Starting tonight the Washington Capitals play one of their longest homestands of the season, kicking off with Saturday’s date against the Dallas Stars. The reigning champions want to do much better over these next five games than they did in the first eleven — especially on their half of the ice.
We’ll be watching the defense closely starting at 7 PM on NBC Sports Washington. You can stream the action from your personal digital assistant or smart-home device starting at 6 PM. Passionate reality TV fan Chris Cerullo has game coverage duty.
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|---|---|---|
| Record | 7-5-0 | 5-4-2 |
| Shot Attempt % | 48.2% (21st) | 49.1% (17th) |
| PDO | 99.2 | 100.0 |
| Power Play | 25.0 (12th) | 36.1% (1st) |
| Penalty Kill | 86.5 (6th) | 73.8% (24th) |
Projected Lines
By way of the incomparable Izzy of WaPo:
Ovechkin – Kuznetsov – Vrana
Burakovsky – Backstrom – Oshie
Jaskin – Eller – Connolly
Stephenson – Dowd – DSP
Orlov – Niskanen
Kempny – Carlson
Djoos – Bowey
Holtby
Um, Sabres “versus” Senators
From NST:
From Corsica:
Woof.
Storylines
- Dmitrij Jaskin gets bumped up to the third line. Brooks Orpik will miss his second game with a lower-body injury.
- Alex² will be play for Russia in the Canada-Russia series.
- Another Alex, Alex Chiasson, is somehow providing basically all non-McDavid scoring for Edmonton. Respectable 50-percent shooting.
- Peter (hey that’s me!) did a little rant about the Caps defense and rose-colored glasses. Isabelle Khurshudyan writes for the Washington Post about how the Caps need to improve during this homestand. There’s a good passage in there about Reirden’s expectations for the D.
- The return of RMNB investigates! This one, about Holtby’s goalie equipment, has a surprise twist ending.
P.D.O.
PDO doesn’t actually stand for anything, which is very frustrating, but it’s a simple idea: your team’s shooting percentage plus your team’s saving percentage. For the Caps that number is exactly one, indicating a team with outcomes (i.e. goal differentials) in accordance with their shot differentials, but there’s more going on below.
Washington is shooting very well: 9.7 percent, 7th highest in the league; but they’re saving poorly: 90.3 percent, 24th best in the league. That’s whacked out. That’s like 2009/2010 Caps numbers. It’s time for Holtby to kick it up a notch (and his skaters to mellow out with the defensive breakdowns).
Full RMNB Coverage of Caps vs Stars
Headline photo: Ovi’s instagram
