The Caps and Sabres met for the 97th time in the last two weeks. With the way things went tonight, the Caps probably wish they could play Buffalo a few more times.

A whole lot of nothing happened and then Playmaker Passmaster Jay Beagle made a beautiful feed to TJ Oshie to get the Caps on the board first. The Caps went up by two on Jakub Vrana’s first NHL goal off of a beautiful zone entry and pass from Evgeny Kuznetsov. Kyle Okposo potted a power play goal to pull the Sabres within one because the Caps COULD NOT STOP TAKING PENALTIES. But then, and no this isn’t one of those fake news stories, John Carlson scored a goal! Marcus Johansson added the empty net goal.

Caps win, 4-1!

• Nick Backstrom missed a few shifts in the first period which allowed us all to have the momentary nightmare of this team without Backstrom and Matt Niskanen.
• Seriously, how great was that zone entry and pass from Kuzy to set up Vrana’s goal? Sure would be nice if number 92 could start being a threat again on a nightly basis.
• With Niskanen out, Nate Schmidt spent some time on the penalty kill, which is a role he can handle.
• Speaking of Vrana, he now has as many goals as Tom Wilson this season and one more than Zach Sanford.
• Vrana said the word “hell” during his CSN interview between periods.
• I’m gonna go out on a limb and say a third period parade to the penalty box isn’t the safest way to protect a lead.
• John Carlson has as many goals as Matt Niskanen and Dmitry Orlov combined. One!
• Philipp Grubauer had another really solid game. Hopefully Las Vegas is taking notes because backup goalies are the easiest thing to replace.

Joe B Suit of the Night

Full Coverage of Caps at Sabres

Headline photo: Bill Wippert