Photo: Nick Wass
The Washington Capitals played exactly the right kind of game against Patrick Roy’s Avalanche on Monday. They had the puck a ton, they crashed the net for a depth goal, and they made the visitors pay for losing their temper. Would’ve been even better if the Caps didn’t hit the post eighty three times.
Jay Beagle, yes, Jay Beagle scored first– knocking in Tom Wilson’s rebound. Alex Tanguay got a beneficial bounce during a second-period power play to tie it up, but Alex Ovechkin gave the Caps back the lead with a power-play marker.
Caps beat Avs 2-1! The Caps are finally hot at home.
- That’s six home wins in a row.
- As of tonight, Alex Ovechkin has taken the Washington Capitals’ franchise record for game-winning goals with 74. Sorry, Peter Bondra.
- This was so much more fun than the Detroit Red Wings game. The Caps had the puck on their sticks it felt like always, and they seemed to cruise through the neutral zone with ease. The shot-attempt differential was bloody for the Avs, who we already knew were bad, but it’s fun to see it at our home arena.
- That Jay Beagle goal is the first Caps 5v5 goal that Tom Wilson has been on the ice for this season without Alex Ovechkin. It also gave Jay Beagle a higher 5v5 goals per 60 pace than Alex Ovechkin, which is nutty. Props to your boy K.O. for calling the Beagle goal.
- It’s a good thing that Semyon Varlamov punched Tom Wilson with his glove. Had he done it with his blocker pad, I would have had to effetely complain about how refs never call that match penalty.
- Oh, and also because Alex Ovechkin scored on the resulting power play, teaching Varly a lesson in why we don’t hit. Of course Ovi scored, though the Avs did a decent (and frustrating) job of stifling play during special teams by stuffing the puck along the boards for many a tick of the game clock.
- The Avs aren’t good, but they had some spirit in them in the third period, plus Nate MacKinnon and Gabriel Landeskog are a lot of fun to watch with all their speed.
- LOL at Jarome Iginla for going to the Avalanche because they had the best chance to win him a Stanley Cup.
- Evgeny Kuznetsov hasn’t scored since December 23rd, but it’s coming. He owned the faceoff dot tonight, rang the post, had a breakaway and missed on a wide-open scoring chance. No salmon in the back of the net. I’m sure much will be made of the Colorado goalie’s effort tonight, but dumb luck bailed him out even more.
- All those rung posts get recorded as missed shots, which the Capitals had 20-plus of tonight. No worries. In time, some of those near misses become a biscuit in the basket. For now they’re just evidence that the Caps are spending their time at the right side of the ice.
Joe B suit of the night
Maybe the Caps were feeling good tonight, maybe the Avs are truly terrible, or some combination of the two. Whatever, the Caps looked excellent. Their younglings did all the things younglings need to do, their grinders grinded, their scorers scoared, their Holtby holbested.
If it weren’t for that pesky post, we’d all be grooving to some melanocytic nevus-y Latin pop right now.
A good win for a good team. Yay, Caps.
