A ONE Point Night: Washington Capitals -- Game 11: Golden Knights 3 - Capitals 2 (OT)

The Washington Capitals, fresh off a 2-1-1 road trip, returned home on Tuesday night to face the Vegas Golden Knights, who brought a four-game winning streak to Washington in the first of a five-game road trip of their own.  The Caps twice took a one-goal lead, but they wilted in the third period, allowing a late game-tying goal, then lost in overtime to the visitors, 3-2.

First Period…

Vegas had good chances early, but they went down a man when Brett Howden was sent off for slashing at 3:01 of the period.  The Caps made good on the opportunity, Marcus Johansson one-timed a pass by Dylan Strome from below the goal line, the puck deflecting off the stick of Vegas defenseman Alec Martinez and over the left pad of goalie Logan Thompson at the 3:39 mark.

Vegas dominated territory and possession thereafter, and then they got their first power play of the evening when Reilly Smith took a lofted pass behind the Caps’ defense and broke in on goalie Charlie Lindgren.  Smith ran out of room though and tried to control the puck as he approached the end boards, but a fast-closing Martin Fehervary ran over Smith from behind, sending Smith flying into the boards.  After a review by officials as to whether the ensuring penalty would be a two or a five-minute penalty, Fehervary went to the box with a two minute penalty for boarding at 16:17 of the period.  Coincidentally, Jonathan Marchessault was sent off for roughing to put the teams at 4-on-4 for two minutes.

The 4-on-4 expired, but Vegas went to a power play at 18:22 when Erik Gustafsson was penalized for holding.  Jack Eichel converted the power play when he circled through the right-wing circle and snapped a shot past Lindgren on the short side to make it 1-1, 18:55 into the period.  That would be how the period ended.

-- Vegas out-shot the Caps, 12-6, and out-attempted them, 23-17.

-- No Capital had more than one shot on goal in the period; Conor Sheary had three shot attempts.

-- The Caps out-hit the Golden Knights, 17-10, Alex Ovechkin and Garnet Hathaway with four apiece to lead the team.

-- Washington was charged with just one giveaway in the period (Marcus Johansson).

-- Erik Gustafsson led the team in ice time with 8:10; Beck Malenstyn had 3:42 but left the game after blocking a Nicolas Hague shot in the 13^th minute of the period.  He did not return in the period.

Second period…

The Caps wasted no time retaking the lead.  Barely a minute into the period, Trevor van Riemsdyk circled around the left-wing faceoff circle and wristed a laser that beat Thompson low to the glove side to make it 1-2, Caps, just 1:01 into the period.

The Caps followed up the goal by doing a much better job of limiting Vegas chances to establish flow or momentum than they did in the first period.  The Caps played a disciplined, focused game that looked like the sort one would see more of in a road game, and it was good enough to allow them to carry the 2-1 lead to the second intermission.

-- Washington out-shot Vegas, 11-9, in the period and out-attempted them, 25-17.

-- Conor Sheary led the Caps with three shots on goal through 40 minutes; his eight shot attempts also led the team.

-- The Caps had a 22-18 edge on faceoffs through two periods; Evgeny Kuznetsov was 5-for-7 (71.4 percent) to lead the team.

Third period…

The Caps went shorthanded in the second minute of the period when van Riemsdyk was whistled for tripping.  The Vegas power play lasted just 50 seconds when the Alex Pietrangelo was given the gate for holding.  The Caps went on an abbreviate power play when the 4-on-4 expired, and Alex Ovechkin had three good looks late in the power play, but no sale.  The score remained 2-1, Caps.

The Caps seemed content to get the puck our of danger and make the Golden Knights chase it down, and the lack of offensive pressure cost them.  William Carrier took a pass from William Karlsson as he was steaming into the offensive zone, and he fired a shot that ticked off the shaft of van Riemsdyk over the glove of Lindgren, and the game was tied, 2-2, 14:04 into the period.

The Caps skated the last five minutes desperately trying to hang on to force overtime, but they had a chance late.  Lars Eller and Garnet Hathaway buzzed the net, Eller tried to get off a shot that ended up rattling around at the top of the crease, but Garnet Hathaway was quick to poke the rebound into the net.  The trouble was that he did so just after the game clock went to zero, and the goal did not count.  The teams went to overtime.

