Caps Close Out 2016 Portion of '16-17 Slate in Newark
Washington finishes a home-and-home set with the Devils and closes out 2016 with New Year's Eve matinee against New Jersey on Saturday.
© Andy Marlin
By
Mike Vogel
WashingtonCaps.com
The Washington Capitals and the New Jersey Devils finish off a home-and-home set of games on Saturday afternoon in Newark when they face one another for the second time in roughly 42 hours. New Jersey skated off with a 2-1 shootout win over the Capitals on Thursday night at Verizon Center in the front end of the home-and-home set.
Thursday's win was just the fifth in their last 21 games for the Devils (5-12-4), who handed the Caps their fourth loss in their last five games (1-2-2). New Jersey's win also halted a seven-game Washington winning streak over the Devils, a run that began two years ago this month.
For the Capitals, Saturday's matinee match in New Jersey is also the start of a set of back-to-back games. Washington is the only team in the league scheduled to play on both New Year's Eve and New Year's Day. The Caps return home to start a three-game homestand on Sunday night against the Ottawa Senators.
The Capitals teed up 78 shot attempts in Thursday's loss to the Devils in D.C., and they got 44 of those shots on the New Jersey net, a single-game season high for Washington this season. But only one of those shots - a shorthanded goal from Daniel Winnik - found its way past Devils backup goaltender Keith Kincaid, who turned in an excellent performance for New Jersey. Kinkaid stopped both Caps shots in the shootout, too, in improving his record to 4-3-2 on the season.
"Kinkaid was good," says Caps coach Barry Trotz. "I thought we started out a little bit slow. And then at the end of the first period - in the second half - I thought we started to pick it up a little bit better and had a little push. In the second, we had a real good push. We had the puck all night. We had a real good push and then we took a couple of penalties. The penalty killing was outstanding; we obviously got a shorthanded goal. We had some looks, but they were able to defend hard enough and not allow us the second goal."
Caps center Jay Beagle, who supplied the assist on Winnik's shorthanded strike, absorbed the blame for the slow start in Thursday's game.
"Our start wasn't very good," says Beagle. "For our line, we've got to take that on us and be better at the beginning and get the boys going when the coach does give us the start. It's a big role and we don't take that lightly. I think we've got to be stronger right from the get go. And we've got to try to get to the interior. We had shots, but a lot of them from the outside and not many second opportunities. I think we can do a better job of getting inside them."
Beagle is probably going a little overboard in falling on the sword for the first shift of what was a rather dull first period, and his line played quite well over the entirety of the game. Beagle and linemates Winnik and Tom Wilson spent a good portion of the night checking New Jersey's top trio of Mike Cammalleri, Travis Zajac and Chad Palmieri. The Devils deployed those three forwards quite frequently in the absence of Taylor Hall (lower body injury), as Cammalleri and Zajac both logged over 20 minutes in the game while Palmieri finished at 19:56.
Beagle is on target in mentioning the need for the Caps to get to the interior of the ice. It's been a common theme for much of the season, and he wasn't the only Washington skater singing that tune after Thursday's game, either.
"We kept putting shots at the net and we had a lot of opportunities," says Washington winger Andre Burakovsky. "We just have to be a little bit more hungry around the net and get the rebounds. You can see all the shots, there are a lot of rebounds and they're right there. So we just have to be more hungry on pucks."
While the Caps have been spinning their wheels a bit with just the one win in their last five games, the teams ahead of them in the Metropolitan Division keep rolling on. Washington is in fourth place in the Metro standings, but the Caps are closer to sixth place Carolina (eight points ahead) than they are to first place Columbus (nine points behind. The Caps, the Blue Jackets and the Hurricanes have all played the same number of games (34) heading into Friday night's slate of NHL activity.
Coming off Thursday's win over the Capitals in Washington, New Jersey is now seeking its first set of consecutive wins since Dec. 3-6 when it won at Nashville and at home against Vancouver, respectively. New Jersey was 1-8-1 in its previous 10 games going into Thursday night's game in the District.
It will be interesting to see what the Devils decide to do in goal for Saturday's matinee match. Kinkaid was excellent on Thursday, but he has yet to start consecutive games at any point this season. Meanwhile, No. 1 netminder Cory Schneider is in the throes of a prolonged slump.
After winning four of seven starts (4-2-1) in October, Schneider has won six of 20 (6-10-4) since. He posted a 1.86 GAA and a .941 save pct. in those first seven starts, but has a 3.26 GAA and an .890 save pct. since the start of November.
Veteran winger P.A. Parenteau - an offseason acquisition for the Devils - scored New Jersey's lone goal of Thursday's game, an unassisted goal that came directly off an egregious Evgeny Kuznetsov turnover in the Washington end of the ice. The 33-year-old Parenteau is now toiling for his seventh NHL team, and he has made the rounds of the metropolitan New York area, playing for the Rangers, the Islanders and the Devils during his NHL career. Parenteau has three goals and four points in his last four games. He is the Devils' leading goal scorer this season with 10.
