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Caps beat Islanders 2-1: two Winniks, one win

By Chris Gordon

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October 15, 2016 9:43 pm

The Capitals hosted their home opener on Saturday night. Rather than a 22-minute ceremony, the festivities were more muted. There was no mention of last season’s President’s Trophy. Instead, the coach, training and equipment staff, and the team’s roster were introduced to the fans after a super-dramatic Will Over Skill video narrated by Mike Knuble. The game start was delayed only nine minutes for the right to bear witness to all this.

Washington dominated the early portion of the first period, with the Islanders taking over seven minutes to get a shot on goal. The game continued going Washington’s way when John Carlson finished off an excellent shift by firing a puck towards the net that Daniel Winnik deflected past Thomas Greiss.

The Islanders took to the power play thanks to a holding call on Karl Alzner. Brooks Orpik came to the rescue, scoring an own goal off his skates.

The second frame was pretty boring. The Caps got two power plays but couldn’t convert. The only action came when Orpik and Alzner went D-to-D, before Karl made a long breakout pass to Winnik. Travis Hamonic fell on his tushy and Washington’s grinder took the puck all the way to house. Then some people on Twitter made terrible puns. That was all. Caps beat Islanders 2-1.

  • John Carlson is playing fantastic right now. After a splendid start to the season against Pittsburgh, he and his partner Dmitry Orlov were once again an offensive force. Carlson fired a game-high five shots on goal while attempting two more. On Winnik’s goal, he was able to keep the puck in the offensive zone with an explosive hit at the blue line before firing the shot that eventually found the back of the net. With Carlson and Orlov on the ice, more than two-thirds of shot attempts at even-strength went the Capitals’ way.
  • The Tre Kronor line were wizards of ice hockeyness again. All three members — Andre Burakovsky, Nicklas Backstrom, and Marcus Johansson were in the mid-60s in Corsi-for percentage. Burakovsky continued to look like an offensive weapon with three shots on goal and six attempts.
  • Meanwhile, the top line, the TKO line, is faltering. The Islanders had above 60-percent possession against Washington’s top center, Evgeny Kuznetsov. The goals will come, but just not yet.
  • While everyone was at least treading water against the Penguins, this game was not like that. The Books Orpik–Nate Schmidt pair, despite getting sheltered with tons of offensive zone starts, was a possession black hole. Brooks also had the aforementioned own goal on the PK.

  • Back to the positives. Daniel Winnik had two goals, which would be a bigger deal if the main thing I noticed about him wasn’t his expertly groomed beard. I’m not sure that has happened in… a little while.

  • The whole fourth line was great, clearly the second best unit behind the three Swedes. They were hounding the puck and goaltender Thomas Griess all night.
  • It was a horrible NHL debut for Matthew Barzal. He took a slashing call on his first NHL shift and as he was about to step on the ice for his second shift in the league, he committed another infraction by playing the puck while still standing in the penalty box. He took another two PIMs in the third, just to make sure his name was on the scoresheet a bunch.
  • Speaking of special teams, Washington went 0-for-5 tonight on the power play after going 0-for-3 in Pittsburgh. The PP normally powers the Caps to victory, but it has looked off in the early days of this season. They seem to enter the zone fine, but things go downhill from there.
  • Oh, Braden Holtby. Still good.
  • Shouldn’t they be playing a game right about now?

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It’s been a very good start to the season for the Capitals. They outplayed the Penguins, but lost a point on a coin flip. Now they have their first win of the season after a solid effort against a good division rival. Cheers.

Full Coverage of Islanders at Caps

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