Bad Goalies Should Provide Opportunities For Offenses

Senators vs. Capitals, 7:08 ET

I'd love to come in here and tell you that I have an extreme amount of confidence in my hockey handicapping this season, but I don't. That doesn't mean that I don't evaluate the plays or keep working to improve. It also doesn't mean that I have no confidence in this play. In fact, it is the opposite, I spend a lot of time on these and I only share the ones I truly believe will win. Publicly failing is an issue, of course, and not fun, but I still like to put plays out here for people. Fade or follow, it is your choice, and I couldn't blame you for fading me on the ice. Still, tonight brings us an opportunity to pick up a unit and remain on this rejuvenation that I've had in hockey over the last six plays (4-2) in a game between the Senators and Capitals. 

The Senators are a fairly average team in the NHL right now going 25-27-3 on the year. The biggest issue is they aren't great in the situation they are in tonight - as a road team. For this campaign, they are 8-14-1 away from their home ice. They have played well lately with a 7-3 record over the past 10 games, but six of those have come on their home ice. They are 2-2 on the road in this stretch. Prior to this nice winning streak, they were just 18-25-2. They are a pretty balanced team overall. The Senators have four players with 40+ points on the year and 12 guys that have scored 20+ points. That's a lot of contribution, but it seems like they don't really have anyone that is a clear dominant force. Sure, Brady Tkachuck is probably closest to that guy, but he leads the team with 25 goals. That's really not that many. They have seven players with 10 or more goals on the season, but only Tkachuck is in the 20s. Balance is good, but collectively they need to step it up and start finding the back of the net more. Anton Forsberg is likely to be in the net for the Senators. He has struggled a bit this season despite an 11-8-0 record. He is allowing 3.09 goals per game and has a .895 save percentage, which really isn't ideal. He did face the Capitals earlier in the season when they were struggling and the team won 6-1 with Forsberg stopping 23 of the 24 shot attempts. 

SUNRISE, FL - APRIL 06: Ottawa Senators center Shane Pinto (57) tries to cut off the puck during the game between the Ottawa Senators and the Florida Panthers on Thursday, April 6, 2023 at FLA Live Arena in Sunrise, Fla. (Photo by Peter Joneleit/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)

It has been a bit of a tale of two seasons with the Washington Capitals this year. Coming into the season they were expected to be a terrible team. A lot of projection showed them being one of the worst teams in the league. They performed well out of the gates. Up until Christmas, they were 17-9-5 on the season. Since then they've gone 9-12-4. While this is not the worst record, it is still pretty unimpressive. Over their last 15 games, they are just 6-9 (three losses in OT, but I'm just putting them in the loss column). As you'd expect, the team is led in points by Alex Ovechkin, and he has a teammate that matches him with his same 42 points, but outside of that, they only have five guys that have scored 20 or more points on the campaign. This is similar to the Senators, but slightly less productive even with a better overall record for the Capitals. Darcy Kuemper is likely to mind the net for the Capitals in this one. He is 12-12-3 on the year and has a 3.16 goals against per game average, but he also has a .894 save percentage. This matches up with Forsberg so there really is no edge in the goal either. 

I'm not overly confident in the Capitals in this game, but I don't have much confident in the Senators either. Kuemper in net has allowed at least three goals in eight of his last nine starts. Looking back even further, he has allowed three or more in 10 of his last 11 starts. I don't have a ton of confidence in Forsberg either, so I think the best way to play this is over 6.5. I'll back that and hope we can see the goalies struggle again. 

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