Overtime…

Vegas won it when Jack Eichel put the puck on a string, maneuvered through the defense, and fed Shae Theodore, who snuck behind Alex Ovechkin, to chip a shot past Lindgren’s blocker for the game winner, 3-2.

Other stuff…

-- Vegas out-shot the Caps, 30-21, and out-attempted them, 63-54.

-- Conor Sheary and Dmitry Orlov led the team with three shots apiece; Sheary had nine shot attempts.

-- Alex Ovechkin shot in a bit of bad luck – eight shots attempts, one on goal (five blocked, two misses).

-- Lars Eller and Beck Malenstyn did not have a shot attempt, but Malenstyn missed the last two and a half periods with an injury.

-- Both teams were credited with 27 hits; Garnet Hathaway had eight for the Caps.

-- The Caps had a 33-25 edge in faceoff wins; three Caps were over 50 percent – Evgeny Kuznetsov (7-for-11/63.6 percent), Nic Dowd (10-for-16/62/5 percent), and Dylan Strome (10-for-18/55.6 percent).

-- Fourteen Capitals were credited with at least one blocked shot; four Caps had three – Nick Jensen, Nic Dowd, Matt Irwin, and Erik Gustafsson.

-- Dmitry Orlov led the team with 24:50 in ice time; other than Malenstyn, whose night was limited to 3:42 to injury, Aliaksei Protas had 10:43 in ice time.

-- The loss ended a three-game winning streak at home for the Caps, but the overtime extended their home points streak to four games.

-- Charlie Lindgren stopped 27 of 30 shots in his first home game as a Capital.  It was the third time in three games overall he allowed three goals.

In the end…

While the results in the back-to-back were the same, an extra time loss, this one felt more as if it was given away.  Sure, the Caps were likely fatigued from a second straight night of hockey and their third game in four nights, but they probably went to far back into a shell in the third period, especially in the last ten minutes.  Vegas is too good a team to let them control the puck and get looks in the offensive zone.  But it is a standings point banked nonetheless, and now the Caps will look to end their second two-game losing streak of the season when they visit Detroit on Thursday night.

The Peerless Prognosticator is ON THE AIR!!! -- Game 11: Golden Knights at Capitals, November 1

The Peerless Prognosticator is ON THE AIR!!!

The Washington Capitals return home from their four-game road trip to host the Vegas Golden Knights at Capital One Arena.  The Caps will be playing the back half of a back-to-back set of games after taking on the Carolina Hurricanes in Raleigh on Monday night.  Washington will be Vegas’ first stop on a five-game road trip after sweeping a two-game home stand with wins over Anaheim and Winnipeg.

Vegas carries an 8-2-0 record into this meeting, and their success is largely a product of stifling defense.  Their goaltending work as been of the platoon variety, Logan Thompson getting six starts so far and Adin Hill getting four.  Both have been sparkling in net.  Thompson is 4-2-0, 1.69, .943, with two shutouts; while Hill is 4-0-0, 1.72, .940.  The tandem ranks third and fifth, respectively, in goals against average (minimum: 200 minutes played), and fourth and fifth, respectively, in save percentage.  Thompson is the only goaltender in the league with more than one shutout through Sunday’s games.

Thompson’s success is a bit of a surprise.  The 25-year old was undrafted out of Canadian junior hockey (three seasons with the Brandon Wheat Kings of the Western Hockey League) and bounced around minor league hockey with stops in the ECHL with the Adirondack Thunder and South Carolina Stingrays, and stops in the AHL with the Hershey Bears (for whom he did not play), Binghamton Devils, and Henderson Silver Knights while getting one game with the Vegas Golden Knights in 2020-2021 after he signed a two-year entry-level contract in July 2020.  He appeared in 19 games last season and posted a record of 17-10-5, 2.68, .914, with one shutout.  He is 1-0-0, 2.86, .867, in his only career appearance against the Capitals.

