Visions of Dallas – On Monday night in Dallas, the NHL’s best road team tangles with the team that boasts the circuit’s best home mark. With a 12-2-0 road record – including a franchise record 10 straight victories on the road – the Caps are the best road team in the NHL. Washington is also carrying the longest point streak (nine games, 8-0-1) in the NHL this season.
Dallas is officially 12-3-0 at home, though Caps’ coach Spencer Carbery points out that one of those setbacks took place in a neutral site game against Florida in Finland. Here in Texas, at American Airlines Arena, the Stars won each of their first seven games this season, and they’ve won five of seven since, stumbling only against Anaheim and Nashville.
Tonight’s game is the fourth game of the Stars’ season-long six-game homestand. They’ve won two of the first three, falling to the Preds 4-1 this past Thursday. Ten days ago in Toronto, the Caps earned a 3-1 win over a similarly skilled team that boasted a 12-3-0 home record before Washington handed it a fourth home setback.
“I felt the same way going into the Toronto game,” says Carbery. “And I actually mentioned that this morning; it has the same feel. It’s a really quality hockey team that’s sitting where they are. They’re really talented if you go back through the years – including this year – but then also on home ice. They’re as good as anybody in the League [at home], with one of their losses coming over in Finland. If you take that game out, they’ve got the best home record in the National Hockey League.
“It’s a good test for us, to come back on the road, and we’ve played a lot in these [difficult] environments lately, going back to the Florida and Tampa games, in New Jersey, in Toronto. It’s a real difficult and significant challenge tonight.”
For the first time in nearly a month, the Caps are making a lineup change tonight. Jakub Vrana will see his first game action since Nov. 21, taking the place of Hendrix Lapierre on a line with Lars Eller and Andrew Mangiapane. Vrana has four goals and seven points in 16 games this season.
Caps captain Alex Ovechkin is on this two-game trip with his teammates; the Caps play in Chicago on Tuesday before returning home for their first multi-game homestay in nearly a month on Friday against Carolina and Sunday against Los Angeles. Ovechkin participated in Monday’s morning skate in Dallas, but in a power blue non-contact sweater.
“Now he is back and integrated with the group; he’s on the road,” says Carbery of Ovechkin. “The next step would be him taking off that non-contact jersey and practicing in full, which should get him into contact drills.”
Both Ends Burning – Washington’s blueline continues to get the job done at both ends of the ice. With an average of 2.83 points per game from its back end, the Capitals lead the NHL in average points per game contribution from its defensemen. That figure has been primarily fueled by the exploits of a pair of proven offensive defensemen in John Carlson and Jakob Chychrun, but five of the Caps’ top six defensemen have averaged .35 points per game or better so far this season. Chychrun is averaging .83 points per game this season and Carlson is at .79 per game. Chychrun ranks eighth and Carlson tenth among all NHL defensemen, making the Caps the only team in the League to feature two defensemen in the top 10 in that category.
And although Martin Fehervary is below that average at .21 points per game, he is one of only six NHL defensemen (18 games or more) who has averaged more than six blocked shots/60 minutes (6.60) and more than six hits/60 minutes of play this season.
Although Carlson and Chychrun started the season playing together on a pair, they’ve mostly been playing with other partners of late, though they do still see time together when Washington is trying to come from behind in games.
For the last month or so, Carlson has been mainly paired with Fehervary while Chychrun has been primarily partnered with Trevor van Riemsdyk.
According to naturalstattrick.com, the Carlson/Fehervary duo ranks eighth in the League (150 or more minutes together) at fueling possession with a 58.47 percent share of all shot attempts over the 196 minutes and 47 seconds they’ve been on the ice at 5-on-5 together. They’re also on the right side of a 64.29% high danger scoring chance share while they’re together.
Perhaps most impressively, the Carlson/Fehervary duo is the only one in the League’s top 15 possession tandems that has less than 40 percent of its starts together in the offensive zone. Carlson and Fehervary have had just 36.17 percent of their starts in the offensive zone. Of the top 10 duos in possession, only two have an expected goals against (xGA) figure that’s lower than Carlson/Fehervary’s 7.77.
