Washington Capitals vs. Pittsburgh Penguins: The Cousins Sittin' On The Porch Looking Back at Game 4

“Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more;

Or close the wall up with our English dead.

In peace there's nothing so becomes a man

As modest stillness and humility:

But when the blast of war blows in our ears,

Then imitate the action of the tiger;

Stiffen the sinews, summon up the blood,

Disguise fair nature with hard-favour'd rage…”

So said King Henry in “Henry V,” by William Shakespeare.  And once more, the Washington Capitals find themselves in the breach, pushed to the edge of an early off-season after their 3-2 loss to the Pittsburgh Penguins on Wednesday night.  The cousins are of different minds when it comes to Shakespeare, but are they of the same mind about last night’s game?

Cheerless… I hear you can get some pretty good deals on golf balls this time of year.  I should ask Caps players.  They know a lot about early-bird golf sales, I imagine.

Fearless… Not so fast, Gloomy Gus.  The Caps have outshot the Penguins, 142-93 in this series, have a 21.4 percent power play, an 86.7 percent penalty kill, have an overall shot attempt share of 65.23 percent, and have 72 offensive zone faceoffs to 42 for the Penguins.  By any reasonable measure, the Caps have dominated this series.

Cheerless… except for that goals thing and the wins thing.

*****

Fearless… OK, since 2009, four 3-1 series leads, lost two of them…

Cheerless… This isn’t the time to bring up the Caps’ record in series when they had 3-1 leads.

Fearless… I wasn’t doing anything of the sort.  That’s the Penguins’ record.  Heavens, they had a 3-1 lead over the Caps last season and were an overtime goal in Game 6 from heading to a seventh game in Washington.

Cheerless… In the Ovechkin era, the Caps are 2-5 in series in which they lost Game 4.  All of those games were on the road.

Fearless… The Caps are 5-3 in series in the Ovechkin era when they win Game 5.

*****

Fearless… When the league went to a two-referee system, the thought was that having an extra pair of eyes watching a game that was only getting faster had to be a good thing.  Looking at the calls against John Carlson and T.J. Oshie last night, one wonders about that sentiment.  Scott Wilson flopped like a flounder at the Seattle Fish Market to draw a “roughing” penalty on John Carlson, and T.J. Oshie’s alleged “high stick,” earning him a trip to the penalty box, never touched Nick Bonino’s face. 

Cheerless… Ahh…”bad zebras,” that’s what teams that lose always say.

Feerless… There have been 38 games in this postseason decided by one goal so far, including both games last night.  Any single call by a referee, especially one with less than two minutes to play (that ended up being a “phantom” penalty) takes on added significance.  We don’t advocate the “let them play” dictum, but maybe some officials are assuming a foul when one does not exist.  Even former official Kerry Fraser wondered about the Oshie call…

*****

Fearless… The Caps have the seventh-best Corsi-for at 5-on-5 of any team in any postseason since 2008 (57.38; numbers from Corsica.hockey).

Cheerless… Know how many of the other six ahead of them got to a Stanley Cup final?  One…Detroit won it in 2008; they have the third best postseason Corsi-for (60.38).

*****

Cheerless… So, about that bottom six.  They sure are putting the “bottom” in that term.  The seven players to occupy this six slots – Lars Eller, Andre Burakovsky, Tom Wilson, Daniel Winnik, Jay Beagle, Paul Carey, and Brett Connolly – have a grand total of one point in this series.  One stinking point (Eller, an assist).  Among them, they are shooting 0-for-31. Burakovsky has twice as many missed shots (10) as the next highest Cap (Ovechkin with five).

Fearless... Five of those players (Burakovsky, Eller, Wilson, Connolly, and Carey) have overall shot attempt shares of 70 percent or better.  Beagle is the only one under 50 percent (42.59).  That's not "tiliting the ice," it's taking it up in one sheet and depositing it in the offensive zone.

*****

Peerless… So here we are, right back where we were at this time last season, a 3-2 loss to the Penguins in Pittsburgh in Game 4 (that game went to overtime), taking a 1-3 deficit in games back with them to Verizon Center for the springtime “must-win” game.  Makes this team little different than its immediate predecessor and not much, if at all different from any of its predecessors in this era. 

A loss at home in Game 5 would arguably be the worst loss in the history of the franchise.  More than Game 7 in 2010, perhaps more than a potential Game 7 in this series (from which one could argue that the Caps fought back to make such a game possible).  To lose to a team in five games that lacks its number one goaltender and number one defenseman for the entirety of the series, and its best skater – the best player on the planet – for half of his team’s wins in the series would be an unvarnished disaster for this franchise.  There would be no argument one could make that the season was successful (who remembers who won the President's Trophy in 2015?).  For more than the players and coaches, Game 5 is a must-win game.  A win might be the only thing keeping the franchise from being a punch line for years to come.

Eastern Conference Semifinals Game 4: Pittsburgh Penguins 3 - Washington Capitals 2

The Washington Capitals were pushed to the brink of another early playoff exit on Wednesday night, falling to the Pittsburgh Penguins, 3-2, in Game 4 of their Eastern Conference semifinal series.  The win gives the Penguins a 3-1 lead in the series.

It was a completely “Capitals” sort of postseason loss, falling behind by a pair of goals before the game was 24 minutes old, striking back to tie the game with goals just over a minute apart, then allowing the game-winner on a power play to set aside all the hard work they did to get back into the contest.

Patric Hornqvist opened the scoring for the Penguins early in the first period, taking a lead pass from Olli Maatta just outside the Caps’ blue line, cutting between Brooks Orpik and Karl Alzner, and breaking in alone on goalie Braden Holtby, beating him on the short side at the 4:39 mark to make it 1-0, Pens.

That score held up for almost 20 minutes, into the early moments of the second period, when Jake Guentzel gave the Penguins a 2-0 lead.  It was one more “Capitals” moment in a franchise history chock full of them.  Guentzel took a pass off the wall from Maatta and from the far side of the left wing circle threw the puck in front.  Caps defenseman Dmitry Orlov had his stick perfectly place to redirect the puck past his own goaltender 3:51 into the period to make it a 2-0 game.

Washington started its comeback less than four minutes later.  Marcus Johansson and Justin Williams teamed to pry the puck from along the left wing wall, Williams sliding it free to Evgeny Kuznetsov gliding into the left wing circle.  Kuznetsov stepped up and snapped a shot that beat goalie Marc-Andre Fleury on the blocker side to make it 2-1, 7:21 into the second period.

Nate Schmidt got the Caps even with his first goal of the postseason 72 seconds later.  Kevin Shattenkirk’s attempted slap-pass to T.J. Oshie went awry and skidded into the left wing corner where he took an odd rebound off the boards.  The puck came back out to the circle where Schmidt leaned into a one-timer that slithered through Fleury at the 8:33 mark to tie the game.

Two minutes later, the Caps planted the seed of their loss.  John Carlson was sent to the penalty box at the 10:45 mark for roughing Scott Wilson, and the Penguins converted their opportunity.  Justin Schultz one-timed a pass from Evgeni Malkin past Holtby, and it was the difference. Marc-Andre Fleury stopped all nine third period shots he faced, and the Pens held on to push the Caps to the edge of the postseason cliff once more.

Other stuff…

-- In a game of this importance, your best player can’t take as many penalties as he had shots on goal, but that’s what Alex Ovechkin did in this game.  Two minor penalties, two shots on goal.  Sure, he had six hits, but that’s not how they keep score.

-- And it was not any better for Nicklas Backstrom.  No shots on goal, two attempts, minus-1, in 20 minutes of ice time.  It was part of a top line effort that generated a total of three even-strength shots on goal (Ovechkin had one; T.J. Oshie had two).

