Caps vs Sabres pregame: Jake’s big break

January 24, 2021 12:11 pm

A very shorthanded Caps team will host the Buffalo Sabres again this afternoon for their fourth meeting in ten days. With a depleted lineup, Washington will look to their depth in order to add a fourth taco to the Buffalo row on my taco chart, which I will not explain.

Puck drop is at 3 PM. Make a mimosa, put on your housepants, stream the game, and kick it with me, Peter, on recap duty.


Record	1 – 3 – 1	3 – 0 – 2
Shot Attempt %	53.3%	50.9%
PDO	97.2	104.3
Power Play	17.7%	11.1%
Penalty Kill	83.3%	83.3%

Projected Lines

Nope. No idea. No Ovi, no Kuzy, no Orlov, no Wilson. I’m not even gonna guess. Instead, here’s a close-up of Captain.

The Season

1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8
1/30	2/1	3/3	3/5	4/8	4/10	4/18	4/20
2/27	3/1	3/7	3/9	3/25	3/26	4/2	4/4
2/7	2/9	3/11	3/13	4/17	4/27	5/7	5/8
1/26	1/28	3/15	3/16	4/1	4/6	4/22	4/24
🤷	🤷	2/14	2/16	2/23	2/25	4/29	5/1
2/4	2/20	2/21	3/19	3/28	3/30	5/3	5/5
🌮	🌮	🌮	1/24	2/11	2/13	4/13	4/15

How’s Holtby?

Let’s just real quick check on our old pal, Braden Holtby. I hope he is doing w–

G R U M P Y pic.twitter.com/3XXpLs1pU3

— jan (dad) (@lesbijans) January 24, 2021

Oh no. He’s leering at the scoreboard. That’s never a good sign.

Here’s all goalies with two hours played, from worst (left) to best (right).

Uh oh, only Pittsburgh is having worse goalie problems, well I’m sure it’ll get better soon. How’s Vancouver’s defense, HockeyViz?

Well that’s not ideal.

Storylines

The Caps have switched up their defensive pairs after Chara-Jensen got murked last game. Quick shoutout to Chris Cerullo who saw this coming and spelled it out in his last numbers post.
With forward lines, well, who knows. Ovechkin and Kuznetsov are unavailable, and Wilson is injured.
Brad Marchand has an opinion he wants you to hear.
The Blue Jackets and Jets have made the blockbuster trade of the season. My hot take is that everyone’s a loser here. Laine had two good seasons, but they were years ago, and he can’t get into the offensive zone alone. Now he’s in one of the least player-friendly teams in the league. Dubois is a good player but has defensive problems that won’t make the Jets better on aggregate. He escapes Columbus only to end up in the dreary wasteland of Winnipeg in January.
RIPNBCSN
Hershey fans, again, rule.
Just something I’m watching: Buffalo’s Jeff Skinner has the most individual expected goals in the league (1.86 per NST) without scoring a goal.

The Snek and the Silver Lining

Jakub Vrana has been best Washington’s player this season. I called this, and I was right. (I was wrong about other things, but let’s not discuss those right now.) Four of Vrana’s five points, including all three of his goals, have come against the Sabres, whom he’ll be required to frustrate again today. He’s ready.

If there is any upside of Washington’s very bad week, it’s the giving of more ice time and more opportunity to Vrana, 24, at the peak of his skill. I wrote about this this morning, and I’m extremely proud of this concise photoshop I made (using Elizabeth’s photos):