Caps Reach Quarter Mark of '16-17 in Toronto
After 4-1 homestand, the Caps return to the road on Saturday in Toronto, finishing a set of back-to-back games and their November slate in the process.
© Graig Abel/Getty Images
By
Mike Vogel
WashingtonCaps.com
A night after finishing off a five-game homestand with a 3-1 victory over the Buffalo Sabres, the Capitals take to the road once again. The Caps are in Toronto for a Saturday night date with the Maple Leafs at Air Canada Centre, a game that completes a set of back-to-back games, the November portion of Washington's schedule and the first quarter of the 2016-17 season.
Philipp Grubauer made 32 saves on his 25th birthday while his parents watched him play live for the first time in his NHL career in Friday's win over Buffalo.
"It was pretty good," says Grubauer of his performance. "I'm glad they saw me play and saw me get the win there. It's even more important for us to get those two points. Going into to Toronto, it's going to be a really important game back-to-back. I'm happy and I'm happy my parents got to see that."
Washington got secondary scoring from Daniel Winnik and Brett Connolly (on the power play) and Marcus Johansson scored what proved to be the game-winning goal in the second period against the Sabres.
On Saturday night in Toronto, the Caps will aim for a third straight win overall. Washington owns an 8-3-1 record in the month of November, and the Caps are 5-2-2 on the road this season. Although they enter Saturday's game against the Leafs with the third best record in the league - only Montreal (four) has fewer regulation losses - the Caps believe they can be better. With a four-day break between games looming just beyond Saturday's game, the Caps want to keep the pedal to the medal against the Leafs as they each the end of the season's first quarter.
"I think we still haven't gotten to our best hockey yet, and we can still get a little better," says Johansson. "That's what we're striving for right now and we need to improve a little bit, and you've got to keep your foot on the gas to do that. That's two big points for us and it will be a much nicer four days off if we get a win."
Through 20 games last season, the Caps were just a point better (14-5-1) than they are this time around.
"We want to string some wins together," says Caps defenseman Karl Alzner. "We want to string some good hockey together. We had that one good stretch there, but it hasn't been enough compared to last year when we were putting a lot more together. We just want to find a little more consistency against teams in our own conference, especially, and try to put them down below us as much as possible. It doesn't get any easier, but we're excited that we're where we are right now."
Washington goes from facing the league's least potent offensive teams to taking on one of its most dangerous and dynamic offensive clubs in the Maple Leafs. Toronto is third in the league in goals scored per game, and the Leafs are the league's second most prolific team at five-on-five this season, trailing only the New York Rangers.
Nine players on the Toronto roster are aged 23 or younger, and four of them -Connor Brown, Zach Hyman, William Nylander and Nikita Soshnikov - played against the Caps' AHL Hershey farm club last spring in the Eastern Conference Final of the Calder Cup Playoffs.
"I think we're probably all a little bit excited to see what the Leafs are like," says Alzner, "because we get to see all of their highlights all over NHL On The Fly all the time. I'm curious just to see what they throw at us.
"It's one of those challenges where you get to play against players that seem to just go out there and have fun and try things that some guys won't try, and that can be dangerous. It's like when you play a team that's not in the playoffs at the end of the year; they just go out there and do stuff. I've seen what they've done, and it looks like a big challenge. We're definitely going to have to rethink how [Friday's] game went to [Saturday's] game, because it's going to be completely different."
Toronto has dropped three straight, suffering a 5-4 shootout loss to the Devils in New Jersey on Wednesday in its most recent game. The Leafs were at least able to pull a point from that loss; a pair of 2-1 regulation defeats preceded the defeat at the Devils' hands.
The Maple Leafs boast half a dozen skaters with five or more goals on the season. That list includes each of the Leafs' last three first-round draft choices: Auston Matthews (first overall in 2016), Mitch Marner (fourth overall in 2015) and Nylander (eighth overall in 2014). Nylander is the oldest of the trio. He celebrated his 20th birthday this past May.
Two of the Leafs' other leading goal scorers were also top 10 overall picks. Toronto chose Nazem Kadri with the seventh overall choice in the 2009 draft and James van Riemsdyk was the second player chosen overall in the 2007 NHL Entry Draft.
The Maple Leafs had half a dozen rookies in the lineup for their opening night game of 2016-17 against Ottawa: forwards Brown, Hyman, Marner, Matthews and Nylanderand defenseman Nikita Zaitsev. According to Elias Sports Bureau, the last time the Leafs had as many as six rookies in their lineup on opening night was in 1981-82 when Jim Benning, Fred Boimistruck, Stewart Gavin, Bob McGill, Vince Tremblay and Gary Yaremchuk all donned Toronto sweaters when the Leafs opened that season against the Jets in Winnipeg.
Déjà Vu All Over Again -If it's the last Saturday in November, this must be Toronto. For the third straight year, the Capitals find themselves in Canada's largest city on the Saturday after American Thanksgiving, and for the third straight year the Caps are concluding a set of back-to-back games and a stretch of three games in four nights here in Toronto.
After winning four of five on a season-long five-game homestand, the Caps are back on the road and looking to halt a two-game winless streak (0-1-1) away from Verizon Center.
Saturday's game against the Leafs also gets the Capitals to the quarter mark of the 2016-17 NHL season and takes them to the end of the November portion of their schedule. Washington is 8-3-1 in November.
