The Caps finished up their regular season sweep of the Pens last night and it was sweet. The Caps have been the better team for the past two years now, and it has never been more evident than last night. Every time the Pens tried to claw out of their hole the Caps answered back and in a hurry. After the first period it wasn't even a game. This year they have beat the Pens by coming from behind, in a shoot out, and just plain stomping them in two different 6-3 scores. More encouraging is that they seem to have them figured out. Crosby has been pretty silent this season against the Caps, save a soft goal last night that Varlamov should have gloved. OV's empty-netter to pour in the salt with a grin was the icing on the cake. That was almost as nice as watching Fleury lose his mind on the way out of Mellon in the second period.
The Pens power play that killed us last postseason seems to have been figured out. Putting Steckel at the point to shut down Gonchar led to a 3 for 4 performance on the PK, with the one goal falling squarely on the shoulders of Varlamov. Knuble was a genius pickup by McPhee. He was a Pen killer as a Flyer, and now has at least a goal in every matchup against the Pens while in a red sweater. Finally, Jeff Schultz continues his dominance over the Pens (and the league) with a +5 rating for last night, +12 over the Pens the past 2 years, and a +44 for the league lead this year. McPhee needed to tweak a team that was already better than the Pens to be able to beat the refs as well, and hopefully they can do so if we see them in the playoffs.
I said yesterday that the Caps have had more or equal penalties than the Pens the last 11 times they have met. I missed three games. Including last night, that streak is actually at 15 now. (All four regular season games this year as well as last year and the 7 game playoff series that was decided by NHL brass before the puck dropped in game 1. In other words, this trend has gone on since the Caps got significantly better than the Pens. Since the lockout the Caps were 1-7-1 against the Pens, 7-1-2 regular season under Boudreau.) The Pens can't beat us they can only cheat us. They tried again last night, giving the Pens a four to one advantage in power plays. In fact, because our power play only lasted four seconds, the Pens actually had 101.5 times as much time on the power play as the Caps. That seems pretty fair. They ignored Talbott's elbow to the head of Semin despite the fact that Semin could not get up from the ice for several minutes. The linesman waited several seconds after the high stick to Morrisonn and only called it after he noticed his helmet on the ice. If the Caps ever get the penalties against them called they fare pretty well against the Pens; 50%, or 4 for 8 for the year on their power play.
So maybe this trend is just a fluke, or the Pens are more disciplined than the Caps. Unfortunately for the integrity of the NHL referees and last year's Cup, the numbers don't support this theory. In the last fourteen games against the Pens, the Caps have been whistled 73 times versus the Pens 43 called infractions: the Caps 63% of the time, the Pens just 37%. Lets select three other Caps opponent's last 14 games against us: the Devils who have similar size to the Caps, the Lightning who have similar speed, and the Rangers who also played a seven game series against the Caps where penalties are called less frequently. On average, the Caps are whistled an average of 72 times in a fourteen game span, the other teams 63, for a percentage of 53% to 47%. Does that differential of 6% really blow up to 26% against a team that they clearly dominate? I don't know how much more people need to see that the Pens are clearly the Duke of the NHL and the refs clearly swallow their whistles for them. It appears that McPhee has done enough to get us our two-year long rightful spot in the Cup Finals, we just need to hope the refs don't step up their game.
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