Caps Entertain Wings on Friday
Coming off big win over Penguins in homestand opener, Caps look to keep the good times rolling.
© Patrick McDermott
By
Mike Vogel
WashingtonCaps.com
Washington's season-long five-game homestand continues on Friday night when the Detroit Red Wings come to town for the first of their two visits to Verizon Center this season. The Capitals started the homestand off on a high note Wednesday night when they larruped the Pittsburgh Penguins by a 7-1 count.
T. J. Oshie and Nicklas Backstrom scored two goals each, and both players matched their single-game personal standards for points in a single game, four for Oshie and five for Backstrom. Washington scored the game's first goal while shorthanded - doing so for the second time in a week - and added a pair of power-play goals, too.
Both of Backstrom's goals came off the rush, giving him three such goals in the last two games. One of the best and most consistent playmakers of his era, Backstrom isn't likely to morph into a sniper overnight. But he's proven to be adept at using defenders as screens to slip his sneaky wrist shot past opposing goaltenders.
"I'm going to shoot when I get my chances and when I think it's time to shoot," says Backstrom. "But maybe I should try to shoot it more when I get a one-on-one."
The offensive outburst was a welcome relief for a Capitals team that had scored just five goals in its previous four games and had managed just one power-play goal in its previous 19 opportunities with the extra man.
Coming in as the tired team after losing an overtime decision in Columbus a night earlier, the Caps feasted on the rested Penguins, who had been idle since Saturday. Pittsburgh's proclivity for penalties resulted in seven Washington power plays, the most the Caps have had in their last 50 regular season games. And virtually all of the Penguins' best players were in the box at some point during the game, perhaps mirroring their ongoing frustration as the night wore on.
Pittsburgh is known for its speed, and the Penguins were the rested team. But the Caps looked to be the faster team on Wednesday.
"Yes we did," says Caps defenseman Matt Niskanen. "That was a real determined effort by the whole group today. We haven't been real happy with the way things have been going lately. We haven't been generating enough offense. So the guys got really determined today, they used their legs, did a lot of good things with the puck and got good results because of it."
At the other end of the ice, Caps goalie Braden Holtby returned to the net after a two-game absence and stopped 25 of the 26 shots he faced. Holtby came within three and a half minutes of shutting out the Penguins, and ran his record to 8-3-1 on the season. In his last seven starts, Holtby is 6-1 with a 1.84 GAA and a .935 save pct.
Wednesday's win ended a 1-2-1 run for the Caps over their previous four games.
"There have been times in the last week or so where portions of games haven't been that bad and we were doing a few good things," notes Niskanen. "But it was just not sustained enough. Tonight, I thought we were pedal to the metal the whole game. Guys were playing and determined to win pucks where they needed to do it, get your legs going and make something happen.
"We've got a nice little homestand here - the rest of the month I think we only have one road game, so hopefully we can look for some good results here."
The nice little homestand now continues against the Red Wings on Friday. Coming off a game where scoring was much easier than it has been of late, the Caps now aim to keep the aforementioned pedal to the aforementioned metal.
"The one thing you've got to be careful with in games where you score a lot [and win by] a big gap is getting complacent," warns Holtby. "Next game, there is no cushion in goals. You start from scratch and make sure we come with the same mindset we came with in the first period and move on like that. We can use it to our advantage, and hopefully we do, we've just got to make sure that we don't become complacent."
The Red Wings woke up Thursday morning in a three-way tie for fifth place in the Atlantic Division, knotted with the Panthers and Maple Leafs, who went head-to-head in Toronto on Thursday night. The Leafs waxed the Panthers 6-1, so the Red Wings will enter Friday's game in a tie for sixth place with Florida. Those two teams are three points up on cellar-dwelling Buffalo.
Detroit has won eight of its first 17 games this season, and six of those came in a six-game winning run from Oct. 17-27, a spree during which the Wings outscored the opposition by a combined 20-8. But since the end of that streak, Detroit has gone 2-6-1. The Wings have been on the short side of a 29-17 shot differential in those last nine games.
The Wings come to town having lost two straight, a 5-0 whitewashing in Montreal on Saturday and a 4-3 home ice trimming from Tampa Bay on Tuesday.
Back To Work - Washington's 7-1 stomping of the Pittsburgh Penguins ended a stretch of four games in six nights for the Capitals, who took a well-deserved day off on Thursday. On Friday night at Verizon Center, the Caps' season-long five-game homestand rolls on when the Detroit Red Wings visit town.
The Caps' offensive outburst against the Pens followed a fallow period in which the Washington attack had gone virtually silent, scoring just five goals over a span of four games. Despite the seven-goal eruption against the Pens, it's not easy to score goals in the NHL, and the Caps need to be diligent about doing the things they did on Wednesday if they expect to continue having success.
"I think you just realize where we were a game or two before that, where it wasn't coming that easy," says Caps right wing T.J. Oshie. "And hopefully our memories aren't that short that we're not going to take it for granted that it's going to be easy. We learned that when it's hard and the harder we play, the game kind of opens up a little for you and becomes easy after you put in the hard work.