Adin Hill has more experience than Thompson, but he has had difficulty finding a home. A third-round draft pick (76^th overall) of the Arizona Coyotes in the 2015 Entry Draft, he played for four seasons with the Coyotes without ever appearing in as many as 20 games in a season.  In July 2021 he was traded with a seventh-round draft pick in 2022 to the San Jose Sharks for a second-round draft pick in 2022. He played in a career high 25 games with the Sharks last season, going 10-11-1, 2.66, .906, with two shutouts, a record not impressive enough to keep him from being traded to Vegas for a fourth-round pick in the 2024 draft.  He has been consistent with the Golden Knights so far, allowing two goals in each of his first three appearances before holding Winnipeg to a single goal on 24 shots in his last outing, a 2-1 win on Sunday.  Hill is 0-2-0, 3.08, .875 in two career appearances against Washington.

Jack Eichel seems to have settled into his spot with the Golden Knights.  It was a rocky road for Eichel, a former second-overall draft pick who toiled for a Buffalo Sabres club that seemed to be making no progress toward competitiveness, who endured surgery and rehabilitation to address a spinal disc herniation, who grew increasingly unhappy with the direction his team was taking (and going public with it ), who was stripped of his captaincy after failing a physical and being placed on long-term injured reserve, who was then traded to Vegas, only to undergo another round of surgery before he finally took the ice with the Golden Knights last February.  He played in 34 games, going 14-11-25, plus-3, scoring at a pace consistent with that which he had with the Sabres in his best seasons there.  So far this season he is 4-6-10, plus-8, his ten points leading the team, and his plus-8 rating second on the club.  He does not yet have a power play goal, but his three power play points is tied for the team lead.  Eichel already has four multi-point games, although only one of them is on the road, that being in a 5-2 win over Seattle on October 15^th.  Eichel is 3-10-13, minus-6, in 17 career games against the Caps.

1.  Vegas has allowed only 12 5-on-5 goals in ten games.

2.  The Golden Knights’ first period goal differential of plus-10 (12 goals for, two against) is the largest in the league, by far (Boston: plus-7).

3.  Vegas scored first in seven of ten games so far, tied for most instances in the league.

4.  Twenty-one skater have played for Vegas so far.  Of that number, 19 have at least one point.  Only Jake Leschushyn (two games) and Ben Hutton (one game) are without one.

5.  Vegas wins blowouts.  They are 5-0-0 in games decided by two or more goals, but they are just 3-2-0 in one-goal games.

1.  Washington has wins in their last three home games and, after losing their first home game of the season, have a .750 home points percentage, tied for sixth best in the league.

2.  The Caps’ 3.75 goals per game on home ice is the sixth best scoring offense on home ice in the league.

3.  This game will complete the Caps’ second back-to-back set of games.  In their first, the first two games of the season, the Capitals lost to Boston and Toronto.

4.  The Caps have only one first period goal scored in four home games.  Only Carolina has fewer (none, pending the result between the Caps and the Hurricanes on Monday night in Carolina).

5.  Washington has not yet been out-shot on home ice.  They out-shot opponents three times (2-1-0 record) and were even in shots once (1-0-0).

The Peerless’ Players to Ponder

Vegas: Chandler Stephenson

Who would have thought it?  When Chandler Stephenson was a Capital, he was tucked away as a bottom six forward who, for whatever reason, was unable to generate much in terms of his own offense.  In 168 games with the Caps, he was 14-19-33, plus-2, averaging 11:40 in ice time per game.  He recorded only 95 shots on goal in those 168 games (0.57 shots per game) and never had more than six goals or more than 18 points in any of his four-plus seasons as a Capital.

And then he was traded to Vegas in December 2019 for a fifth-round pick in the 2021 Entry Draft (that pick was eventually turned into Michael Raffl, who played in ten games for the Caps).  Stephenson finished the 2019-2020 season going 8-14-22, plus-19, in 41 games, setting personal bests in goals, assists, and points with one franchise in half a season’s worth of games.  He has not slowed down.  In 187 games as a Golden Knight, Stephenson is 47-82-129, plus-52, with ten power play goals (he had none as a Capital), 12 power play assists (none as a Cap), and is averaging 18:09 in ice time per game as a top-six forward for Vegas.  He is already 4-4-8, plus-6, in ten games so far. He had a five-game points streak snapped in Vegas’ 2-1 loss to the Winnipeg Jets in their last contest.  Stephenson is 1-0-1, even, in three career games against Washington.