-- The mysterious misfortune of Andre Burakovsky continues.  He has no goals on 19 shots in ten postseason games after going 0-for-3 last night.  He is not in Alexander Semin territory for frustration (Semin was 0-for-44 in seven games in the 2010 postseason), but it is one of the big holes that has not been filled in this postseason for the Caps and especially in this series.

-- Evgeny Kuznetsov had a goal, his fourth in ten postseason games and third in this series.  His six shots led the team.  But 3-for-16 on faceoffs?  Woof.

-- The Caps are 1-5 in the postseason when allowing three or more goals.  They allowed three goals in this game.

-- Pittsburgh, the smaller team, was credited with 40 hits spread among 15 of 18 skaters.  Maybe it was a home-scoring thing, but maybe it was an indication of which team had more determination.

-- According to scoutingtherefs.com, 44 percent of the penalties referee Kelly Sutherland called this postseason came in the third period.   It was perhaps no surprise, then, that the Caps were whistled for three minor penalties in the third period.

-- Matt Niskanen had one hit in 24:53 of ice time, so there was that. Oh, and he was on the ice for the game-winning goal, so Pens fans are probably thrilled.

-- Of 16 goalies with at least 100 minutes played in this postseason, Braden Holtby now ranks 13^th in save percentage (.909).  He’s faced two of the best scoring offenses in the league in Toronto and Pittsburgh, but he has yet to really “steal” a game, certainly in this series.

-- The Caps out-shot the Pens, 38-18.  They out-shot them, 31-15, at even strength.  They out-attempted them, 72-38, overall.  They out-attempted them, 57-28, at 5-on-5.  Same story…same result.

In the end…

You just have the feeling that the Caps don’t have an answer for this team in any of its incarnations.  The Caps have dominated possession in just about every period of this series, and yet they have just nine goals and three losses in four games to show for it.  Marc-Andre Fleury looks poised to take his place among John Vanbiesbrouck, Kelly Hrudey, Johan Hedberg, and Jaroslav Halak as the “hot goalie” who did in the Caps.

The Capitals are at that point where the season will end in one of two,  and only two ways – their most glorious season, punctuated by the most dramatic comeback in team postseason history, or their most disappointing one, a season in which their “best ever” team was revealed to be no different than any that preceded it.  Stay tuned.  It’s not over yet.

Washington Capitals vs. Pittsburgh Penguins: The Cousins Sittin' On The Porch Looking Back at Game 3

The Washington Capitals came back from the dead last night, crawled back into the coffin in the last two minutes, and then sprung back to, if not full vim and vigor, into a more or less upright position with their 3-2 overtime win over the Pittsburgh Penguins in Game 3 of their Eastern Conference semifinal series.  It was your standard 60 minutes of regulation with a short, by NHL postseason standards, overtime, but it was as if the teams put on a production of “The Ring of the Niebelung” in Pittsburgh.  The cousins found it an interesting game, to say the least…

Fearless… OK, let’s get right to it.  Dirty or not?

Cheerless… Kunitz should be kicked out of the country for that hit on T.J. Oshie.

Fearless… Funny.  Of course, we mean the attempted assassination of Sidney Crosby by Alex Ovechkin and Matt Niskanen with the game barely five minutes old.  First, Ovechkin clocks Crosby in side of the head, dulling his senses, then he slewfoots Crosby, kicking out his left foot to put him off-balance as he heads through the low slot.  Then, in the coup-de-grace, Matt Niskanen, encamped on the grassy knoll of the right wing faceoff circle, cross checked him in the face, snapping Crosby’s head back, and to the left…back, and to the left…back, and to the left…

Cheerless… I ain’t the sharpest knife in the chandelier, but from the time Crosby came across the blue line to when he collided with Niskanen, it was about four seconds.  Hockey is a fast game.  Do you think Alex Ovechkin told himself… “I must break him,” circled in behind him, recollected that Crosby had a history of concussion issues and thought, “hey, if I whack his head, maybe I turn his brains into pirozhki,” whacked him, then slewfooted him on purpose, knowing Matt Niskanen was 20 feet away looking to deliver the kill shot… all in four seconds?  Who are you, Rob Rossi? 

*****

Cheerless… Back to the actual game, what is with this team and horking up leads?  Last night was the fifth time in nine games in the postseason that the Caps had a lead and lost it.  They are 3-2 in those games, but really…stop doing that!

Fearless… It is part of a bigger problem.  Only the Ottawa Senators have allowed more second period goals (12) than the Caps (11), and no team has allowed more third period goals than Washington (9).  Shoot, no team at all has allowed more goals than the Caps (27), period.  They have more overtime goals scored than any team in the playoffs so far (four), but that’s in no small part a product of losing leads.  The Caps have a fine plus-4 goal differential in the first periods of games so far, but they have a minus-five in the second periods and a minus-3 in the third periods of games.  If they don’t end that nonsense, start thinking about tee times.

*****

Fearless… This was just the third time in ten tries against the Penguins that the Caps won a Game 3 and the first time they did it since 1995.  The only time they beat the Pens in a series was when they won a Game 3 on their way to the win.  It was the first time in six tries that they won a Game 3 in Pittsburgh. 

Cheerless… Yeah, how ‘bout that?  Since Ovechkin has been in the league the Caps are 2-2 in series in which they win Game 3.  Let’s not read too much into that, okay?  Game 4 doesn’t seem to matter much, either.  The Caps are 4-3 when winning Game 4 in those same years (including a series win against Toronto this year).

*****

Cheerless… Three games in this series, the third and fourth lines have a total of one point.  And even that one – an assist by Lars Eller – was recorded skating with Alex Ovechkin and T.J. Oshie (Ovechkin got the goal).  Last year against the Pens, the Caps third and fourth lines recorded four points by four different players in six games (Jay Beagle and Andre Burakovsky had goals, Tom Wilson and Jason Chimera had assists). Haven’t we seen this movie?  Are we expecting it to end any different if it’s just a remake of the same movie?

Fearless… The Eller-Wilson-Burakovsky line is a 72.73 Corsi-for at 5-on-5 in the postseason.  Of 167 forwards having skated at least 50 5-on-5 minutes, Burakovsky has the best individual Corsi-for at fives in the league (66.01).  Wilson is tenth (60.48), and Eller is 12^th (60.00; numbers from Corsica.hockey).  Either these guys just forgot how to get puck to and into the net, or they have had the worst luck imaginable from a fancystats perspective.

*****

Fearless… Talk about worst luck imaginable.  The Caps have a two-goal lead late, and the Pens get one on a shot from Evgeni Malkin that looked to nick the heel of Karl Alzner’s skate, altering the trajectory of the puck upward enough to clear Braden Holtby’s left pad, then they get another when a shot hit T.J. Oshie and changed direction past Holtby.  But he was solid before that and sucked it up after for his best performance of the series and one of, if not his best of the entire postseason to date.  Just in time, I’d say.

Cheerless… In nine games so far, Holtby has allowed fewer than three goals in consecutive games just once (Games 5 and 6 against Toronto, in which he allowed one goal in each).  Let’s not get ahead of ourselves and pronounce him “cured” of whatever yips he had.

*****

Peerless… The dominant story over the next two days is going to be the health of Sidney Crosby and the likelihood of his return for Game 4, or perhaps even the series.  There are a lot of ways this can play out in terms of whether his absence advantages the Penguins (steely team resolve, Malkin doing well over his career in Crosby’s absence) or the Capitals (not having to face the game’s best player in addition to the absence of Pittsburgh’s best defender in Kris Letang and their number one goalie, Matt Murray).

