Friday On My Mind – Friday is here and so are the New Jersey Devils; they’re in town to supply the opposition for the third game of the Capitals’ four-game homestand tonight. The Caps are down to 13 games remaining in their season, and two of them will be against the Devils. The Caps visit New Jersey for the second and final time this season on April 2.
Both the Caps and Devils had high hopes of reaching the Stanley Cup playoffs this season, but both now face a significant uphill climb in the season’s final month in order to achieve that goal.
“And playing well of late,” says Caps coach Spencer Carbery of the Devils. “They’ve won three in a row. And both games – or the last couple games – with the Rangers and even Boston; it’s really impressive how they handled Boston, especially how much [offense] they generated against them in that game.
“Two teams in a very similar scenario [tonight].”
The Devils come to town with seven wins in their last nine games (7-2-0), and they’re averaging 3.88 goals per game across that span, which should be a good test for the Washington defense, which has yielded an average of 2.67 goals against in its half dozen March games to date. That’s the eighth best rate in the NHL across that span.
On The Attack – Offensively, the Capitals have not been as effective lately as they’re capable of being, based on what we witnessed from this group both last season and earlier this season.
Last season, the Caps scored two or fewer goals in 26 of their 82 games, posting a 3-20-3 record in such contests. Through just 69 games this season, the Caps have already exceeded last season’s total; they’ve been limited to two or fewer goals against in 28 of those 69 contests, going 4-19-5 along the way.
The Caps are coming off a 4-1 win over Ottawa here on Wednesday night, and that game was 2-1 in favor of Washington before the home team added a pair of late empty-net goals, which kept it from being added to this total.
But in nine of their last dozen games, the Caps have been limited to two or fewer goals against with a netminder between the pipes for the opposition, and that’s simply not enough offense for them to claw their way back into the playoff chase, as their 6-5-1 record across that span will attest.
“For a while there, we weren't defending well enough, which became a focus of ours,” says Caps right wing Tom Wilson. “Last year, we were scoring so many goals that you know those details aren't as isolated in the [defensive] zone, because you're scoring enough to win 5-4 or whatever.
“This year, we're in a bit of a different position, where we need to defend better, because the pucks aren't going in as easily. So, I think that's a that's a good start. And then obviously, if the power play chips in, and you get a few others, you're putting yourself in a good, good spot.”
Washington’s power play has clicked on just 16.6 percent of its opportunities this season, ranking 27th in the NHL. The Caps have scored 34 power-play goals this season, finding the range just under every other game to this point of the campaign.
The last time the Caps failed to score as many as 40 power play goals in a full season not impacted by pandemic or labor stoppage was way back in 1977-78, the fourth season of the Capitals’ NHL existence. That ’77-78 squad had 34 power-play goals in 278 opportunities for a 12.2 percent success rate, dead last among the 18 teams in the League in those days. The Caps’ lowly power-play success rate from that season remains the worst in franchise history.
Washington is a more respectable 5-for-18 (26.3 percent) with the extra man in its half dozen March games, but the Caps need to generate more lamplighters at 5-on-5 to alleviate some of the pressure on their defense and their goaltending.
“I think there are a few things we could do a little bit better,” says Caps center P-L Dubois, who has racked up four goals – two of them on the power play – and eight points in 11 games since coming off the long-term injured reserve list. “I don’t really want to get into the detailed details of it, but yeah, there are a few things that we could do better.
“There are the obvious ones and the clichés and all, like getting to the net and getting more shots and all that. But I think if it were that simple, every team would just do that and win. I think there are more detailed things that we can do. Execution is one thing; the difference between a goal and just a shot on net could be that the pass is three inches too far ahead or it’s not a flat pass. So it could be the details of the game or it could be other little things that we’re not doing as well.”
Another problem is merely having the puck enough and having it in the offensive end of the ice.
“We had to start defending better, and then from there, now we're working on the other end of the rink,” says Wilson. “And creating momentum in games is going to help us a lot. For a while there, we just felt like we were starting every shift in the [defensive] zone. We had no momentum. It's kind of an unwritten concept in hockey, that if you're pushing a team and you have good momentum, you're getting [offensive] zone starts and you’re wearing the other team down. You're going to get more at the other end of the rink.
“That was, for me, something that I noticed is as a group, we just needed to build our next shift mentality a little bit better, so that you're setting up the next line and guys are coming out with opponents who are tired in the [defensive] zone, and that can go a long way. So, our games have looked a little bit better the last little while. We’ve just got to put our head down here and get to work and keep improving our game.”
Short Change Hero – While the Caps’ power play woes continue to vex them, the team has turned its penalty killing outfit around over the last three and a half months. Since Dec. 5, the Caps’ kill rate –across a span of 41 games, exactly half a season – is 84.1 percent, second only to that of Chicago (84.3 percent).