Once the Caps are finished with the Leafs tonight in Toronto, they head back to Washington and they have no games scheduled for the next four nights.
"After [Saturday's] game we don't play for [four] days I think it is," says Caps winger Daniel Winnik, "and we'll use that rest. Knowing that we don't play for [four] days, I don't think guys are going to try harder, but when you've got a long break coming you know to give it your all in that final game."
First Things First - Washington has scored the game's first goal in each of its last eight games and in 17 of 20 games overall this season. Since Barry Trotz took over behind the Washington bench at the start of the 2014-15 season, the Capitals are 83-7-8 (a points percentage of .888) in the 98 games in which they've scored first.
"It's obviously huge," says Caps forward Marcus Johansson of Washington's tendency to score first. "But it's even bigger I think that we can hold them off in the [third period] and get the win and not get a tie game late or something like that. That's big and we need to keep doing that."
The Capitals have allowed only eight first-period goals against this season, the fewest in the league. The Caps have scored 22 goals in the first frame, third most in the circuit. Washington's plus-14 goal differential in the first period is tops in the NHL.
Eight Years Down The Road -Caps defenseman Karl Alzner played his first NHL game on this date eight years ago Saturday, against the Atlanta Thrashers at Verizon Center. He scored his first NHL goal here at Air Canada Centre
Special Teams Index - Washington has scored a power-play goal in three straight games for the first time this season. The Caps' power play ranks 18th in the league at 16.7% and the Caps' penalty killing outfit is now 12th in the league at 82.8% on the season. Adding those two figures together gives Washington a special teams index of 99.5, the team's best mark thus far this season.
Make Yourself At Home - Caps winger Tom Wilson is a Toronto native who also spends his summers training here. He has two goals in four career games at Air Canada Centre, and those two goals came on the Saturdays after the last two American Thanksgivings.
In The Nets - Braden Holtby is back between the pipes for Washington for Saturday's game against the Leafs. Holtby is taking aim on his 11th win of the season. He has surrendered two or fewer goals in 10 of his 15 starts in 2016-17.
"With the [defense] corps that we have," says Holtby, "that will be our strength if we're going to be successful, and they've been playing extremely strong. Our forwards are committed, and we've added some very defensively aware players to our lineup.
"There are still some areas where myself and our defensive system would like to get better, but it's moving in the right direction."
Holtby is 8-2 with a 1.89 GAA and a .929 save pct. in his last 10 starts. In five career appearances (four starts) at Air Canada Centre, Holtby is 3-1-1 with a 2.04 GAA and a .937 save pct. In 63 career appearances (62 starts) on Saturdays, Holtby is 41-14-7 with eight shutouts, a 2.18 GAA and a .924 save pct.
Holtby has earned a point in 10 of his last 11 road games (3/22-11/11: 8-1-2) and has registered one shutout, a 1.69 goals-against average and a .939 save percentage during that span.
Frederik Andersen is expected to start for Toronto. He has made one career start against Washington; he shutout the Caps in the final regualr season game of 2015-16, a makeup game of a snowed out date from the blizzard that hit the District last January. Andersen was with the Anaheim Ducks at the time. The Leafs imported both of their goaltenders from the greater L.A. area, acquiring Andersen in a deal with the Ducks and signing former Kings goalie Jhonas Enroth to serve as Andersen's understudy.
Return Trip -After Friday night's game against the Sabres, the Capitals recalled forward Paul Carey from AHL Hershey. Carey was recalled last weekend after T.J. Oshie and Lars Eller were both injured in a Nov. 18 game against Detroit. Carey skated with the Caps in their 3-2 loss to the Columbus Blue Jackets on Nov. 20, the only loss on the homestand.
Carey has recorded a point in a dozen straight AHL games this season, the longest streak in the league in 2016-17.
All Or Nothing - Not much middle ground has been evident in the Toronto attack of late. Over their last nine games, the Leafs have scored four or more goals five times, and they've scored exactly six goals in four of those games. In the other four games during that stretch, the Leafs have been shutout once and they've scored exactly one goal three times.
All Lined Up -Here's our best guess at how the Capitals and the Maple Leafs might look when they take to the ice tonight at Air Canada Centre:
WASHINGTON
Forwards
90-Johansson, 19-Backstrom, 14-Williams
8-Ovechkin, 92-Kuznetsov, 65-Burakovsky
82-Sanford, 83-Beagle, 43-Wilson
26-Winnik, 20-Eller, 10-Connolly
Defensemen
9-Orlov, 74-Carlson
27-Alzner, 2-Niskanen
44-Orpik, 88-Schmidt
Goaltenders
70-Holtby
31-Grubauer
Scratches
4-Chorney
28-Carey
Injured
77-Oshie (upper body, week-to-week)
TORONTO
Forwards
25-Van Riemsdyk, 42-Bozak, 16-Marner
47-Komarov, 43-Kadri, 29-W. Nylander
11-Hyman, 34-Matthews, 12-Brown
15-Martin, 18-Smith, 26-Soshnikov
Defensemen
44-Rielly, 22-Zaitsev
51-Gardiner, 8-Carrick
2-Hunwick, 46-Polak
Goaltenders
31-Andersen
35-Enroth
Scratches
20-Corrado
24-Holland
52-Marincin
Injured
8-Lupul (sports hernia)
32-Leivo (lower body)
-Robidas (knee)