The way we see this is a situation that provides the Caps with another opportunity to demonstrate the difference between this team and its predecessors.  They have to be a team with no memory and no conscience.  They just need to stick to business, play the team in front of them, assert their will, and stand on their throat.  Sounds easy, doesn’t it?  Yeah, if it was, I’d be centering Fearless and Cheerless for an NHL team.  Don’t see that happening soon.  Let’s just hope the Caps find a way to find their inner ruthlessness and come home with a tied series that looks more like one to their advantage.

Washington Capitals... Liars, Dirty Deed Doers, Cowards

Those who write about hockey for major media outlets aspire to be called and given the respect accorded to “journalists.”  The vast majority of those writers, reporters, and commentators merit the title.  Then again, some don’t, at least not all of the time.  Hockey is an intense game, and sometimes the results on the ice strip away one’s journalistic sense of objectivity, and one becomes less a journalist and more a “fan” in the literal – “fanatic” – sense of the term.

And sometimes, one finds the rare instance that transcends bizarre and careens into irrational screed.

One almost expects Rod Serling to present a “Twilight Zone” monologue to preface this morning’s offering from Rob Rossi on the events last night that forced Sidney Crosby from Game 3 of the Eastern Conference semifinal game between the Pittsburgh Penguins and the Washington Capitals.  With barely five minutes gone in the contest, the Penguins were attacking in the Capitals’ zone, and this happened…

Rossi’s unhinged rant on the play (one hesitates to call it his “take”) can be read in full here.  But the lede says it all… “Alex Ovechkin shouldn't play another game in these Stanley Cup playoffs.”

Let’s leave for a moment (which Rossi does in short order) the fact that the injury Crosby sustained appeared to be the product of a collision with Capitals defenseman Matt Niskanen in which Niskanen cross-checked Crosby as he was off balance after skating through the top of the Washington crease (Niskanen was charged a major penalty for cross checking and a game misconduct). 

He saves his best (or worst, depending on where you stand on journalistic detachment) for Alex Ovechkin.  First, he accuses Ovechkin of “carelessly lift[ing] his stick into Crosby’s head, forcing the NHL’s sturdiest skater to stagger into Niskanen.”  But he immediately contradicts himself and claims that “Ovechkin, who can’t beat Crosby on the ice, decided to remove him from it (emphasis added).” 

Then Rossi, who seemed to write this as a stream of enraged consciousness, doubled down on the theme of premeditation, wondering out loud about “what that closed-door meeting called by Capitals players was really about after their blowout defeat in Game 2…”

Not satisfied with that, he then triples-down (if there is such a thing), attributing malice to the Caps as a team and calling them liars before the fact “if they say it wasn’t about eliminating Crosby.”  Can you “quadruple-down?”  If you can, Rossi does, accusing (okay, “doubt[ing] very much there wasn’t an intent” on the part of) the Capitals of injuring Crosby intentionally.

So, in the space of barely 100 words, Rossi describes a scenario in which the Caps are blown out against the Penguins, meet in their dark lair to devise a dastardly plan to eliminate the game’s best player because they can’t beat him on the ice, then – in the space of four seconds (go ahead, time it from the moment Crosby crosses the blue line with the puck until he collides with Niskanen…we did) – the Caps spring their nefarious plan.  In this telling, you can almost hear the Capitals bench shouting in unison, “NOW!!!” as Crosby skates by the players’ bench.

I can’t defend any player who uses his stick indiscriminately, but when Rossi describes Ovechkin as “filthy,” who uses “his magic wand” with the intent to injure, who “holds high the stick he often swings at opponents,” let’s not forget that Crosby has his own history of creative uses of his stick. 

There is Crosby doing his “piñata” thing on Buffalo Sabre Ryan O’Reilly…

There is Crosby taking a whack at the hand of Ottawa Senator defenseman Marc Methot and shattering his finger…

And sometimes, he doesn’t even need his stick, as Boris Valabik found out…

Crosby’s body of work as far as “dirty” plays is concerned could almost be its own YouTube channel (search on “Crosby dirty plays”…bring a lunch, you’ll be a while).  But hey, for “The Face of Hockey,” as Rossi describes him, it’s just part of the package, so to speak.

But this isn’t a “your player is dirtier than mine” contest.  Let’s keep our eye on the ball…or puck.  No hockey fan, not even a Washington Capitals fan, could look at the scene of Crosby, face down on the ice with his legs splayed behind him, and not feel sick.  This time of year is for the best players to play their best, and no one – not players, fans, coaches (or journalists, for that matter) – want to see any of the best players on earth injured in their quest.

I write in this space as a hobby and an unabashed fan of the Washington Capitals.  Journalism is not my day job, and it is something to which I have no aspirations.  In a way it makes me respect those for whom it is their calling that much more.  I lost some of it for Rob Rossi resorting to this cheap attack that sounded like a fan at a sports bar far more than it did a professional who has a “decade of experience” covering the sport.

Eastern Conference Semifinals Game 3: Washington Capitals 3 - Pittsburgh Penguins 2 (OT)

In the 1980’s the television “mini-series” was all the rage. A drama with a limited run of episodes provided suspense, scandal, and escapist drama that riveted audiences. The third installment of this mini-series featuring the Washington Capitals and the Pittsburgh Penguins provided all of that, with many twists and turns and unexpected plot lines before the Caps emerged with a 3-2 overtime win in Game 3 to make it a competitive series again and perhaps salvage their season.

The Caps scored first for the first time in the series, posting a power play goal in the first period. With the Caps on the 5-on-3 man advantage, Alex Ovechkin collected a loose puck at the top of the offensive zone and fed it deep to Nicklas Backstrom at the goal line extended to the left of goalie Marc-Andre Fleury. Backstrom tried to feed the puck to Justin Williams in the low slot, but Fleury got the blade of his stick on the pass. He deflected the puck up and off teammate Ian Cole, and it fluttered over Fleury into the net to make it a 1-0 game 13:05 into the period.

The score held up into the third period, where the Caps added to it. It was Pittsburgh being the victim of a turnover, Trevor Daley unable to handle a pass that skittered out to the neutral zone where Williams pick it up. He skated down the left wall leading a 3-on-1 rush. He fed the puck across to Marcus Johansson skating down the middle, and Johansson wrapped a pass around defenseman Olli Maatta to Evgeny Kuznetsov camped to the left of Fleury. Kuznetsov had Fleury down and out, giving him time and space to lift the puck over him into the top of the net at the 9:46 mark to make it 2-0.

With the clock winding down in regulation, it appeared the Caps had things well in hand, but the Penguins tallied a pair of empty net goals in the last two minutes to tie the game. First, it was Evgeni Malkin one-timing a pass from Phil Kessel from the right wing circle past goalie Braden Holtby’s left pad on the short side with 1:53 left in regulation to make it 2-1. Then, 48 seconds later, Justin Schultz tied the game with his first goal of the postseason, one-timing a feed from Malkin that clicked off the stick of the Caps’ T.J. Oshie past Holtby to send the game to overtime.

In overtime, Trevor Daley was sent to the penalty box for holding Marcus Johansson.  The penalty might have prevented a game-winning scoring chance, but it merely postponed the outcome.  On the ensuing power play, Kevin Shattenkirk skating down the middle in the neutral zone and passed off the puck to Nicklas Backstrom at the Penguin blue line.  Backstrom skated down the left wing wall, and then fed the puck back to Shattenkirk. Pulling the puck to his forehand and sliding to his left to get a better shooting angle, Shattenkirk let fly with a shot that beat Fleury on his blocker side and inched the Caps closer to tying the series with the 3-2 overtime win.