"Hopefully we're an old enough team and we respect the process enough that we won't slip back into that hole."
Detroit is known as a speed team, and the Caps played a terrific game against another speed team two nights ago when they beat the Pens.
"When you play teams that have good speed," says Caps coach Barry Trotz, "you can't play a regroup game because they're just too quick on you. You can't play that slow game. You can play a puck possession game. But you have to go north and then you can possess it down there, in their end. But if you want to possess it in your end and make 12 different passes to get to their blueline, they're going to pressure you and pick one off or they're going to create a poor execution and then a transition.
"You saw how fast we can play when we played north [against Pittsburgh]. I thought we did a good job even in Columbus [on Tuesday] of playing north for two periods. Playing quick is about going in the same direction at the same time. When half the guys are going this way and the other half are going this way, that's not going to work. It's just slow hockey."
The Foundation - For many teams, scoring a grand total of five goals over a span of four games would mean a four-game regulation losing streak. But the Caps managed to win a game and push another to overtime during their four-game offensive drought. That's because the foundation of the team has shifted to defense over the last couple of seasons, and a strong and consistent defense can enable a team that's struggling offensively to pull points here and there until it gets back on track.
"That's a testament to our goaltending right now and to our team play and our defense, and just the style and commitment that we put forth. I think that's' going to help us throughout the year. There are going to be times where their goalie is standing on his head or we're just not getting things done, we need to find other ways to score but also things to rely on heavily in those scenarios that will help us get through those games."
Offense From The Defense -Through the first 16 games of the 2016-17 season, Caps defensemen have totaled just three goals. But that doesn't mean the team's blueliners haven't been chipping in offensively. Quite the opposite, actually.
Caps defensemen have also contributed 32 assists through 16 games, and at least one rearguard has collected a point in 14 of the team's 16 games to date this season. Despite the lack of lamplighters early in the season, this year's crop of defensemen is virtually right on par with the best seasons the team has had in that regard over the last two-plus decades.
The 2014-15 Caps blueline brigade totaled 182 points (32 goals, 150 assists) for an average of 2.22 points per game, the highest scoring figure from a group of Washington defensemen since 1993-94. This season's bunch is on pace to come in just behind the '14-15 crew; the '16-17 group is producing at a rate that would lead to 179 points over a full season at the current pace.
"I think we've done a better job of breaking the puck out," says Carlson. "We'll break the puck sometimes right into a two-on-one, so that obviously helps. But we can all skate, we can all play and we can all contribute offensively.
"We want our guys to be in the rush as fourth attackers all the time. Maybe if it's a three-on-two, we turn it into a four-on-two and really make them play differently. Just little things like that really make a difference in how teams play us and also allows us to be more involved."
Wounded Wings -The Red Wings limp into the District with a lengthy list of laid up skaters. Seven Wings are on the team's injured list (though defenseman Niklas Kronwall could return tonight against Washington), and the Wings have lost 41 man-games to injury thus far this season.
Darren Helm is the latest on Detroit's list of the infirm. He suffered a shoulder injury after an awkward fall in Tuesday's loss to Tampa Bay. Detroit has recalled forward Tyler Bertuzzi from Grand Rapids of the AHL. The 21-year-old Bertuzzi was the team's second-round choice (58th overall) in the 2013 NHL Draft. He has appeared in three games for the Wings this season; he made his NHL debut at Philadelphia on Nov. 8.
All Lined Up - Caps right wing Justin Williams did not take the ice at Friday's morning skate; he was excused to take care of a family matter. Williams is expected to be in the Caps' lineup tonight against Detroit. We expect the Caps' lineup to be just as it was for Wednesday's game against the Pens.
As for Detroit, here's our best guess as to how they'll look tonight.
WASHINGTON
Forwards
90-Johansson, 19-Backstrom, 77-Oshie
8-Ovechkin, 83-Beagle, 65-Burakovsky
82-Sanford, 92-Kuznetsov, 14-Williams
10-Connolly, 20-Eller, 43-Wilson
Defensemen
9-Orlov, 74-Carlson
27-Alzner, 2-Niskanen
44-Orpik, 88-Schmidt
Goaltenders
70-Holtby
31-Grubauer
Scratches
4-Chorney
26-Winnik
DETROIT
Forwards
8-Abdelkader, 40-Zetterberg, 14-Nyqvist
71-Larkin, 51-Nielsen, 41-Glendening
39-Mantha, 15-Sheahan, 21-Tatar
59-Bertuzzi, 29-Ott, 20-Miller
Defensemen
65-DeKeyser, 25-Green
52-Ericsson, 53-Marchenko
55-Kronwall, 48-Sproul
Goaltenders
35-Howard
34-Mrazek
Injuries
26-Jurco (back)
43-Helm (dislocated shoulder)
62-Vanek (hip)
72-Athanasiou (sprained knee)
93-Franzen (concussion-like symptoms)
97-Vitale (concussion)
Scratches
2-Smith
61-Ouellet
