The Blues look to keep their late November mojo going as they bring a four game win streak into Washington tonight when they take on the Capitals on the 2nd night of their back to back games. Last night’s win brought the Blues’ record to 6-3-1 in their last ten games, the same as the Capitals’ record.
The Capitals are looking to rebound after a home loss to Columbus on Sunday. Much like the Blues of a couple of weeks ago, the Capitals are struggling to score, scoring two goals or less in four of their last five games. It’s a good thing for the Capitals that they are 2nd in the NHL in goals against per game, likely due to their limiting of opponents shots (3rd in shots against per game). Perhaps some of their scoring struggles can be attributed to their 19th ranked power play, down 14 spots from last year’s ranking.
Niklas backstrom leads the Capitals with 17 points in 18 games while Alex Ovechkin has struggled by his standards, posting only 13 points in 18 games though he is scoring at a goal every two games pace. The entire Capitals defensive corps has combined for the same amount of goals (3) as Alex Pietrangelo and fewer goals than Kevin Shattenkirk. Braden Holtby has been good in net, posting a 1.99 GAA and 92.7% save percentage.
The Blues remain in 2nd place, now 3 points back of the division leading Blackhawks and 4 points ahead of the 3rd place Stars. Don’t look now but the Blues are averaging three and a half goals per game in their last four games. David Perron has at least a point in 5 straight games. Jaden Schwartz has a point in 4 straight games and in 7 of his last 8. Colton Parayko has 5 assists in his last 6 games.
Other than in net, don’t expect the lineup to change as Alexander Steen didn’t even come with the team on the road trip. As to the lines, I expect them to look like this for the most part:
Schwartz – Stastny – Perron
Fabbri - Lehtera - Tarasenko
Jaskin – Berglund – Yakupov
Upshall - Brodziak - Reaves
Bouwmeester – Pietrangelo
Gunnarsson – Shattenkirk
Parayko - Bortuzzo
Hutton
Jammer’s 9 NHL Nuggets
1) Don’t think home ice advantage is important? The top two teams in each conference are the teams with the best home records in the conference.
2) The Senators handed the Canadiens their 1st home regulation loss last night.
3) Erik Karlsson became the 1st defenseman to reach 400 points in under 500 games since Brian Leetch did it in the 1990s.
4) Speaking of Karlsson, his 80.5% points per game pace is way ahead of the next rate for active defenseman with over 400 points. Second is Andrei Markov at 58%.
5) Radko Gudas appears to be up to his usual self with a questionable hit on Trocheck. What will NHL DPOS (I know I have the letters reversed) do?
6) I wonder if some Flyers fans see it as karma that Trocheck fell on Couturier’s leg, injuring it.
7) David Backes scored the Bruins 20,000th goal last night.
8) Speaking of Backes, his team out shot and out hit he Blues last night but lost. Kind of sounds familiar to me.
9) Three different players scored their 8th goal last night.
It’s a great day for hockey.
Fellow Hockeybuzz bloggers
Nashville Predator's Paul McCann,
Winnipeg Jet's Peter Tessier and
Minnesota Wild's Dan Wallace have generously agreed to a friendly charity wager. We were hoping to do the whole division but don't have it fully represented yet. The blogger whose team finishes the highest the standings at the end of the year gets to pick a charity to whom the others donate in their name.
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