And since being dented for a power-play marker almost two weeks ago in a March 7 matinee match in Boston, the Caps are a perfect 14-for-14 on the penalty kill. Washington’s recent stretch of penalty killing success is impressive in that it was achieved entirely without the services of a pair of longtime shorthanded stalwarts in DC, defenseman John Carlson and Nic Dowd, both of whom were traded away – to Anaheim and Vegas, respectively – just ahead of that March 7 game with the Bruins.
“I think there’s been multiple guys that have stepped up into those roles,” says Carbery, of filling in for the two departed penalty killers. “Rasmus Sandin being one; he has done a tremendous job. I think our regular killers have upped the ante a little bit and have taken their individual games – the Matt Roys, Marty [Fehervary – to a higher level], and then I think with our killers up front, [Anthony Beauvillier] has stepped into a more prominent role on the penalty kill and [Connor McMichael] is now starting penalty kills where it was normally Nic Dowd and Tom Wilson.
“So, I think whether it was guys that didn’t kill before coming in – the Sandins of the world, the Beauvilliers of the world – or the guys that were already important [penalty killers] have elevated their PK play, but it’s done a really nice job and played a huge role the other night in keeping us with that lead, because [Ottawa] had multiple opportunities to tighten that game up, whether is was 1-1 or to cut it to 2-1.”
Dowd averaged 2:40 per game on the PK this season for Washington, tops among all forwards on the team. Carlson averaged 2:28 per game in shorthanded ice time, third among Washington defensemen, trailing only Fehervary (2:52) and Roy (2:30).
Starting with that March 7 game in Boston – the first game the Caps played without both Carlson and Dowd – we’ve seen both Roy (3:20) and Fehervary (3:17) log more shorthanded ice time. Over the same span, both Sandin (1:46) and Beauvillier (1:45) have picked up more shorthanded ice time than they were getting before the trades when Sandin was at 1:21 per game and Beauvillier was averaging 56 seconds per contest.
In The Nets – Logan Thompson has been terrific for the Caps in net of late, and he gets his 10th starting assignment in Washington’s last dozen games. Despite a sparkling 2.12 GAA and a .923 save pct. in those nine starts, Thompson has won only five of them (5-3-1), which relates back to the Caps’ scoring woes noted above.
Lifetime against New Jersey, Thompson is 3-0-3 in six appearances – all starts – with a 3.17 GAA and an .897 save pct.
For the Devils, veteran Jake Allen is the likely – but not confirmed – starter tonight. Allen started the Devils’ first game out of the Olympic break – New Jersey came out of the break with a set of back-to-backs – and Jacob Markstrom started the following game. Both goaltenders lost as the Devils dropped both ends of that back-to-back, but Markstrom has started nine of New Jersey’s last 10 games.
The likely reason for going with Allen tonight – if he does indeed get the starting nod – is simply Markstrom’s career record against the Capitals over the course of his 16-year NHL career.
Markstrom has won only two of 13 career appearances – all starts – against Washington, going 2-8-3 with a 3.28 GAA and an .892 save pct. Allen has also made 13 career appearances and starts against the Capitals, going 6-6-1 with a shutout, but his qualitative numbers against Washington are even more unsightly than those of Markstrom. Allen owns a 3.61 career GAA and an .888 save pct. against the Caps.
All Down The Line – Here’s how the Caps and the Devils might look on Friday night in the District:
WASHINGTON
Forwards
8-Ovechkin, 17-Strome, 72-Beauvillier
21-Protas, 80-Dubois, 43-Wilson
24-McMichael, 34-Sourdif, 9-Leonard
22-Duhaime, 29-Lapierre, 53-Frank
Defensemen
42-Fehervary, 38-Sandin
6-Chychrun, 57-van Riemsdyk
44-Hutson, 3-Roy
Goaltenders
48-Thompson
79-Lindgren
Healthy Extras
27-Liljegren
47-Chisholm
52-McIlrath
63-Miroshnichenko
Injured/Out
64-Kampf (personal)
NEW JERSEY
Forwards
28-Meier, 13-Hischier, 91-Mercer
63-Bratt, 86-J. Hughes, 16-Brown
81-Gritsyuk, 12-Glass, 29-Hameenaho
47-Cotter, 72-Bjugstad, 42-Tsyplakov
Defensemen
71-Siegenthaler, 7-Hamilton
43-L. Hughes, 8-Kovacevic
5-Dillon, 17-Nemec
Goalies
25-Markstrom
34-Allen
Healthy Extras
33-Dadonov
44-Cholowski
Injured/Out
11-Noesen (lower body)
15-MacEwen (lower body)
22-Pesce (lower body)