Other stuff…

-- The win makes the Caps 4-2 in extra time games in this postseason and 28-34 in overtime games in franchise history.

-- Kevin Shattenkirk’s overtime goal was his first career overtime tally and his first career playoff game-winning goal.

-- Evgeny Kuznetsov had a goal and an assist, his goal was his second of the postseason in eight games, doubling his output from last season in 12 postseason games.  It was his first two-point game in the playoffs since he had a goal and an assist in a 4-3 loss to the New York Rangers in Game 6 of their 2015 second round series.  He had gone 21 postseason games without a multi-point game until last night.

-- Justin Williams had a pair of assists, giving him five assists and eight points in the postseason, the latter ranked third on the club.

-- Nicklas Backstrom had a goal and an assist of his own, his goal tying him with Alex Ovechkin for the team lead in the postseason (four) and his assist giving him six, tied with T.J. Oshie for the team lead.  His ten points in the postseason leads all Capitals.

-- Alex Ovechkin had an assist, giving him points in six of his last eight postseason games and points in each of his last five playoff games against the Penguins (2-6-8).

-- The Caps out-shot the Penguins, 33-30, the third time in three games they out-shot Pittsburgh.  Last spring, they managed to out-shoot the Penguins only twice in six games.

-- Andre Burakovsky had an odd night, and not in a good way.  He skated just 9:11 for the game, a career low for a playoff game.  He did not get a shift in the last eight-plus minutes of the second period.  Part of that was the Caps taking two penalties in the last half of the second period (both by Kuznetsov), but it was still a light night, ice time wise.

-- Braden Holtby followed up his first-ever yanking from the crease in Game 2 with a solid performance, despite the two late goals.  The second of them, a deflection off the stick of teammate T.J. Oshie, was one of those weird bounces that confound hockey analysts and set Caps fans to pulling their hair out.  He stopped the first 26 shots he saw in the contest before allowing those two goals on three shots late in the third period.  He stopped the only shot he faced in the extra session.

-- The Caps dominated the shot attempts once again, out-attempting the Penguins, 45-35 at 5-on-5 (56.25 CF%).  The Caps have a Corsi-for at fives of 64.4 percent for the series (numbers from Corsica.hockey).

In the end…

This was, quite literally (given the misfortune befalling Sidney Crosby in the first period when he was cross-checked by Matt Niskanen and had to leave the game) a knock-down, drag-out battle.  The teams were credited with 67 hits between them, not an extraordinary number, but still a reflection of the intensity.  It was a game that seemed to play more to the Capitals’ strengths than the Penguins.  But don’t get cocky.  Yet again, the Caps failed to close the deal after taking a lead.  This could have ended up being among the most bitter of losses in team history, especially so given that the Pens were missing the best player on the planet for all but the first 5:24 of the game.  It was that close.  But the Caps leaned over the edge of the cliff, looked into the abyss, and sneered at it.  We will see if they can keep from creeping so close again to the edge when these teams meet again on Wednesday night.

Washington Capitals vs. Pittsburgh Penguins: The Cousins Sittin' On The Porch Looking Back at Game 2

Fans of the Washington Capitals either were not born, too young, or have had too many ugly things happen in their history of watching the Caps and Pittsburgh Penguins to recall that this history began with a 4-2 Caps win over the Penguins in their very first postseason meeting on April 17, 1991.  Since then, the history has been lopsided in its ladling of happiness, piling it up on the plates of Penguins and Penguin fans and doling it out with an eyedropper to Capitals and Caps fans.  On Saturday night, the Penguins made themselves home in Verizon Center and had six helpings of fun and joy in a 6-2 win over the Caps to put the club down, 0-2, in games as the series heads to Pittsburgh.  The cousins have seen this movie before.

Fearless… Give the Caps credit, they are in uncharted territory here.  Never in any of their previous nine postseason series against the Penguins have they found themselves in an 0-2 hole in games.  Three times they had a 2-0 lead (and lost each time); six times they split the first two games (and lost five times).  If history is a guide (and it is, but that’s all it is, not a manual), this will either end in a sweep for the Pens (the last time the Caps lost Games 1 and 2 at home, they were swept by the Tampa Bay Lightning), or they will win the series (the time before that, they beat the New York Rangers in seven games).

Cheerless… Back in 2015, the Caps won five straight postseason games on home ice, tying their longest streak of success at Verizon Center since 2008.  Since those five consecutive wins, the Caps are 6-6 on home ice in the postseason and have lost three of five games so far this year.  Since 2008, the Caps have been a dominating team on home ice in the regular season, a so-so one in the postseason…

*****

Cheerless… It didn’t take long…

Fearless… Alex Ovechkin has had a hand in three of the Caps’ four goals in this series and scored one of them himself.  Sidney Crosby has had a hand in four of the Penguins’ nine goals and scored two of them himself.  The stars are doing their jobs, scoring wise.  Pittsburgh has seven goals from four players not named “Crosby;” the Caps have three goals from three players not named “Ovechkin.”  The second line for the Caps has one goal on 14 shots; the third line has no goals on eight shots.  That which was built for this series looks like a vacant warehouse so far.

*****

Fearless… Over an infinite number of trials, a team with the sort of shooting dominance the Caps have had at 5-on-5 in this series would do very well.  They have out-attempted the Penguins, 141-68 (67.5 percent), out-shot them at fives by a 57-34 margin (62.6 percent).

Cheerless… 5-on-5 goals for and goals against... Penguins 6 – Capitals 3.  The rest is just fancystat porn.

*****

Cheerless… One number no Caps fan would have expected in this postseason: .911.  That is Braden Holtby’s save percentage in the postseason, 13^th of 16 goaltenders having played in at least 100 minutes.  He has a .829 save percentage in this series.  He now has a career postseason record against Pittsburgh of 2-6, 2.80, .910.  Not the Holtby Caps fans recognize.

Fearless… “Hot goalie” again.  It being Marc-Andre Fleury makes it especially difficult for the Caps, but he’s got the third-best save percentage of those 16 goalies with at least 100 minutes of ice time and has done it facing the most shots per 60 minutes (37.0).  He’s playing himself into the Conn Smythe conversation.  Sort of the “anti-Cam Ward,” the veteran who comes in as a backup to lead his team to success.

*****

Fearless… Losing the first two games at home in a series is not a death sentence when it comes to winning a Stanley Cup.  The Carolina Hurricanes did it in 2006, dropping Games 1 and 2 on home ice to the Montreal Canadiens in the first round before going on to win the Cup.  The Boston Bruins did it in 2011, coming out on the wrong side of home ice decisions in Games 1 and 2 against the Canadiens in the first round before righting themselves and winning the title.  It has happened before.

Cheerless… Maybe the Caps should have played Montreal instead of the Penguins.

*****

Peerless… A lot is going to be made over the Penguins blocking 33 Capitals shots in Game 2 and scoring two goals as a direct result of blocked shots.  That is being opportunistic.  That is effective counter-punching.  But if the Caps could finish what they started with the pressure they applied on the Penguins early in both Games 1 and 2, the conversation would be very different.  The “blocked-shot-leads-to-goals” comes a couple of steps after “Caps-pile-up-Corsi’s-to-no-effect.”  The persistent thread that runs through the history of the Caps’ postseason since 2008 is a lack of scoring depth, of being unable to translate pressure into points.  Alex Ovechkin has had a hand in 88 of 226 goals scored by the Caps in those nine (and counting) playoff seasons covering 92 games.  Washington is going to need to find other sources for production in this series, as the Penguins have so far (and so, it would seem, in just about every series ever played between these teams), or this is not going to end well for the men in red.

