SKATE SHAVINGS - News and Notes from Caps' Morning Skate 11/11

Pack It Up -The Caps conclude a five-game homestand on Sunday afternoon when they host the Arizona Coyotes at Capital One Arena. Washington is 2-1-1 on the homestand to date, and it is coming into Sunday's finale on the heels of its lone regulation loss of the week, a 2-1 setback at the hands of the Columbus Blue Jackets on Friday night.

The Capitals will depart the District on Monday, leaving for a four-game road trip in which they will play in three different time zones. Today's game starts a stretch of three games in four nights for Washington; they'll play at Minnesota on Tuesday and at Winnipeg on Wednesday.
Arizona comes to town on short rest, having taken a 4-0 whitewashing from the Penguins in Pittsburgh on Saturday night. Sunday's tilt is the third in four nights for the Coyotes, and the Caps know they must take advantage of a road weary foe tonight against Arizona.
"We understand," says Caps coach Todd Reirden. "We've been on the other side of it. We've got to force them to play as fast as we can here. They're a good skating team and a young group, so they're going to be fresh and not happy about how last night went for their team. But it is a scheduling advantage for us that we have to take advantage of in this situation and play as quick as we can, and make sure that we get in on the forecheck and make it difficult for them to ramp up their speed here whenever they get the chance."
State Of The Homestand - When the Caps' current five-game homestand got underway last Saturday against Dallas, Washington was seeking to rebound from a bad beat on the road against the Canadiens in Montreal, it was seeking to tame its goals against and it was looking to establish a base level of consistency.
Four games and just over a week later, with one game to go on the homestand, the Caps have had some strong periods of play mixed with some patches of mediocrity, though they've tended more toward the former than the latter.
"We're starting to fix a couple of things," says Caps defenseman Matt Niskanen. "It's probably held back our offensive push a little bit, which is understandable. We've had a defensive focus, and a focus on puck management. We're starting to trend the right way, but we're still defending too much, or not defending quick enough, and so therefore you're just playing too much defense.
"But our goals against have gone down. First and foremost we had to do that, and now we can start building the right way. We were scoring like crazy, but we were giving up tons. We had to fix one thing, and now we can start building the right way, probably.
The results have been reasonable at 2-1-1, but would look much better with a win on Sunday over the Coyotes. The Capitals started the homestand with a 3-1-1 record this season at Capital One Arena. A win over Arizona would give them the same mark for the homestand.
"I think we've shown the ability in every aspect of our game," says Caps goalie Braden Holtby, "but the consistency isn't there yet. It's always the hardest thing to come around. The way you do that is you make sure you're working hard every game and every practice to try to get the best out of yourself and your team. And the leaders have to push the team forward, sand we know we can do a better job of that, and we will in the future."
Call Of The West -The Caps are 4-1-1 against Western Conference foes this season, and Sunday's game against Arizona kicks of a stretch in which Washington will play five of its next six games against clubs from the opposite conference. The Caps finished last season with a rather ordinary 16-12-2 record against Western opponents.
Short Stuff - Sunday's game features a battle between the Capitals' second-ranked power play (32.7%) and Arizona's top-ranked penalty killing outfit (91.5%). But the Coyotes are not just the league's best penalty killing team, they're generating a rather remarkable amount of offense when they're shorthanded.
A mere 15 games into its 2018-19 schedule, Arizona has racked up nine shorthanded goals. Going into Saturday's game against the Pens in Pittsburgh, Arizona had outscored the opposition by a combined 9-4 while shorthanded this season, becoming the first team in NHL history to ever be plus-5 while shorthanded at any stage of any season. The 1983-84 New York Rangers were the only other team ever to reach plus-4.
