The Harder They Come – The Caps continue their four-game homestand tonight against the Columbus Blue Jackets, seeking to get back in the win column after a 5-3 loss to the Tampa Bay Lightning in Saturday’s homestand opener.
A mere nine points separates the top team (Carolina, 30 points) in the Eastern Conference standings from the 16th place team (Toronto, 21 points) in the Conference, and the Caps (24 points) have only four teams beneath them in the standings while the Jackets enter tonight’s game a point ahead of Washington.
Both the Caps and Jackets started season-high four-game winning streaks in October, and both have scuffled with consistency a bit in November.
Washington has scored 20 goals at 5-on-5 in its last six games, tied for the most in the NHL over that span. The Caps have also yielded 13 goals against at 5-on-5 over that stretch, which is more than a third of their total (33) on the season. Only Seattle (31) has yielded fewer goals against at 5-on-5.
The Caps have been nicked for as many as three goals against at 5-on-5 in seven of their 22 games this season, but they’ve allowed three such goals in each of their last three games.
Tonight, one of their main tasks will be to neutralize the Blue Jackets’ top forward trio of Dmitri Voronkov, Adam Fantilli and Kirill Marchenko, a troika that has accounted for 26 goals in the Jackets’ first 22 games this season. That’s six more than the other nine Columbus forwards who are expected to be in lineup tonight have combined to score (20) to this point of the campaign.
As currently constituted, the Fantilli trio has logged 116 minutes together at 5-on-5, and it has scored seven goals while being on the ice for seven goals against over that span. The trio has controlled 51.5 percent of shot attempts together, which ranks 20th of the 30 NHL trios that have logged as much as 115 minutes together this season.
Tom Gulitti of nhl.com reported this morning that Marchecnko departed the Jackets’ morning skate early today with an injury of some type. If he is unable to answer the bell tonight, expect Columbus to move Yegor Chinakhov up to the top trio with Voronkov and Fantilli, and expect Zach Aston-Reese to draw into the resulting opening on the team’s fourth line.
You Can Get It If You Really Want – Caps center Nic Dowd’s status is still day-to-day; he has missed the last three games with an upper body injury and appears unlikely suit up for tonight’s game against Columbus. In his absence, Sonny Milano has stepped into the Washington lineup and has skated the left side of a line with Hendrix Lapierre and Ethen Frank.
That unit has been an offensive-zone juggernaut for Washington in the last three games, controlling 74.36 percent of shot attempts in the 18:45 of 5-on-5 time they’ve skated together. Moreover, they’ve created 17 scoring chances to just two allowed, and they’re up 7-1 over opponents in high danger opportunities. This has resulted in three goals scored for the group over that span, but also two goals against. They’ve taken all their faceoffs together in the offensive zone during that span, so they’ve been sheltered in relation to the other Washington lines in those three games.
In particular though, Lapierre has stood out in terms of what he has been able to do analytically through the first quarter of the season, and not simply the last three games. Playing in 21 of Washington’s 22 games, Lapierre ranks third among all NHL forwards (with at least 200 minutes of 5-on-5 ice time) with a 62.77 percent rate of shot attempts controlled while he is on the ice, according to Natural Stat Trick.
More impressively, the Caps have had 135 scoring chances for and 70 against with Lapierre on the ice, and his rate of 65.85 percent of scoring chances and his rate of 70.93 percent of all high danger chances (61 for and 25 against) both lead all forwards in the League.
Washington has outscored the opposition 7-6 with Lapierre on the ice at 5-on-5, and the Caps are even (3-3) in high danger scoring chances going into the net with him on the ice, which is less than one might expect, given the lopsided nature of the possession and scoring chance analytics.
Lapierre has certainly had some hard luck around the net through the first quarter, but he has clearly excelled analytically, so we asked Caps coach Spencer Carbery about that disconnect. And as always, he gave a detailed answer.
“It's a difficult question, because there's a few different layers to it,” says Carbery. “His line that he's played on has been extremely [solid]. Underlying numbers are really, really good, really strong. The finishing hasn't been there – whether it was him or someone on his line – the on-ice shooting percentage for him is extremely low.
“So, what attributes to that. What's not connecting there? I think it's just simply put, finishing in some of those situations. Can we find a way to get in and around the net a little bit more? Can we get one to go in off our shin pad? Or, one right on the doorstep, and not just rely on a wrist shot from the slot, which is a great opportunity; it’s a high danger chance, [but] very difficult to score on if the goalie sees you and is squared up with you.