Eastern Conference Semifinals Game 2: Pittsburgh Penguins 6 - Washington Capitals 2

What five days ago seemed like a series with the potential for being the best of the first two rounds and for the Washington Capitals a long-awaited vanquishing of their nemesis of the past two decades, has now become a scene reminiscent of the last hours of the Titanic, a slow, inexorable, and what is starting to look like inevitable conclusion.  The Washington Capitals dropped their second game in two tries on home ice, coming out on the short side of a 6-2 decision in Game 2 of their Eastern Conference semifinal series against the Pittsburgh Penguins on Saturday night.

The Caps looked like world-beaters in the first period, dominating possession and pinning the Pens in their own end, but they did not convert their advantage on the shot clock into goals and went to the first intermission scoreless.

The Caps paid for their failure.  It started, almost as a cliché, given their opponent, with a Caps power play in the first minute.  Jake Guentzel took a hooking penalty 29 seconds into the middle frame, putting the Caps on a power play.  However, it would be the Penguins taking advantage to score first.  A Kevin Shattenkirk drive from the top of the offensive zone was blocked by Matt Cullen into the neutral zone.  Cullen worked his way around Shattenkirk to win the race to the puck, broke in on goalie Braden Holtby, and with a delayed penalty on Shattenkirk about to be called, slid the puck between Holtby’s pads to make it 1-0, Pens, 1:15 into the period.

The Caps scored later on that same power play to tie the game.  Holtby sent a long pass up the right wing wall that found its way into the Penguin end.  From the corner, Nicklas Backstrom worked the puck to Alex Ovechkin at the right point.  His slap pass was right on the tape of Matt Niskanen at the edge of the left wing circle, and his one-timer beat Marc-Andre Fleury at the 2:09 mark to make it a 1-1 game.

The teams remained tied for more than ten minutes, but Pittsburgh scored a pair of goals in a three-minute span late in the period to take command of the game.  Phil Kessel took a pass from Sidney Crosby in the right wing circle and snapped a shot past Holtby at the 13:04 mark to break the tie.  Guentzel added to the lead off a blocked shot in his own end when he led a 2-on-1 rush with Bryan Rust.  He called his own number, snapping a shot on the short side past Holtby’s glove to make it 3-1 at the 16:14 mark.

Holtby was pulled to start the third period, but the goal scoring did not stop for the Penguins.  On an early power play, Kessel circled out of the left wing circle and ripped a shot past Philipp Grubauer to make it 4-1.

Backstrom got that one back less than two minutes later, following up an Alex Ovechkin shot off Fleury’s right pad, beating Ian Cole to the puck, and stuffing in in the open side of the net at the 3:44 mark.

It would be the Caps’ last gasp.  The Penguins scored less than two minutes after Backstrom’s goal, Evgeni Malkin redirecting a shot by Cole past Grubauer, the goal allowed after initially waved off for what was first seen as goaltender interference.  Guentzel added an empty net goal with 43 seconds left for the final 6-2 margin.

Other stuff…

-- The Caps out-attempted the Penguins, 30-8 in the first period at 5-on-5, but the seeds of their destruction were sown in the last few minutes of the period.  They did not have a 5-on-5 shot attempt in the last two-plus minutes of the period (numbers from Corsica.hockey).

-- Let’s put this another way.  The Caps recorded their 30^th shot attempt at 5-on-5 at the 17:41 mark of the first period, an Alex Ovechkin shot that was blocked by Matt Cullen.  Pittsburgh recorded their 30^th shot attempt at 5-on-5 at the 5:31 mark of the third period on Evgeni Malkin’s redirect of an Ian Cole shot for a goal to make it 5-2.  Those two moments more or less captured this game.

-- Through two games, the Caps have out-attempted the Penguins by a 141-68 margin at 5-on-5 (67.5 percent Corsi-for), including 61-32 in this game.

-- Alex Ovechkin had two assists, his seventh career multi-assist game in the postseason.  The Caps are 3-4 in those games.

-- Second line had a rough night.  Marcus Johansson, Evgeny Kuznetsov, and Justin Williams each finished minus-3, were blanked on a combined six shots on goal and had 15 generally fruitless shot attempts.

-- This was the fifth game in the postseason that the Caps finished with 35 or more shots on goal (they had 36).  They are 2-3 in those games, and both wins came in overtime.

-- This was the first time in 54 career postseason games that Braden Holtby was pulled early, not involving getting an additional attacker on the ice.  He’d never finished a game with less than 57:33 of ice time in his postseason career before this game.

-- Washington had more shot attempts go awry (52; 33 blocked, 19 missed) than Pittsburgh had in total (45).

-- Nicklas Backstrom had a goal and an assist, his 16^th career multi-point game in the postseason.  It was the first time in his career Backstrom had a multi-point game in a regulation loss in the playoffs.  The Caps are now 10-6 in those games, the first five losses coming in overtime.

-- Matt Niskanen’s goal was his first postseason goal as a Capital in his 34^th playoff game with the club.

In the end…

This was the team built specifically to vanquish the Penguins.  The Penguins were the team it seemed all of Capitals Nation wanted to play on the way to the Stanley Cup.  Well, if it can be said that all roads to the Stanley Cup go through Pittsburgh for this franchise, the Caps have never found a way out of town to continue that journey.  And if this team is different, really and truly different, they are now going to have to find in ample supply of the one thing that no team before them has evidenced in large supply – resolve.  Without it, Caps fans might have seen their last game at Verizon Center this season.  No one would have said that a week ago.

Washington Capitals vs. Pittsburgh Penguins: The Cousins Sittin' On The Porch Looking Back at Game 1

The Washington Capitals find themselves behind the eight-ball almost before their second-round playoff series against the Pittsburgh Penguins is fully underway.  The cousins watched as the Caps came back, only to yield a game-winning goal late.  So what did they think of the way things transpired?

Cheerless… According to that “whowins.com” web site, teams that win Game 1 on the road in the second round win a series about 59 percent of the time. 

Fearless… Yeah well, the Caps won Game 1 eight times in the nine previous series between these teams.  In those eight Game 1 wins they won the series once.  One thing to note; the Caps have never had worse than a split of the first two games of a series against the Penguins (although they are just 4-5 in Games 2 of their nine series against the Pens).

*****

Fearless… No Capital skater was “minus” in 5-on-5 shots attempts for and against on ice last night.  As a team, the Caps were plus-40, a Corsi-for of 63.68 percent (numbers from Corsica.hockey).  And the entire plus-40 was realized in the last 36 minutes of the game.  You don’t find that level of domination at this level in a second-round playoff game.

Cheerless… Sure, and the third line of Andre Burakovsky, Lars Eller, and Tom Wilson was a plus-18 all by themselves.  They also have three goals in the postseason, none of them from either Burakovsky or Eller, and Wilson has two goals with this line.  “Corsi pretty, results sh*tty” isn’t a formula for success. 

*****

Cheerless… Are we going to go through this again?  Nick Bonino with the game-winning goal?  Again?? What’s next, Marc-Andre Fleury clearing a puck and having it hit a rut and hop over Braden Holtby’s stick?  Those guys sure get game-winners from odd places.  Jake Guentzel has two; Bryan Rust, Phil Kessel, and now Bonino have one.

Fearless… Except for a 52-second span of the second period, the Caps held Sidney Crosby in check.  He had five shot attempts and three shots on goal after the two goals he scored early in the second period and was under 50 percent on draws for the game.  On the other hand, we understand Mrs. Lincoln enjoyed the play up until that unpleasantness in the President’s Box at Ford’s Theater.

