The Peerless Prognosticator is ON THE AIR!!!
One in a row! The
Washington Capitals became the 27th team in the NHL this season to win a hockey
game without the benefit of trick shots when they defeated the Edmonton Oilers,
4-2, on Monday night. Now, they get a
chance to face another team with only one win in the hockey portion of hockey
games when the New York Rangers come to town to face the Caps in the third game
of Washington’s five-game home stand on Wednesday.
Well, before you win three for that “winning streak,” you
have to win two, and that means besting the Rangers, who have found the
adjustment from John Tortorella to Alain Vigneault behind the Ranger bench
difficult, to say the least.
The adjustment has been most difficult, it seems, in a place
most unexpected – in goal. Then again,
that might not be a function of the coach.
Maybe it is just coincidence, but the changes in goaltender equipment
(shaving length off their leg pads, for example) and the reduction in the
footprint of the goal has coincided with some fluffy numbers for Henrik
Lundqvist.
He has been pulled from one game, gave up four or more goals
in two others, and that’s just in four starts (he has five appearances). Overall he is 1-3-0, but worse is his goals
against average (4.21, 44th among 46 qualifying goaltenders) and
save percentage (.887, 36th among those same goalies). He has been worse early in games, sporting a
.875 save percentage in the first period of games, .851 in the second period. In 12 periods of play Lundqvist has allowed
goals in nine of them.
What it means is that the Rangers are, uncharacteristically,
dead last in the NHL in scoring defense (5.00 goals/game). Not that their offense has been much, if any,
better. Only two teams – Philadelphia
and Buffalo – have a worse scoring offense than the Rangers (1.80/game).
Making it worse is that the Rangers have had to do this
living out of suitcases, so to speak. New
York will be visiting Washington for the sixth game of a nine-game road trip to
start the season. New York to Phoenix to
Los Angeles to San Jose to Anaheim (what, they couldn’t at least schedule Los
Angeles and Anaheim next to one another?) to St. Louis to Washington. That is a shade over 5,400 miles. They ARE their own spin off of “Airport 24/7:
Miami” on Travel Channel.
Here is how the teams compare in their respective numbers to
date:
1. You think the Caps
have even-strength issues? The Rangers
have four even-strength goals in five games, and Brad Richards has three of
them. You would probably go through a
lot of names until you guessed that Derek Dorsett has the other one.
2. Another point, so
to speak, about the Rangers at even strength.
Their defensemen have combined for one even strength point – an assist
for Anton Stralman. Marc Staal has a
power play goal, Ryan McDonagh has a shorthanded goal.
3. The Rangers have
yet to play a one-goal game. All four of
their losses have been by at least two goals, and no team has more losses by
three or more goals (three).
4. If the Rangers are
trailing, they are losing. Three times
they trailed at the end of 20 minutes, three times they lost. Four times they trailed at the second
intermission, four times they lost.
5. The Rangers tend
to lose discipline late. Only two teams
– Los Angeles and Philadelphia – have spent more times shorthanded in the third
period than the ten times the Rangers have found themselves short in five
games.
1. Mike Green does
not have a goal through six games. This
might not sound like much, he being a defenseman and all, but it is the first
time he has gone this long without a goal to start the season since the
2010-2011 season, a seven-game streak that is the longest of his career.
2. In the “you do
what you have to do” file, you might expect that Troy Brouwer, Alex Ovechkin,
and Tom Wilson would lead the Caps’ forwards in hits. Would you have expected Martin Erat to be
fourth?
3. The Caps have been
awarded as many power play opportunities in the third period of games (11) as
they have in the first and second periods combined. They are 2-for-5 in the first period, 3-for-6
in the second, and 3-for-11 in the third.
On the other side, the Caps are 7-for-8 killing penalties in the first
period of games, 6-for-9 in the second period, and 5-for-5 in the third.
4. It is one thing to
lead your team in shots, but Alex Ovechkin has almost as many shots on goal
(42) as the next four Capitals combined (47, divided among Brooks Laich, Mike Green,
Nicklas Backstrom, and Mikhail Grabovski).
