Tavares (669 games) this season to take over tenth place.  Perhaps the odd part of his longevity is that, as one expects from primarily a fourth-liner, he has done it while compiling rather low ice time totals (an average of 11:21 per game as an Islander).  What he is not getting this season, though, is a sweater on a regular basis.  He is said to be dealing with an injury all season, limiting his participation to only 45 of 56 games this season.  He could end up playing in the fewest games in eight full seasons as an Islander (not including abbreviated seasons).

Injury or not, Martin, even by fourth-line standards, is not the player at this point in his career that he was earlier.  Perhaps the price for being a physical player with an edge.  Over his first seven NHL seasons (all with the Islanders) he was 42-46-88 in 438 games and posted double digits in points six times.  However, in his last six seasons, including two with the Toronto Maple Leafs, he is 27-31-58 in 353 games and posted double digits in points only three times (he appears unlikely to do it this season with a scoring line of 2-2-4 in 45 games).  Martin is 3-2-5, minus-6, in 43 career games against the Caps.


1.  Only two teams in the league have scored three or more goals fewer times on the road than the Islanders (13) – Arizona (12) and Philadelphia (nine).

2.  Fourteen players in the league have recorded at shooting percentage of 19.0 percent or better while posting at least 100 shots.  The Islanders are one of two teams with two players on that list – Brock Nelson (20.2 percent/sixth) and Anders Lee (19.1 percent/13th).  Nashville is the other (Filip Forsberg – 22.5 percent/first, and Matt Duchene – 19.5 percent/11th).

3.  The Islanders do not close out games well on the road.  The 20 third period goals they have are third-fewest in the league; their minus-12 third period goal differential ranks 25th in the league.

4.  New York does a poor job generating power play chances on the road; their 2.31 power play opportunities per game is second-lowest in the league (Anaheim: 2.29); they do a much better job avoiding shorthanded situations faced, their 2.73 shorthanded situations per game being fifth-fewest in the league.

5.  One-goal games on the road have not been kind to the Islanders.  They have only six such decisions I 26 road games, but they are 1-1-4, their .167 winning percentage being next to last in the league (St. Louis: .125).

1.  Washington is 10-3-1 when leading games after one period on home ice, and while a .714 winning percentage looks good, only six teams have worse winning percentages when leading after 20 minutes.

2.  The same goes for leading after two periods at home.  They are 9-1-2 when leading after two periods at home, but he .750 winning percentage is better than only three other teams.

3.  No team in the league has more shorthanded goals on home ice than Washington (six); on the other hand, only Pittsburgh has allowed more shorthanded goals on home ice (six) than the Caps (five).

4.  Only three teams have fewer wins when trailing first on home ice than the Caps (three).

5.  The Caps are 4-4-5 in one-goal games on home ice, their .308 winning percentage ranking 30th in the league.

The Peerless’ Players to Ponder

New York: Adam Pelech

Plus-minus is a statistic that has fallen out of favor, but sometimes it can be relevant in odd ways.  Consider the Islanders.  Only one player this season has a plus-minus rating higher than plus-5.  That would be Adam Pelech, who carries a plus-21 rating in 52 games.  Plus-minus has more or less been his thing in the last four seasons with the Isles.  His plus-62 over those four years is 21 points better than Ryan Pulock in 13 fewer games for New York (224 to 237).  Small wonder that his even strength goal differential of plus-54 over those four years is 12 goals better than Pulock, not to mention that his plus-18 is three times better than Noah Dobson (plus-6) this season.  In 52 games this season he was a minus player only ten times, and only 11 times did he have a negative goal differential at even strength.

But what borders on the bizarre about Pelech’s plus-minus and even strength goal differential is that while he does not drive offense himself to an extraordinary degree (he is 3-15-18 at even strength this season), he has been on ice for more goals at evens than any Islander skater (49, seven more than Dobson).  He has been on ice for more shot attempts at 5-on-5 than any Islander skater (806), but he has also been on ice for 804 shot attempts against at even strength (third-most on the team).  And what adds a layer of odd to his performance, that plus-2 in shot attempts for and against at evens is, again, best on the team, but hardly impressive on its own (no other Islander appearing in at least 20 games is better than minus-11, and only one is better than minus-21).  While Pelech is 1-6-7 in his last 11 home games, he has just one point (a goal) in his last eight road contests.  He is 1-3-4, plus-1, in 20 career games against the Caps.

Washington: Connor McMichael

It has not been long since we looked at Connor McMichael in this space, but recent events merit another look.  Lars Eller has been placed in COVID protocol for a second time this season – he missed six games in November – and it could afford a player such as McMichael a chance to take on some more responsibility and get a boost in ice time.  In that area, it has been a frustrating year for the rookie.  In 55 games he logged less than ten minutes 19 times.  But he is getting more ice time lately.  He skated more then ten minutes in each of his last four games, his longest streak of ten-plus minute games since he put together five straight games in late-November/early-December.  Has that ice time mattered a lot in terms of his performance or the team’s?  McMichael is 4-7-11 (0.31 points per game), minus-1, in the 36 games in which he skated at least ten minutes, and the Caps were 20-9-7 in those games (.653 points percentage).  In the 19 games in which he skated less than ten minutes, he was 3-1-4 (0.21 points per game), minus-3, and the Caps were 11-6-2 (.632 points percentage).  His performance was off in low ice time games, but the team did not seem to suffer a lot for it.

The opportunity, to the extent it presents itself, could not come at a better time for McMichael, who has struggled lately.  He is without a point in his last 11 games and is a minus-5 while averaging just over ten minutes per game.  One hopes that with more ice time and more responsibility, he might improve on his performance, especially since he was 2-3-5, plus-3, in eight games preceding that slump, all while averaging less than eight minutes per game.  McMichael is without a point and has an even rating in his only previous appearance against the Islanders.

In the end…

The Islanders have had a strange journey on the road this season.  They opened their season with 13 road games waiting for their new arena to be ready for occupancy, going 5-6-2.  Since then, with a more conventional distribution of road games, they are, yes, 5-6-2.  But this is a team that has been quite porous on the road of late, allowing four or more goals in four of their last seven road games.  Make it five of eight.

Capitals 4 – Islanders 2