Caps at Penguins Pregame: Coach Killer vs Coach Killers

December 14, 2015 12:53 pm

No one cares about this anymore.

The Capitals are in Pittsburgh today to face the Penguins and their new coach, Mike Sullivan. Having recently fired the guy who literally wrote the book on hockey strategy but whose on-ice strategies grew increasingly inane, the Penguins could be primed for a bounce back.

It’s also possible that their problems run deeper than tactics. I hope Jim Rutherford isn’t looking into long-term real-estate investments in Shadyside.

Puck drops at 7 PM on CSN. Peter Hassett, who is me, will have your recap service.

Team	Record	Possession	PDO	Power Play	Penalty Kill
Washington Capitals	20-6-2	52.1%	101.4	23.3%	83.5%
Pittsburgh Penguins	15-10-3	48.3%	100.3	15.6%	84.2%

Pens Versus Caps

The only pun worth keeping around. The rest can burn in hell.

Projected Lineup

No changes from last game, according to Isabelle.

Ovechkin – Backstrom – Oshie
Johansson – Kuznetsov – Williams
Chimera – Beagle – Galiev
Burakovsky – Laich – Wilson

Schmidt – Carlson
Alzner – Niskanen
Orlov – Chorney

Holtby

Sidney Crosby: Coach Killer

Eddie Olczyk, 2005-2005. Less than three months before Crosby got him fired!
Michel Therrien, 2005-2009. Crosby said he had to “pay the price!”
Dan Bylsma, 2009-2014. Crosby bullied Bylsma’s depth forwards into sucking!
Mike Johnston, 2014-15. Subconsciously, Crosby didn’t trust him!
Mike Sullivan, 2015-??. Your days are numbered, guy.

And the smart money says Crosby will collect his second GM pelt before July. (Big ups to Ben for setting me up for this cheap shot.)

Storylines

Here’s a quick list of all the Eastern Conference teams who haven’t lost twice in a row: The Washington Capitals. End of list.
Brooks Orpik has been out for a long time and it doesn’t look like he’s coming back anytime soon.
Teams are interested in acquiring Marcus Johansson, probably because he’s so soft and bad at hockey, or so I hear on Facebook.
Clown town. I’m including this in storylines because I’m excited that I got “clown town” into an RMNB headline.
Jim Rutherford on his top talent like Kessel, Crosby, and Malkin: “I do expect more production out of some guys.”
The oral history of Sudden Death.
Travis Yost wrote a thing on TSN, and David Johnson didn’t really seem to like it.

I prefer Sergei Gonchar in red, white & blue. That's a no-go as Penguins defensive development coach. #capitalstalk pic.twitter.com/1EKC2Z3ekC

— Joe Beninati (@JoeBpXp) December 14, 2015

No One Will Ever Speak Frankly About Alex Semin

It’ll always be whispers, innuendo, and euphemism. So I’ll just leave you with this: he was a very effective hockey player. And I won’t use any advanced statistical nonsense to prove my point; I’ll just share with you a complete list of forwards who have seen a higher percentage than Semin of 5v5 goals belong to their team compared to their opponent since 2008 (minimum 3000 minutes):