5. Braden Holtby has
a post-season history against the Rangers well known to Caps fans: 6-8, 2.05,
.925, and one shutout in two seven-game series.
His career regular season record against New York looks a lot the same: 2-2-1,
1.93, .942.
The Peerless’ Players to Ponder
New York: Jesper Fast
Elias Lindholm, Nathan MacKinnon, Will Acton. Three games, three players getting their
first NHL goal against the Capitals.
Tell us who is up next, Peerless?
Well, it’s Jesper Fast. With Rick
Nash on the shelf with a concussion suffered last week against San Jose, the
2010 sixth round pick has had an opportunity to make an impression with the big
club. It has been something of a
whirlwind tour for the 21-year old. A
year ago at this time he was skating for HV71-Jönköping in the Swedish Elite
League (now the Swedish Hockey League) where he led the club in goals with 18. It was the culmination of progressively
higher goal totals over his four years at the elite league level, a feat he
also achieved when he played for HV71-Jönköping/Junior, finishing with 23
goals in 37 games in 2009-2010. That
Fast might score a goal in this game would not necessarily be surprising, just
annoying.
Washington: Nate Schmidt
The Capitals are not especially deep on the left side of
their defense. After Karl Alzner, it’s
something of a crap shoot. Jack Hillen…injured. John Erskine..hurt. Alexander Urbom…new. Dmitry Orlov…pink eye. Of such things opportunities are born, and
one has presented itself for Nate Schmidt. At this time last season Schmidt was
starting his last season as a defenseman with the University of Minnesota
Golden Gophers, one in which he would be named a second-team All-American after
going 9-23-32 in 40 games. Schmidt then
skated five games for the Hershey Bears in the AHL playoffs and skated in the
opener of the 2013-2014 season for the Bears (notching a goal in a 4-3 loss)
before being called up to the Caps. In
two games he has averaged a little more than 17 minutes a game and leads the
team in shots per game from the blue line. He has not looked out of place. Yes, small sample size, but one has to start
somewhere.
Keys:
1. Early savers pay late
dividends. Through six games, Braden
Holtby and Michal Neuvirth have a combined save percentage of .848 in the first
period. That number speaks for
itself. The Caps are spending too much
time behind the eight-ball. Against a
team that has a total of three first period goals (only Buffalo has fewer),
here is the chance for one of them to lift that number.
2. Rhythm. Neither
the first nor second line have established any rhythm at even strength. Alex Ovechkin (42) has three times as many
shots on goal as Nicklas Backstrom (11) and Marcus Johanson (3), suggesting
that too much of the offense is being funneled through Ovechkin. The second line, well, they just have not
established anything. Only Florida has
allowed more goals at 5-on-5 than the Rangers.
Here is a chance for these scoring line guys to establish more rhythm.
3. The early bird
catches the WORM in goal. If by “WORM”
you mean “wobbly, oddly rickety man” in goal.
Yes, that would be Henrik Lundqvist, the five-time Vezina Trophy finalist
(winner in 2012) and bane of the Caps’ existence in the last two playoffs
years. As noted above, in five appearances he has a save
percentage of .875 in the first period of games and a .851 save percentage in
the second period of games. One can wait
until the third period to capitalize on his iffy play at one’s peril; he has a
.974 save percentage in the last three third periods in which he appeared.
In the end…
Elliotte Friedman said this in his “30 Thoughts” for this
week…
“From 2005-06 through 2011-12, just three of 32 teams who were four points out of a playoff position on November 1 recovered to make it.”
That is a rather stark way of saying, “you can’t win the
Stanley Cup in October, but you can lose it.”
The Caps stopped the bleeding when they beat Edmonton on Monday. Now, they have to bloody some other
folks. The Rangers are swimming in
quicksand at the moment. They can’t score, they can’t stop anyone from scoring,
and that road trip is looking mighty long at this point.
Capitals 5 – Rangers 3
No comments:
Post a Comment