*****

Fearless… Alex Ovechkin had a 5-on-5 goal.  Not to put too fine a point on it, but it’s only his second even-strength goal of the postseason, his second in his last ten playoff games, as a matter of fact.  If it is a signal that he can be more productive at even strength, then the Caps could be just fine.

Cheerless… Well, Ovechkin didn’t get a power play goal, and the Caps are 13-2 all time when Ovechkin gets a power play goal.  Of course, his cause might have been helped if the Caps actually had a power play.  That was just the fourth time in the Ovechkin era that the Caps did not have a power play opportunity (the second against the Penguins).  The Caps are 1-3 in those games.

*****

Cheerless… The Caps are 2-2 in series in the Ovechkin era when losing Game 1 at home.  They beat the Rangers in seven games in 2009, lost to Montreal in 2010 in seven games, were swept in four games by Tampa Bay in 2011, and won in seven games over the Islanders in 2015.

Fearless… If the Caps can just get past these coin-flip games.  That’s eight one-goal games in eight contests.  One-goal decisions have not been kind to the Caps.  Since 2008, the Caps are 44-47 in one-goal decisions in the postseason.  They really have been “coin-flips.”

*****

Peerless… Possession matters…in the aggregate.  For the Caps alone, not so much.  Since 2008, the Caps are the fourth-best possession team in the NHL in the postseason, measured as Corsi-for percentage (51.79 percent; numbers from Corsica.hockey).  Last night, they dominated the Penguins, overwhelmed them in fact, over the last 36 minutes of the contest.  There are no bands on the Stanley Cup for “Corsi-for,” though.  The Penguins, with the help of officials who seemed to forget to pack their whistles for the trip to Washington and snake-bit by a too-often inability to finish (seen this before in the postseason?), snuck off with a win.  It makes the challenge that much greater, but if the Caps can come close to dominating the possession numbers as they did in Game 1, they should still come out of this with a happy result, right?

…right?

Eastern Conference Semifinals Game 1: Pittsburgh Penguins 3 - Washington Capitals 2

The Washington Capitals opened their Eastern Conference semifinal series against the Pittsburgh Penguins by digging themselves a hole, dropping a 3-2 decision on Thursday night.

After a scoreless first period, the Penguins struck twice in short order to start the second period.  Patric Hornqvist nudged a loose puck in the neutral zone to Jake Guentzel, who broke into the offensive zone with Sidney Crosby on a 2-on-1 break.  Guentzel fed the puck across to Crosby on his right, and Crosby swept the puck past goalie Braden Holtby’s glove at the 12 second mark of the period to give the Pens a 1-0 lead. 

Crosby struck again less than a minute later.  Guentzel pried the puck off the left wing wall and fed it to Olli Maatta entering the offensive zone for a one-timer.  Holtby made the save, but not cleanly, the puck dribbling out to the low slot where Hornqvist got a stick on it.  It was enough to nudge the puck to Crosby closing on the right side, and he buried it past Holtby to make it 2-0, 1:04 into the period.

That was how the score remained until late in the period, when the Caps halved the deficit.  John Carlson started the play by separating Evgeni Malkin from the puck just inside the Caps’ blue line.  T.J. Oshie picked it up and skated it out, carrying it into the Penguins’ zone where he dropped it for Lars Eller.  From the left point, Eller fed Alex Ovechkin cutting into the zone, and Ovechkin circled to the top of the left wing circle, where he snapped a shot that beat goalie Marc-Andre Fleury to make it 2-1 at the 18:17 mark.

The Caps continued pressuring the Pens in the third period, and it paid dividends mid-way through.  Matt Niskanen scooped up a loose puck in the right wing circle, curled out to the right wing wall, then fired a pass across to Evgeny Kuznetsov, who one-timed the puck into the open side of the net behind Fleury to tie the game 8:05 into the period.

Four minutes later, the Pens got what would be the game-winner when Justin Schultz sent a pass up from deep in the defensive zone to Scott Wilson at the Caps’ blue line.  Wilson found Nick Bonino cutting down the middle undefended, and Bonino converted the break with a shot past Holtby’s blocker at the 12:36 mark.  Fleury did the rest, holding the Caps off the board to give the Pens a 1-0 lead in the series.

Other stuff…

-- The game-winner was the second consecutive game-winner for Nick Bonino against the Caps in the postseason.  He had the series-clinching overtime goal in Game 6 last spring to eliminate the Caps in the second round.

-- Nicklas Backstrom had a difficult night in the faceoff circle, losing 13 of 17 faceoffs (23.5 percent).

-- The Caps out-hit the Penguins, 41-17, Alex Ovechkin leading the team with six.

-- Evgeny Kuznetsov led the Caps with ten shot attempts (four on goal, one goal) and one of the stranger goal celebrations seen in these parts.

-- Matt Niskanen had an assist, his first point in the postseason since Game 1 against the Toronto Maple Leafs.

-- Kuznetsov has two goals in the postseason.  Oddly enough, both came in losses (the other was in a 4-3 overtime loss to Toronto in Game 3 of the first round).

-- Alex Ovechkin’s goal was his fourth of the postseason and the third time he scored a goal in a Caps loss.

-- The Caps had 19 missed shots in the contest, five of them recorded by Andre Burakovsky. 

-- Think three goals matters?  Braden Holtby is now 3-16 in the postseason when allowing three or more goals, 2-7 when allowing three.

-- What doesn’t belong in this comparison?  The Caps out-attempted the Penguins, 72-32, at 5-on-5 (63.68 percent Corsi-for); they out-shot the Pens, 30-18, at fives; and they were outscored by Pittsburgh, 3-2 at 5-on-5.

In the end…

Caps fans might take solace in the fact that the Caps dominated the Penguins over the last 38 minutes, after the second Pittsburgh goal.  And folks might point to the fact that of the four Games 1 in the second round, the road team won three of them, making one wonder if there is a sport in which the home arena advantage means less than in the NHL.  On the other hand, this was a squandered opportunity.  Dominating possession means nothing if it doesn’t translate into goals.  The Penguins took advantage of the rare opportunities they got – a 2-on-1 and a mini-breakaway.  The Caps did not take advantage of the relentless pressure they applied in the last half of the contest.  Is this a script, or a blip?  Guess we’ll have to wait for Game 2 to find out.

The Peerless Prognosticator Brings You: Eastern Conference Semifinal, Washington Capitals vs. Pittsburgh Penguins

The Peerless Prognosticator is ON THE AIR!!!

On Thursday evening, the Washington Capitals will open their second-round series in the 2017 postseason by hosting the Pittsburgh Penguins.  In the postseason history of the Capitals, they have faced no team more often than the Penguins.  In 244 postseason games in franchise history, the Capitals and the Penguins faced off 55 times (tied with the New York Rangers). 

It is a history dominated by the Penguins, who have won eight of nine series against the Caps and have a game record of 34-21.  Adding insult to injury, in each of the Penguins’ four Stanley Cup seasons, they defeated the Caps on their way to the championship, twice emerging victorious in a seven-game series, both times on Washington ice.  This is the historical baggage that the franchise carries into their second-round series against the Pens. 

History makes for interesting discussion, not to mention a fair amount of trolling, if you are the club on the winning side of the divide.  But it goes only so far.  As far as this season goes, it was an interesting four games between the clubs…

Four Snowflakes…Each One Different

The Caps had little problem finding the back of the Penguin net in the season series, averaging 5.25 goals per game over the four games.  They didn’t even have that much of a problem keeping the Penguins off the board, except for a bizarre 11-minute stretch of the second period of the contest between the teams on January 16^th in which the Penguins scored six goals on ten shots in what would be an 8-7 overtime win to end the season series.  That barrage pushed to the background the fact that over the rest of the series, the Caps held the Penguins to seven goals on 125 shots (a .939 save percentage).