Washington: Evgeny Kuznetsov

After eight games last season, Evgeny Kuznetsov was 5-7-12, plus-6, and the Caps were rolling with a 5-0-3 record in those games.  This season, Kuznetsov is 0-5-5, plus-1, in eight games (he missed one game to a suspension).  The Caps are 5-3-0 in those eight games.  Would Kuznetsov have been worth three standings points to the Caps if his start resembled last season’s?  Perhaps.  But a slow start is hardly what this team needs with Nicklas Backstrom and Tom Wilson out since the season started, Connor Brown suffering an injury in his fourth game of the season that will keep him out for an extended period, and now T.J. Oshie out “indefinitely” with a lower-body injury.  With the Caps losing forwards with frightening regularity, getting Kuznetsov performing at a higher level is going to be critical for the Caps to sustain a playoff-eligible position in the standings, or at least stay close until their health improves.

Kuznetsov’s start has been disturbing in that October, even with this poor start, has been his best career month in goals per game (0.33), and it is the only month over his career in which he averaged more than a point per game (1.01).  November has been less productive, Kuznetsov averaging 0.22 goals per game and 0.84 points per game over his career.  It is hard to pinpoint what the problem or problems are, although his shooting frequency is down.  In eight games in October last season, he had five goals on 25 shots, one of those goals on a power play and another shorthanded.  In eight October games so far this season, he has no goals on 16 shots. It has not been a matter of reduced time on special teams, at least not a significant reduction.  Last year he averaged 3:44 in power play time for the season, and while his role has changed somewhat this season, he is still averaging 2:54 per game on power plays.  He started getting more shorthanded responsibility last season, averaging 1:07 in ice time per game when shorthanded, and his shorthanded ice time has actually gone up a tick this season (1:12).  Whatever the reason for the sluggish start, the Caps need to get Kuznetsov playing on a more customary level of production.  He is 3-7-10, plus-5, in seven career games against Vegas.

In the end…

Pending the results in Carolina, the Caps have a chance to get out of the back-to-back set of games with 14 points for the season and perhaps the Metropolitan Division lead.  That would be quite a feat and a very welcome development, since it would give the Caps some momentum heading into what should be, on paper, an easier end to the week on the schedule.

Capitals 4 – Golden Knights 2

 

The Peerless Prognosticator is ON THE AIR!!! -- Game 77: Capitals at Golden Knights, April 20th

The Peerless Prognosticator is ON THE AIR!!!

The Washington Capitals come off one of their best wins of the season when they visit the scene of their greatest achievement on Wednesday night.  The Caps will take the ice at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, where they won their first Stanley Cup in 2018, to face the Vegas Golden Knights, a team with its faces pressed to the window, looking in on the playoffs from outside as the regular season enters its final phase.

With five games remaining on their schedule, Vegas is three points behind the Los Angeles Kings for third place in the Pacific Division and four points behind the Dallas Stars for the second wild-card spot going into Tuesday’s games.  That the Golden Knights would be in a position to miss the postseason for the first time in their five-year history is a product of mediocre play over the last four months.  On December 19^th, Vegas won a fifth consecutive game to go 20-11-0.  Since then, however, they are 21-20-5, tied for 20^th in the league in points over that span (47, with Columbus) and 20^th in points percentage (.511).

Over those 46 games, only Jonathan Marchessault can be said to have stood out in terms of offensive production.  Playing in 45 of those 46 games, he is 15-28-43, plus-9.  That he would overachieve relative to his teammates over this span of games is just one more example of his being that overachiever.  Undrafted an amateur, his first pro contract was signed as a free agent in June 2011 with the AHL Connecticut Whale.  And all he did in his first season as a pro was tie for the lead in points for the Whale.  In July 2012 he signed as a free agent with the Columbus Blue Jackets.  He played two games for Columbus, then was part of a four-player deal, two on each side (the other three players are no longer in the NHL), in March 2014, in which he ended up with Tampa Bay.  Two seasons and 47 games with the Lightning, and it was on to the Florida Panthers as a free agent.  After one season with the Panthers, and despite posting 30 goals in 75 games, he was left unprotected in the expansion draft, and he was snapped up by the Golden Knights.