To add some perspective to Coyotes shorthanded goal total, the Caps don't have any players with that many career shorthanded goals; T.J. Oshie leads in that department with eight. The Caps have nine shorthanded goals over their last 179 regular season games. And to add a little more perspective, the last time the Caps had as many as nine shorthanded goals over a full NHL season was 2006-07, when they scored a dozen. (It's worth noting too, that NHL referees called far more penalties in those days. The Caps were shorthanded 414 times that season, compared to just 289 times last season.)
The point here is that the Caps must be keenly aware of the Coyotes' proclivity to attack when shorthanded.
"In my position personally," says Niskanen, "it isn't really going to change. But you know they're going to be aggressive. You don't get that many shorthanded goals or opportunities without being really aggressive.
"So you might have to move the puck a little quicker, and it really comes down to a unit of five just thinking "puck support" to break the pressure. And if something happens, they're not just going to whack it down the ice. They're going to try to make a play. So everybody involved has got to come back and help. I've seen a few of the highlights, and it seems like a lot of two-on-one goals."
Three Coyotes have scored more than one shorthanded goal this season. Michael Grabner and Brad Richardson have three each and Derek Stepan has two while Lawson Crouse has one. It's certainly reasonable to assume that Arizona's aggressiveness while shorthanded is causing opposing powers play units to become overly cautious, and ultimately, impotent.
"You have to have confidence and make your plays," says Niskanen, "but you can't be scared on the power play or you're just never going to have any success. That will only make it worse. If they're aggressive and if you make good plays, you'll get good looks. But when something happens, you've got to immediately take three, four or five hard strides, and just get back above them, so as to negate any chance."
Washington has altered its own penalty killing approach, adopting a more aggressive mindset up ice. You can see some positive results in that regard; the Caps' 26.36% Corsi for rating (according to naturalstattrick.com) is tops in the league in four-on-five situations. Arizona ranks third in that department. Washington is tied for fifth in the NHL with eight high-danger scoring chances created at four-on-five. The Coyotes are tied for second with nine.
"The main thing against any team like that is you can't cheat too much," says Holtby of the Coyotes, "especially on the backsides. You need two guys back. Against [Pittsburgh], we got burned on it a few times, and luckily they didn't score on it. A team like that that wants to go right away and wants to get the puck, you need to have pressure coming back. We've played against teams like that before, it's just a matter of making sure we're working hard all the way."
In The Nets -Holtby will be back in the Washington nets today for a third straight start. Holtby has stopped 75 of 78 shots in his previous two starts, splitting a pair of 2-1 decisions and posting a .961 save pct. Lifetime against the Coyotes, Holtby is 4-1-0 with a 2.40 GAA and a .908 save pct.
Darcy Kuemper gets the net for Arizona. With Antti Raanta on injured reserve and untested Hunter Miska serving as the Coyotes' backup, Kuemper will be playing his third game in four nights on Sunday. He is 2-3-1 on the season, with a 2.84 GAA and a .910 save pct.
In one career start against the Caps, Kuemper is 0-1-0 with a 3.08 GAA and an .889 save pct.
All Lined Up - With a late afternoon game, neither the Caps nor the Coyotes conducted a morning skate on Sunday, but this is how we believe the Capitals and the Coyotes will look when they meet on Sunday in the finale of Washington's five-game homestand:
WASHINGTON
Forwards
8-Ovechkin, 19-Backstrom, 77-Oshie
18-Stephenson, 92-Kuznetsov, 13-Vrana
10-Connolly, 20-Eller, 25-Smith-Pelly
65-Burakovsky, 26-Dowd, 72-Boyd
Defensemen
9-Orlov, 74-Carlson
6-Kempny, 2-Niskanen
29-Djoos, 22-Bowey
Goaltenders
70-Holtby
1-Copley
Injuries
43-Wilson (league suspension)
44-Orpik (lower body)
Scratches
23-Jaskin
ARIZONA
Forwards
25-Cousins, 17-Galchenyuk, 36-Fischer
11-Perlini, 21-Stepan, 9-Keller
40-Grabner, 15-Richardson, 45-Archibald
67-Crouse, 20-Strome, 13-Hinostroza
Defensemen
23-Ekman-Larsson, 55-Demers
4-Hjalmarsson, 82-Oesterle
44-Connauton, 46-Lyubushkin
Goaltenders
35-Kuemper
1-Miska
Injuries
6-Chychrun (knee)
18-Dvorak (lower body)
32-Raanta (lower body)
33-Goligoski (lower body)
38-Merkley (knee)

Scratches
14-Panik
43-Mermis