It was one of two extra time wins the Pens posted in the season series, the other coming on Opening Night, when the Pens celebrated their Stanley Cup banner-raising with a 3-2 Gimmick win over Washington.  In between, the Caps turned the Penguins into sea lion chow with 5-2 and 7-1 wins at Verizon Center.

While each of the team won their games on home ice and lost on the road, the progress over the course of the season suggested the ice tilting in the Pens’ direction.  Washington out-shot the Penguins and out-attempted them at 5-on-5 in the first two games, which the teams split.  The Pens won those possession number comparisons in the last two games of the season series, also split by the teams.

The Caps were more efficient on offense over the course of the series, putting a larger share of their shot attempts on goal and scoring goals on a larger share of their shots on goal.

Balance/Imbalance

The Caps scored 21 goals in the four games.  In doing so, they had remarkable balance, albeit among a small (or perhaps smaller than expected) group of players.  Six skaters combined for 19 of the 21 goals, led (again, perhaps unexpectedly) by Nicklas Backstrom with four.  Five other skaters – Justin Williams, Lars Eller (another surprise), T.J. Oshie, Alex Ovechkin, and Andre Burakovsky – each had three in the season series.  Brett Connolly and Dmitry Orlov rounded out the goal-scoring, Orlov being the only defender to record a goal in the season series for the Caps.

The setting up of goals did not exhibit quite the same balance for the Caps, and it had a substantively different mix of players.  Backstrom and Oshie led in assists with eight and seven, respectively.  The assist totals drop off from there, defensemen Matt Niskanen and John Carlson with four and three, respectively.  Marcus Johansson also had three.  The result was a scoring profile that was weighted to the top line.  Backstrom (12), Oshie (10), and Ovechkin (5, tied with Burakovsky) leading in points in the season series. 

On the other side, Pittsburgh finished the season with 13 goals in the four games, but more than a third of that total was recorded by Evgeni Malkin, who had five.  No other Penguin had more than two (Conor Sheary and Patric Hornqvist).  On the helper side, Justin Schultz led the club with six assists and tied Malkin for the team lead in points.  To the extent he could be contained, Sidney had five points (1-4-5) in three games, missing the Opening Night contest won by the Penguins, 3-2, in a Gimmick.

The Caps might have had a single goal from its defensemen in the season series, but Dmitry Orlov’s goal was still one more than the entire squad of nine defensemen to dress for the Penguins in the season series.  In addition to Schultz’ six assists from the blue line, Pittsburgh got helpers from Trevor Daley (3), Olli Maatta, and Kris Letang.

So…who are the obvious and the
not-so obvious key skaters for Washington?

Last year, the Caps got precious little in their series against the Penguins from Evgeny Kuznetsov, despite finishing tenth in the league in scoring.  It is part of a longer scoring drought Kuznetsov has had in the postseason, going 2-3-5, minus-5, over his last 19 postseason games.  He has not had much success against Pittsburgh over his career.  In 21 regular season and playoff games against the Penguins, Kuznetsov is 2-6-8, minus-5.  Kuznetsov started the 2016-2017 season slowly, going just 3-16-19, plus-5, in his first 36 games.  But starting with a four-point performance against the Toronto Maple Leafs in a 6-5 overtime win on January 3^rd (1-3-4), Kuznetsov went 16-24-40, plus-13, in his last 46 games and was in the top 20 in overall scoring over that period. If he can approximate that level of performance and reverse his sparse production against the Penguins, the Caps will be formidable.

The not-so-obvious, if still obvious player is Kevin Shattenkirk.  He is, quite literally, the “X-factor” for the Caps in this series.  He did not have a particularly productive series against the Toronto Maple Leafs at the offensive end of the ice (no goals, three assists, all on the power play).  However, he is 2-2-4, plus-1, in nine career regular season games against the Penguins.  That career scoring line includes an assist this season, but it also includes a no-point, minus-4 performance in a 4-1 Penguin win over the St. Louis Blues on February 4^th.  What he has not done is face the Penguins this season as a Capital, having joined the Caps on February 27^th via trade, after the season series against the Penguins had been completed.  Shattenkirk adds an offensive dimension to the Caps blue line – an ability to score goals – that was not present from the Caps this season against the Penguins.  His presence has to be accounted for and could open up things among the forwards.

And for the Penguins?

It would be borderline cliché to put Sidney Crosby’s name in the “obvious” category, but it fits.  In last spring’s series against the Caps, Crosby was held to a pair of assists in six games and was a minus-3.  He had just one power play point in the series.  This from a player who, in his other 123 career postseason games, is 51-91-142, plus-12.  And that includes a 2-5-7 scoring line in the Penguins’ opening round win over the Columbus Blue Jackets.  No Penguin has more career goals or points against the Caps in the postseason than Crosby, who is 8-7-15, plus-1, in 13 career playoff games against Washington.  Crosby does have a knack of rising to the occasion, but it is as often as not a performance that comes in the context of what are generally strong and deep teams (the Penguin Stanley Cup-winning teams, Team Canada).  In this series, even if the Penguins get some of their injured back, they will be a somewhat depleted bunch.  Crosby’s production is not a luxury in this series.  The Penguins have to have it.  If he is more the player he was when he faced the Caps in 2009, when he was 8-5-13, plus-4, in seven games, the Penguins could advance.  If he is held to a pair of assists, or something close to it, as he was last spring, it is hard to see how Pittsburgh moves on.

The not so obvious choice is Justin Schultz.  In the absence of the injured Kris Letang, the Penguins have a considerable dropoff in terms of threats that can keep defenses from cheating up on Penguin forwards.  Schultz, who led the Penguins’ defense in ice time per game in the opening round series against Columbus, did not have an even-strength point in that series (he had three power play assists, the only power play points among Penguin defensemen).  Schultz does not get mentioned often among the best offensive defensemen in the league, but he was one of just nine defensemen to record at least 50 points this season (12-39-51), and his plus-27 was sixth-best among league defensemen.  He is going to have to more closely approximate that level of production in this series than his career postseason line of 0-7-7, plus-1, in 20 playoff games.

What about the goaltending?

The opening round series against the Toronto Maple Leafs was a tale of two series for Braden Holtby.  In the first four games he was 2-2-0, 3.02, .907.  But in the last two games, after an off-day fine tuning session with coach Mitch Korn that might end up being a key moment in this postseason,  he stopped 61 of 63 shots, allowed just one goal in each game, and was the wall he has been for the Caps over the last two seasons.  Holtby is as money a postseason performer as there has been at the position since he became the Caps number one netminder.  In the modern era (post-1967 expansion), Holtby has the best goals against average (1.93) and save percentage (.937) of any goaltender appearing in at least 20 postseason games.  But here is your odd Holtby stat.  If the Caps should find themselves in the position of closing out the Penguins, it is a scenario that has been cruel to Holtby.  In 14 games in which he tended goal in a game in which the Caps could end a series, he has a record of 4-10.  But that comes with a 1.94 goals against average and a .931 save percentage with a shutout thrown in. 

With Matt Murray an iffy proposition for this series,  the nets would appear to belong to Marc-Andre Fleury for the foreseeable future.  And if it seems odd to think of Fleury as an unknown, consider that he has appeared in just a dozen postseason games over the last three seasons (only two in last year’s Stanley Cup run), over which he is 5-6 (one no decision), 2.40, .926; and he has not faced the Caps in the postseason since 2009.  He was 4-1 against the Blue Jackets in the first round with a 2.51 goals against average, but his .933 save percentage was solid.  What he has not been over most of his postseason career is a game-changer on the road.  He is 27-23 in 51 road playoff games, but his 2.88 goals against average and .902 save percentage could be a problem against what was the most successful team on home ice during the regular season.