After 124 games over four seasons with three teams, Marchessault found a home.  In his fifth season with Vegas, he is the all-time franchise leader in games played (351), goals (121), assist (168), points (289), power play goals (24), power play points (69), game winning goals (22), on-ice goal differential at even strength (plus-79), and is tied for the lead in overtime goals (six, with Max Pacioretty).  With one more goal this season he will tie his personal best in goals and post his second career 30-goal season.  He already has a personal best in power play points (20).  Marchessault has been less efficient as a shooter on home ice (12 goals on 138 shots/8.7 percent) than he has on the road (17 goals on 100 shots/17.0 percent), but he has almost twice as many assists on home ice (23) than on the road (12).  He is 0-7-7, minus-2, in 13 career games against Washington.

When Jack Eichel was traded from the Buffalo Sabres with a third-round draft pick for a 2022 first-round draft pick (top-10 protected), a second-round draft pick, Peyton Krebs, and Alex Tuch, they took on a $10 million cap hit for the remainder of this season and for the next four years. It is the longer term in which Vegas might have been focusing, which is not to say Eichel, who missed large chunks of last year and this to a herniated disc injury, has been unproductive.  He is 12-9-21, plus-7, in 29 games since arriving in Las Vegas.  What he has been, though, is ineffective in terms of his production influencing results. Vegas is just 13-14-2 in the 29 games he has played to date for his new team.  They are 7-4-0 in those games in which he scored a goal and 10-6-2 in the 18 games in which he posted points.  Vegas is 3-8-0 when Eichel was held off the scoresheet, indicating some level of influence by his production but not enough to boost the Golden Knights’ record to a significant degree.  Eichel’s recent production does align better with wins and losses, though.  He recently has a nine-game run over which he was 7-3-10, plus-7, and the Knights were 7-1-1 in those games.

The relationship of his ice time and results has an odd quality to it, especially at the low end of the ice time scale.  In 12 games in which he posted at least 20 minutes in ice time, he had points in eight of them (6-3-9), but the Knights were just 5-6-1 in those 12 games and 3-4-1 in the eight games in which he had points.  At the other end, he skated less that 17:30 in six games so far with points in each of them (3-3-6), and Vegas is 5-0-1 in those contests.  Eichel is 3-10-13, minus-5, in 16 career games against the Caps.

Vegas has had goaltending issues over the last four months.  Three goalies have been used – Robin Lehner, Laurent Brossoit, and Logan Thompson – each of them getting more than a dozen starts.  This despite Lehner being the nominal number one goalie, although he lost 15 games over two separate stretches due to upper and lower body injuries, and another game for personal reasons.  Of 61 goalies with at least 500 minutes played since December 20^th, when Vegas’ slide into mediocrity began, Lehner ranks 13^th in goals against average (2.57) but only 24^th in save percentage (.909).  It is not as if he has been consistently sub-par.  Five time in 19 games he allowed more than three goals in a game, but 11 times in that span he allowed two or fewer.  He has been the beneficiary of low shot volumes, five times facing fewer than 25 shots and averaging only 28.2 shots faced per 60 minutes. 

Breaking down his games into three categories of shot volumes – 30+ shots, 25-29 shots, and fewer than 25 shots – Lehner’s sweet spot over his 19 games in this stretch seems to be in the 25-29 shots range in which his save percentage is .917 (five games).  When facing 30 or more shots it is .909 (nine games), and when facing fewer than 25 shots it is .892 (five games).  Odd Lehner fact… Vegas has had only nine goalies dress for them in their five-year history, but Lehner is the only one never to have made an appearance in relief of a starting goalie.  All of his 65 appearances to date with the Golden Knights have been starts.  Lehner is 3-3-1, 1.86, .939, with two shutouts in seven career appearances against the Caps.

1.  Has Vegas been mediocre over the last four months?  In the 21-20-5 stretch since then, they are scoring 2.91 goals per game and allowing 2.91 goals per game.

2.  Vegas has struggled on special teams in their 46 games since December 20^th.  Their power play (15.9 percent) ranks 27^th, their penalty kill (77.5 percent) ranks 21^st, and their special teams index (93.4; power play plus penalty kill percentages) ranks 25^th.

3.  Over this 46-game stretch, Vegas depends on blowing teams out, to a point.  They are 11-9 in games decided by three or more goals (.550 winning percentage), but they are just 7-6-5 in one-goal games (.389) and 3-5 in two-goal games (.375).

4.  Vegas has managed to score first in 25 of these 46 games, tied for ninth-most over this period. But they are just 17-6-2 in those games, their .680 winning percentage tied for 18^th.

