The 47th regular season in Washington Capitals history will go into the record books at the end of the upcoming week, the regular season ending for the Caps in a New York frame of mind with three games against Empire State opponents.
The Opponents
New York Islanders (Tuesday/7:00pm – Capital One Arena and Thursday/7:00 pm — UBS Arena)
The Caps start Week 29 with a home-and-home set against the New York Islanders to close the season series. The Caps won the first two meetings of these teams, a 2-0 win in New York on January 15th and a 4-3 shootout win on March 15th in Washington. For the Islanders, a season that began with great promise dissolved quickly, the club going 5-10-5 in their first 20 games of the season, a hole out of which they could not climb. They could never sustain a level of success thereafter, the team putting together three three-game winning streaks over their next 44 games before embarking on a too-little/too-late four game run to end March and begin April.
Since that four-game winning streak, the Islanders are 3-6-1, 24th in points earned over that span (seven) and 27th in points percentage (.350). It is a ream that has struggled on offense all season, their 2.74 goals per game ranking 25th in the league in scoring offense. And they have not been much different by venue, their 2.84 goals per game at home ranking 24th in scoring offense and their 2.65 goals scored per game on the road ranking 24th as well.
What has been surprising for a Barry Trotz-coached team is the mixed bag that defense has been. It starts with shots. The 32.6 shots allowed per game are most in the four years Trotz has been at the helm. And again, venue has not mattered, the Isles’ 31.2 shots per game allowed on home ice being the most in Trotz’ four seasons, as are the 33.9 shots per game allowed on the road. But despite the relatively high shot volumes, the Islanders have remained stingy where it counts. The 2.79 goals allowed per game to date overall gives them the eighth-ranked scoring defense in the league. It has been a quite effective scoring defense on home ice – 2.45 goals allowed per game (fourth in the league), but the 3.13 goals allowed per game on the road is tied for 16th in the league in scoring defense.
What makes the Islanders troubles seem a bit odd is that they do have the ability to get early leads. They scored first in 43 of 78 games so far, tied with Toronto for seventh-most in the league. Their problem has been an inability to sustain those early successes, at least by NHL standards. They are 28-9-6 when scoring first, their .651 winning percentage ranking just 19th in the league (13-4-2 at home/.684/19th and 15-5-4/.625/21st on the road). And, again by NHL standards, they can’t hold leads. They are 13-2-2 when leading after two periods, but their winning percentage of .765 is tied with Los Angeles for 24th in the league. While a 13-2-2 record might look good, that record actually trails Montreal, arguably the worst team in the league, in winning percentage (.778/23rd, but on just a 7-1-1 record).
Washington is 119-94-6 (13 ties) in their all-time series against the Islanders, 61-41-3 (11 ties at home and 58-53-3 (two ties) in New York. The Caps are 8-2-0 in their last ten games against New York overall.
New York Rangers (Friday/7:00pm – Madison Square Garden)
The Capitals will close their regular season against the team against which they started it when they visit Madison Square Garden on Friday to take on the New York Rangers. The Caps opened the regular season with a 5-1 win over the Blueshirts in Washington on October 13th. They lost the second game of the season series, a 4-1 decision in Manhattan on February 24th. This will be the deciding match of the season series.
The Rangers have had a good year, surprising in just how good it has been. A “rebuilding” team in recent years, this club has cobbled together a season in which they are tied with the Calgary Flames for fifth-most points in the league (108), and their points percentage (.684) is tied with the Flames for fifth-place.
The first thing one notices about this year’s Rangers is how stingy they have been at home in allowing goals. Their 2.18 goals allowed per game at MSG rank second in the league in scoring defense. Small wonder – the 62 5-on-5 goals allowed on home ice are third fewest in the league.
The odd thing about that defense on home ice is that they do allow a fair number of shot attempts at 5-on-5. In 38 home games they allowed 1,722 shot attempts at fives. While that ranks in the middle of the pack in the league (15th-most), it does seem out of sync with their goals allowed, in total and at 5-on-5. And, their minus-170 in shots attempts taken and allowed on home ice when ahead in games is the worst differential in the league by a huge margin (Arizona is minus-126).
Nevertheless, when the Rangers score first at home, they generally win. Their 19 wins when scoring first at home are tied for second-most in the league, and their .905 winning percentage when doing so (19-2-0) is third-best in the league.
What the Rangers are not, however, is a team that gets much of a break in terms of power plays on home ice. They are averaging only 2.68 chances per game at home, 28th in the league, and as a result their 25 power play goals scored in home games is tied for 17th in the league. What they do with power plays, though, is build off them. New York is 16-2-2 in the 20 games in which they recorded at least one power play goal on home ice.
On the other side of the special teams equation, the Rangers do not go shorthanded all that much at home, the 2.53 shorthanded situations faced per game being ninth-fewest in the league. Not that high volumes of shorthanded situations have mattered a lot. New York is 14-3-2 in the 19 games at home they went shorthanded three or more times. There is some vulnerability here. New York is 9-5-1 in the 15 games in which they allowed power play goals at home this season.
The Caps are 113-96-8 (18 ties) in their all-time series against the Rangers, 51-54-4 (nine ties) in New York. The Caps are 5-5-0 in their last ten games against the Rangers overall.
Hot Caps:
Cold Caps:
Weird Facts:
Potential Milestones to Reach This Week (or soon):
Alex Ovechkin
Nicklas Backstrom
John Carlson
Dmitry Orlov
Evgeny Kuznetsov
Tom Wilson
T.J. Oshie
Ilya Samsonov
Vitek Vanecek