Caps Face Flyers in Philly
Two hot Metro teams whose lengthy winning streaks recently ended will clash for the first time this season on Wednesday in Philadelphia.
© Len Redkoles
Washington travels to Philadelphia on Wednesday for its first meeting of the season with the Flyers. Philly is the only remaining Metropolitan Division team the Caps have yet to face in 2016-17. The Caps and Flyers will tangle once in December, once in January, once in February and they'll finish off their season's series in Washington on March 4.
The Caps come into Wednesday's game on the heels of a 2-1 loss to the Montreal Canadiens at Verizon Center on Saturday night. That setback ended the Caps' six-game winning streak and marked the first time this season they surrendered two or fewer goals and weren't able to scrape at least a point from the game. The Capitals are 15-1-3 when permitting two or fewer goals against this season.
Montreal's win also marked the first time since March 11, 2015 that the Caps lost a game in which they scored a power-play goal and were perfect on the penalty kill. Washington had gone 28-0 in its previous 28 games that fit those criteria.
As Caps coach Barry Trotz noted after Saturday's game against the Canadiens, Washington played well enough to earn a point, but probably not well enough to win the game. The Caps had a good night in terms of possession and offensive zone time, but they didn't get commensurate bang for their buck in terms of quality scoring chances.
Some credit has to go to the Canadiens for that. Montreal never trailed in the game, and once it took a 2-1 lead late in the second period, it clamped down firmly on the Caps, limiting them to just six shots on net the rest of the way. For once stretch of 15 minutes from late in the second period to after the midpoint of the third, the Caps had no shots on net.
"I think the competitive side and the natural thing to do is to question what you were doing and to try to find mistakes in your own game," says Caps defenseman Brooks Orpik. "And every game, even games in which you win decisively, there are plenty of mistakes in our game. A lot of times, you fail to give credit to the other team.
"[The Canadiens] played a really smart game and they took away the interior of the ice really well. If you can do that with Carey Price behind you, that's a pretty good formula to win. Generating offense and getting to the interior and getting a lot of traffic and second chances is something that we're still trying to work on in practice every day. I think it's gotten better the last couple of weeks, but we're still working on it."
If there is one area in which Washington is a bit behind its normal pace, it's in an area where they've been mostly prolific for the last decade - scoring goals. While Washington boasts a top five defense in terms of average goals against per game, and while both special teams are on the climb and in the upper half of the league, the Caps' attack ranks in the middle of the pack (14th) in the league.
"Early in the season, we haven't had that consistency where we can say, 'Yeah, this line is going good,'" says Caps coach Barry Trotz. "You're not creating a lot of consistence because I keep moving the lines because of inconsistent play. It's sort of a dilemma. But I think we're starting to settle into that."
Before the loss to the Habs, the Caps had scored three or more goals in six straight games. Three is the magic number for the Capitals this season; they are 17-0-0 this season when scoring three or more goals. But they've also had 13 games out of 30 where they've failed to score as many as three goals, and they're 2-8-3 in those contests.
T.J. Oshie's return to the lineup after a seven-game injury absence and the emergence of Justin Williams and Marcus Johansson from early season slumps helped get Washington's top six in order. While those two units and the trio of Jay Beagle with Daniel Winnik and Tom Wilson have settled into a level of consistency over the last few weeks, the Caps are still seeking the same from their other forward line, featuring Lars Eller and a cast of many.
Eller has played in all but one game, totaling two goals and four points while averaging just under 14 minutes per night in ice time. Although he took a string of irksome minor penalties early in the season, Eller has played quite well for Washington for the most part, aside from the lack of production. But he has rarely had the same linemates for more than a few games.
The rotating cast of wingers includes Brett Connolly (three goals), Andre Burakovsky (two), Jakub Vrana (one) and Zach Sanford (none). Including Eller's output, these five players have scored fewer goals than the Beagle line has accounted for (11).
Factor in that both Burakovsky goals came while he was skating on another line and one of Connolly's goals and Vrana's only goal came on the power play, and that doesn't leave much.
"I want to try to find right now something with the Eller line so we can get a little more production through [the lineup]," says Trotz. "We're role defined. Beagle's line, they're all penalty killers, they're good defensively and they've all sort of chipped in offensively a little bit.
"So the roles are pretty defined. Kuzy's line and Backy's line, all those guys have defined roles on the power play and what have you. The line that isn't quite defined is the Eller line. They really don't have defined roles right now. That line has been the one we're trying to piece together a little bit and to find what would be the best combination."
It's a work in progress. Burakovsky and Vrana were the wings on that line for a while; then Connolly got a couple games there after Burakovsky was scratched. Sanford and Vrana were Eller's wings on Saturday against Montreal, and there could be another change on Wednesday in Philly.
"We've got some pretty good players there with Vrana and Eller and Burakovsky and Connolly and Sanford," says Trotz. "So they're all vying in those areas on that line, as well as some of the other lines. We should get some production from there."
Last season, Washington finished second in the league in five-on-five scoring (2.02 goals per game). Through the first 30 games of this season, the Caps rank 20th in the league with 52 five-on-five goals (1.73 per game).
"We can get some more offense from our team, there's no question," says Trotz. "I don't think we've hit our stride there yet. Part of it is obviously starting to come with the power play. It's starting to come to where it was last year, where it's fairly consistent in getting us production. Our five-on-five scoring did us pretty well the first part [of the season] when they power play wasn't going and now the power play is starting to go. We've still got to get the five-on-five back and going again."
Like the Caps, the Flyers come into Wednesday's game having seen their long winning streak end, and seeking to start another. Philadelphia won 10 straight games - tied for the third longest winning run in the Flyers' half-century history - before losing 3-1 to the Stars in Dallas on Saturday, the same day the Caps' streak ended against Montreal.
Philly played host to Nashville on Monday, dropping a 2-1 shootout decision to the Predators.
The Flyers were 9-10-3 on the season (13th in the Eastern Conference standings) when their winning streak started. Heading into Wednesday's game against Washington, the Flyers are sitting in fourth place in the Metropolitan Division, one point ahead of the Caps. More importantly, the Flyers are nine points clear of Carolina, the closest team in the rear view behind Washington.