The Stars’ top tandem of Thomas Harley and Miro Heiskanen is one of the seven pairings ahead of the Carlson/Fehervary duo; they’ve controlled 60.38 percent of shot attempts in the 194 minutes and 39 seconds they’ve skated with each other. Harley/Heiskanen has an xGA figure of 8.7.
And finally, in the 11 games Ovechkin has missed, the Caps’ blueline has shown a slight uptick (2.91 points per game) in its already gaudy offensive production, and Chychrun’s dozen points (four goals, eight assists) leads the team in the absence of The Great Eight.
Defensively, the Caps average of 2.45 goals against per game ranks fourth and the team’s average shots on goal per game of 26.4 ranks seventh in the League since Ovechkin last laced up the skates on Nov. 18 in Utah.
In The Nets – Tonight’s goaltending battle features a pair of netminders from Lakeville, Minn. (population: 69,490), which is about 20 miles south of the Twin Cities. Charlie Lindgren gets the net for Washington and Jake Oettinger will mind the crease for the Stars on this Monday night.
More than 300 Minnesotans have played at least one game in the NHL, including a couple dozen goaltenders. Lindgren and Oettinger are the only two goaltenders of the seven Lakewood natives to play in the NHL. Three of those five Lakeville natives – Nashville’s Brady Skjei, Philadelphia’s Ryan Poehling and Colorado’s Sam Malinski – are currently active in the NHL.
In the last two months of last season, no goaltender in the NHL played more minutes (1632:30), made more appearances (28) and started more games (27) than Lindgren, whose 16 wins over that span were exceeded only by Oettinger’s 18.
This season, Lindgren has been in a straight up tandem situation with Logan Thompson, and it’s been a successful situation for both goaltenders and the team as well.
“It's been good; me and LT have a really good relationship,” says Lindgren. “And part of it is kind of nice where you can almost look down the line and say, ‘Okay, I'm going to play this game,’ just the way it has shaken out so far. Who knows what the future holds? But it's been a really good partnership.
“And obviously LT has come in, and he's done a really nice job, and it's been a lot of fun. I think it's keeping us both fresh and pushing each other doing all the right things. So it's been a really good partnership, and really, really fun.”
Tonight in Dallas, Lindgren gets his 15th start of the season in Washington’s 30th game (Thompson made his 15th start in Saturday’s 4-2 win over Buffalo.) Lindgren is seeking his 10th victory of the season, his fifth in succession, and his seventh in his last eight starts. Lifetime against Dallas, Lindgren is 3-2-2 in seven appearances – all starts – with a 2.41 GAA and a .920 save pct.
Oettinger is tied for second in the NHL with 15 wins, he is seventh with a 2.39 GAA and he is 15th with a .911 save pct. In his 13 home starts this season, Oettinger is 11-2-0 with a shutout, a 1.99 GAA and a .926 save pct. Lifetime against the Capitals, he is 4-0-0 in five appearances (four starts), with a shutout, a 1.60 GAA and a .950 save pct.
All Lined Up – Here’s how we believe the Caps and the Stars might look when they take to the ice on Monday night in Dallas:
WASHINGTON
Forwards
24-McMichael, 17-Strome, 16-Raddysh
21-Protas, 80-Dubois, 43-Wilson
88-Mangiapane, 20-Eller, 13-Vrana
22-Duhaime, 26-Dowd, 63-Miroshnichenko
Defensemen
42-Fehervary, 74-Carlson
38-Sandin, 3-Roy
6-Chychrun, 57-van Riemsdyk
Goaltenders
79-Lindgren
48-Thompson
Extras
27-Alexeyev
29-Lapierre
52-McIlrath
Out/Injured
8-Ovechkin (fractured fibula)
15-Milano (upper body)
19-Backstrom (hip)
77-Oshie (back)
DALLAS
Forwards
21-Robertson, 24-Hintz, 53-Johnston
27-Marchment, 95-Duchene, 11-Stankoven
14-Benn, 18-Steel, 63-Dadonov
10-Back, 22-Bourque, 15-Blackwell
Defensemen
55-Harley, 4-Heiskanen
23-Lindell, 5-Lundkvist
6-Bichsel, 46-Lyubushkin
Goaltenders
29-Oettinger
1-DeSmith
Extras
2-Smith
Out/Injured
3-Dumba (upper body)
91-Seguin (hip, labrum)