“So I think there's a lot of those, which again, I'm not taking anything away. Those are great opportunities to score, they're just hard to finish on those. So I would say that, [number] one, and then the second part, what does he need to do to potentially earn more opportunity? Finishing helps, because now all of a sudden, even though I do look at the numbers and I do appreciate the fact that he's done a nice job this year – he looks a lot better than last year – controlling play, generating opportunities, playing majority of his shifts on their half of the ice as opposed to ours. Those are all really good things, but at the end of the day – like they did in Montreal – you want to see some results from that, okay? So, finishing would be a big part of that.
“And then the other part is when they do get opportunities to play – his line, specifically –where I don't protect his match up, where he gets in [against] some top six players. That's where I'm really paying attention to how does that shift go? Because that, to me, is where him and whether it's Frankie and Sonny or whoever's playing on that line, if I can feel free to deploy them against anybody on the opposition, and I'll look for a few shifts early in the game. If they can hang with the Marchenko [line], for instance, tonight, and if they get caught out going against them, are they okay? Does it look fine? Can they check those guys okay? Are they able to get in the offensive zone against their top six? Or maybe it's [Sean] Monahan’s line.
“So those, I think, are key parts to their next evolution, to earn as opposed to eight, nine minutes of 5-on-5, potentially get to 11.”
In the Nets – For the first time in his Capitals career, Thompson was pulled from a game for reasons other than injury on Saturday night against the Lightning. After yielding four goals on six shots in 18:19 of first-period work, Thompson was pulled in favor of Charlie Lindgren, who finished up.
In 152 career starts, Saturday’s pull was just the fourth for Thompson for reasons of performance, and the first in nearly two years, since a Dec. 19, 2023 game against the Hurricanes in Carolina.
Thompson started and won – and, according to Carbery after the game, “stole” – the first meeting between the Caps and Jackets this season, making 34 saves in a 5-1 Washington win in Columbus on Oct. 24, a month ago tonight. Lifetime against the Blue Jackets, Thompson is 3-1-0 in five appearances – four starts – with a 2.55 GAA and a .924 save pct.
The Caps will be going up against Elvis Merzlikins in the Columbus cage tonight. It’s been nearly two full years since the Caps have faced Merzlikins in the regular season; either Daniil Tarasov (now with Florida) or Jet Greaves has made each of the last five starts for Columbus against Washington.
When the Caps last faced Merzlikins on Dec. 21, 2023 in Columbus, he took a roughing penalty against Tom Wilson in overtime of a 2-2 game, putting Washington on a 4-on-3 power play. Alex Ovechkin scored the overtime game-winner with that man advantage, ending a 14-game dry spell, the longest of his illustrious career.
Lifetime against the Caps, Merzlikins is 1-4-1 in seven appearances – six starts – with a 3.47 GAA and an .883 save pct. After winning his first career start against the Caps by a 5-4 count at Capital One Arena on Feb. 8, 2022, Merzlikins has lost each of his last five starts (0-4-1) against Washington.
All Down The Line – Here’s how the Capitals and the Blue Jackets might look on Monday night in DC:
WASHINGTON
Forwards
72-Beauvillier, 17-Strome, 8-Ovechkin
21-Protas, 34-Sourdif, 43-Wilson
22-Duhaime, 24-McMichael, 9-Leonard
15-Milano, 29-Lapierre, 53-Frank
Defensemen
42-Fehervary, 74-Carlson
6-Chychrun, 3-Roy
38-Sandin, 47-Chisholm
Goaltenders
48-Thompson
79-Lindgren
Healthy Extras
52-McIlrath
57-van Riemsdyk
Injured/Out
26-Dowd (upper body)
80-Dubois (lower body)
COLUMBUS
Forwards
10-Voronkov, 19-Fantilli, 86-Marchenko
11-Wood, 23-Monahan, 91-Johnson
4-Sillinger, 3-Coyle, 24-Olivier
59-Chinakhov, 16-Gaunce, 21-Lundestrom
Defensemen
8-Werenski, 9-Provorov
5-Mateychuk, 78-Severson
2-Christiansen, 15-Fabbro
Goalies
73-Greaves
90-Merzlikins
Healthy Extras
27-Aston-Reese
37-Mayo
Injured/Out
38-Jenner (upper body)
44-Gudbranson (hip)