5.  The Golden Knights have taken only 3.06 penalties per 60 minutes over their 46-game run, fourth lowest penalty rate in the league in that span.

1.  Washington is 15-5-1 since March 1^st, their .738 points percentage ranking third in the league, behind Florida (19-2-1/.886) and Colorado (16-5-2/.739).

2.  Over that 21-game span since March 1^st, the Caps are averaging 4.00 goals per game, the fourth-best scoring offense in that period.

3.  The Caps’ power play since March 1^st (29.4 percent) ranks fourth in the league over that period; their penalty kill (86.9 percent) ranks third; and their special teams index (116.3) ranks second, trailing only Colorado (117.2).

4.  Over those 21 games, the Caps have 35 third period goals scored, most in the league.

5.  The Caps have ten one-goal decisions over those 21 games, and their 8-1-1 record is second best in the league over that span by winning percentage (.800).  Only Florida has been better (8-0-1/.889).

The Peerless’ Players to Ponder

Vegas: Chandler Stephenson

What a difference setting makes.  In Chandler Stephenson’s five seasons with the Capitals, the team that drafted him in 2012 (third-round/77^th overall), posted 14 goals and 33 points in 168 games in primarily a bottom-six forward role.  He logged only 95 shots on goal in those 168 games (0.57 shots per game).  And then he was traded to Vegas for a fifth-round draft pick (that pick was sent to Philadelphia for Michael Raffl in a subsequent trade).  In 166 games with the Golden Knights, often in a top-six role, he has 40 goals and 115 points, and he has 250 shots on goal (1.51 per game), almost three times the shots per game rate he had as a Capital.  He is also averaging more than six minutes more in ice time per game (18:03 with Vegas compared to 11:40 per game with the Caps).

Stephenson is having a career year this season with 18 goals in 74 games (he had 14 in 51 games last season), 40 assists (21 last year), 58 points (35 last season), three power play goals (two last season), eight power play assists (three last year), 11 power play points (five last year), and 19:16 in average ice time (18:06 last season).  Vegas has done well when Stephenson has done well, going 12-6-0 when Stephenson scored a goal and 26-12-1 in the 39 games in which he recorded a point.  Ice time is an issue, though.  In the 16 games in which he skated at least 20:30, Vegas is 6-8-2.  At the other end, in 13 games when skating less than 17:30, the Golden Knights are 8-3-2.  Stephenson is without a point and has an even rating in two career games against Washington.

Washington: Nic Dowd

If the Capitals have the bet fourth line in the league, Nic Dowd has been an important element of it.  In 58 games this season he has ten goals, one short of his career best (11, set last season); 13 assists, three off his career high (16 in 2016-2017 with Los Angeles); 23 points (a new career high); plus-12 rating (also a new career high); 14:24 and in ice time per game (another new career high).  In what might not be unusual for a fourth liner from whom not a lot of offense is expected, when he does contribute, the Caps do well.  In ten games in which he has a goal, the Caps are 6-2-2, while the Caps are 11-4-2 in the 17 games in which he has a point.  And, n the 36 games in which he logged at least 14 minutes in ice time, Washington is 23-8-5.

Some odd Dowd facts… There have been seven games this season in which Dowd was not credited with a hit; the Caps are 5-2-0 in those games.  In 16 games in which Dowd has two or more blocked shots, the Caps are 11-2-3 (12-12-4 in 28 games in which he did not have a blocked shot).  The Caps are 5-7-2 in the 14 games in which he won less than 40 percent of his faceoffs; 6-3-1 when he won 70 percent or more of his draws.  Washington is 11-4-4 in the 19 games in which he won ten or more faceoffs, 3-5-2 when he won fewer than five faceoffs.  After going seven games without a point, Dowd is 2-4-6, plus-3, over his last six games.  He is without a point in eight career games against Vegas and has a minus-1 rating.

In the end…

The Caps do love the road.  They are 13-3-1 in their last 17 road games and outscored opponents by a 70-50 margin.  They will be taking on a team in desperate straits with regard to their playoff chances, but Vegas also has only one win in regulation in their last five home games (2-3-0, one of the wins coming in overtime).  Discipline versus desperation.  We will take the former.

Capitals 4 – Golden Knights 3