Photo: Rob Carr

The Caps are still alive. The team in red defeated the Penguins 3-1 on Saturday night to force a Game Six in Pittsburgh Tuesday night.

The Caps by no means dominated this game, but they played well enough to win and got some timely goals and saves. Peter wrote a great recap of the game that you should read, but below we’ll take a look at the numbers from the victory.

The Penguins had a 31-19 edge in shots on goal, but the shot attempts and scoring chances at 5-on-5 show that this was a much more even game than the shots on goal indicate.

The Pens had the edge in 5-on-5 shot attempts, 50-44. But the Caps led for much of the game, so after adjusting for score the Pens had a shot attempts advantage of just 48-46.

The scoring chances look even more favorably on the Caps. According to War on Ice, the Caps out-chanced the Penguins 25-24 at 5-on-5. Also noteworthy is the Caps 13-6 advantage in high-danger scoring chances.

Some other tidbits:

• Karl Alzner led the Caps in on-ice shot attempt differential with a +10 (30 shot attempts for, 20 against).
• John Carlson had the lowest on-ice shot attempt different, coming in at -14 (8 shot attempts for, 22 against).
• In terms of forwards, Andre Burakovsky led the way at +6, while Jay Beagle had the lowest differential at -12.
• Matt Niskanen led all Caps skaters in ice time, skating 27:28. We all agree he’s our number one defenseman, yes? A good player, that guy.
• Burakovsky tied for the team lead with Evgeny Kuznetsov in individual shot attempts with 6.
• Kuznetsov led the way in individual scoring chances with 5. One day soon the puck will go in for him again.
• The Caps fourth line hardly played. At 5-on-5, Tom Wilson and Daniel Winnik both skated just over five minutes each, and Mike Richards skated only 7:24.
• Meanwhile, the Jay Beagle skated 14:30 at 5-on-5 and Jason Chimera 12:45. Considering the third line got pounded in terms of puck possession, maybe Barry Trotz should consider shifting a few of the third line minutes to the fourth line next game.
• Burakovsky could use some more ice time, too. He skated 12:23. So, while above I said that maybe Trotz should balance the minutes more evenly between the third and fourth lines, there’s no maybe about the fact that Burakovsky should skate more time at 5-on-5 than Beagle or Chimera.
• A bullet point has to be dedicated to Nick Backstrom‘s penalty in the first period. Up 1-0 and his team dominating, he took a completely unnecessary penalty. The goal scored on the ensuing power play ended up not mattering, but that kind of dumb penalty can’t happen, especially at that juncture.
• My favorite play of the game was TJ Oshie‘s play that set-up the Caps puck possession on the first goal. Per usual, Oshie’s pursuit of a loose puck was second to none. He tipped the puck to Backstrom who then fed Alex Ovechkin. You know what happened next.

So, the Caps live to fight another day. They turned in a solid effort and were finally able to solve Matt Murray. Braden Holtby played a very good game and the Pens weren’t fortunate enough to score off their backs. The Caps and Pens faceoff for Game Six Tuesday in Pittsburgh.

All stats from Hockey Stats and War on Ice

Full RMNB Coverage of Game Five