Frustration Redux?

Last spring, the Caps held Evgeni Malkin and Sidney Crosby largely in check, only to have the line of Carl Hagelin, Nick Bonino, and Phil Kessel – the “HBK Line” – account for seven of the 16 goals the Penguins scored against the Caps, two of those goals being game winners, including the series-clinching overtime goal in Game 6 by Nick Bonino.  That group has had a harder time of it so far this post season, combining for three goals, but two of those were scored by Kessel on power plays.  The question is, can Jake Guentzel and Bryan Rust be the “who are these guys” guys for the Penguins this time around?  Guentzel (5) and Rust (4) combined for nine of the 21 goals scored by the Pens in the first round against Columbus.  The Caps can’t have another set of heretofore unsung players being heroes in this series.

Rediscovering the magic?

The trio of players that comprised the third line for the Caps for much of the season – Andre Burakovsky, Lars Eller, and Brett Connolly – combined for 39 goals this season, a respectable output considering they did not start the season together.  However, after March 1^st, this trio combined for just five goals, and in the first playoff round against Toronto did not record a goal.  One of the most important factors in last spring’s loss to Pittsburgh in the second round was the lack of production among the bottom six forwards, especially given the production the Penguins got from theirs.  If this group can recapture the magic they had at midseason, it will make for a steep hill for the Penguins to climb to reach the conference finals.

In the end…

Some might say the Caps took the Toronto Maple Leafs lightly, or that they were nervous about their exalted status as a pre-playoff favorite to go deep into the tournament.  Whatever one thinks of those interpretations, the Caps advanced, and the team they take into the second round seems constructed for the singular purpose of pushing past the Penguins.  Pittsburgh brings a wealth of postseason experience and the confidence having won the Cup provides, but they are thin on defense, they are lacking a certain level of production from players who provided it in last year’s Cup run, and there is perhaps just the faintest sense of uncertainty over how Marc-Andre Fleury will fare in goal against a team with more weapons than the Columbus Blue Jackets brought to bear in the first round. 

On the other hand, Alex Ovechkin did not have a particularly dominating series against Toronto, and his production is needed in this round.  Strangely, given the strength at forward both teams bring to the contest, it could come down to which defensive squad has the better series, both in moving the puck out of their own end and in contributing offense at the other end.  The absence of Kris Letang will be keenly felt in both areas, and Washington will take advantage of it.

Capitals in six

Washington Capitals: The Cousins Sittin' On The Porch Looking Back at Game 6

And now, for something completely different.  No, not the second round series against the Pittsburgh Penguins that starts on Thursday.  The Washington Capitals, heavily favored but given all they could handle by the upstart Toronto Maple Leafs, overcame a fair amount of adversity in Game 6 – a roaring Toronto crowd, a misaligned stanchion, another in what seems over the course of their history a series of “hot goaltenders – to tie the game in the last half of the third period, then score in the seventh minute of the first overtime to capture their first round series in six games over the Maple Leafs.

It was a tense evening for the cousins as the Caps once more tested the limits of their ability to stay calm and think good thoughts.   But let’s let them wrap things up…

Fearless… If you were playing the overtime goal challenge, you might have picked a half-dozen players as the potential hero before settling on Marcus Johansson, and that’s just among the Caps’ players.  Going into last night’s game, Johansson had seven goals in 61 career playoff games.  He had never scored more than two goals in any postseason.  It broke a nine-game streak without a postseason goal, dating back to Game 2 of last spring’s series against Pittsburgh.  He scored on each of his only two shots of the contest last night.  Oddly enough, it was the second time in his career that Johansson scored two goals in a playoff game, and both instances came on the road.  The other instance was in Game 4 of the Caps’ 2011 series against the New York Rangers, a game in which Johansson scored two third period goals that, following a goal by Alexander Semin earlier in that period, wiped out a 3-0 Rangers lead before Jason Chimera won the game in double-overtime.

Cheerless… The Caps had the fifth-worst scoring defense in the first round (2.67 goals against per game).  They four teams under them in the rankings? ...gone.  And they won a grand total of three games among them (Toronto had two of them).  Only two team allowed more shots on goal per game than the Caps (35.5).  Strangely enough, both of them are alive – Pittsburgh (38.8) and St. Louis (36.4).  And their faceoff winning percentage…woof!  They are 15^th of 16 teams in the playoffs at 46.0 percent.  Hey, draws don’t matter, right?  Well one, it’s attention to detail, and two…why would you dismiss possessing the puck for 10 or 15 seconds with every draw you win?  Put a team on their heels, forcing them to defend more often than not from a faceoff, might have a cumulative effect, eh?

*****

Feerless… Caps had the fourth-best special teams index (power play plus penalty killing rates) in the first round (118.5)…

Cheerless… The three teams ahead of them – Minnesota (129.7), Montreal (127.6), and Chicago (119.0) – are out.  And only Boston had more minor penalties in the first round (26) than the Caps (25).

*****

Cheerless… How close was this series?  The Caps outscored Toronto 18-16.  Washington was outshot, 213-211.  The Caps had 25 penalties, Toronto had 24.  The Maple Leafs were credited with 256 hits, the Caps had 241.  Washington had the advantage in blocked shots, 127-116.  And that was against the eight-seed.  Did the Caps play down to Toronto’s level, or did the Leafs play up to the Caps’ level?

Fearless… The Caps scored more first period goals in the first round than any team (eight) and tied Ottawa for the most goals in overtime (three).  Only Nashville (one) and Anaheim (none) allowed fewer third period goals than the Caps (three).

*****

Fearless… Washington had have the fifth-best Corsi-for at 5-on-5 in the postseason so far (51.30 percent).

Cheerless… They were seventh in adjusted Corsi (50.42 percent; numbers from Corsica.hockey), and they had the second-worst adjusted Corsi Against/60 minutes (66.26).  Only Toronto was worse (67.39).

*****

Cheerless… The Caps kinda dodged a bullet getting as little output from Andre Burakovsky (two assists) even while he had pretty good possession numbers (best individual Corsi-for on the club at 5-on-5: 59.69 percent).  And one of the problems the Caps had last spring – a lack of bottom-six production – showed up in this series.  The five forwards not named “Wilson” finished with no goals and four assists.  The fourth line that finished the series (Brett Connolly for Tom Wilson) didn’t have a point in the series.

Fearless… At the other end, the top-six did their share.  The top line of Alex Ovechkin, Nicklas Backstrom, and T.J. Oshie accounted for eight goals, three of them on the power play.  The second line of Marcus Johansson, Evgeny Kuznetsov, and Justin Williams accounted for six goals.  And every defenseman, save for Karl Alzner, who was limited to two games due to injury, recorded at least one point.

*****

Peerless… The knee-jerk reaction to a series like the one just ended would be to say that the Caps underachieved.  That does not give due credit to the Maple Leafs for the strides they took this season, especially over the last six weeks of the regular season in which their record and that of the Caps were virtually identical. 

In its own perverse way, Toronto might have been the best team for the Caps to face in the first round, even if things ended up closer than anyone might have expected, or wanted, for that matter.  Toronto’s strength at forward and team speed is as close an approximation as one is going to find in the East to what awaits the Caps in the second round against Pittsburgh.  If anything, the Penguins’ defense might be more vulnerable to exploitation, but the experience, not to mention the skill among their forwards will be formidable.  But for now, let’s just be thankful for a first round win.  And for Caps fans who might say, “so what, it’s just the first round,” remember… you can’t win four if you don’t win one.