The Caps were in Motown to play Mike Green and the Detroit Red Wings in the Wings newly opened Pizza Palace, Pie Center, Dough Joe, etc. The team came away with a 4-3 overtime win after Alex Ovechkin slammed home the GWG on the power play in the extra frame.
The Caps out-attempted the Wings 48 to 39 at five-on-five and overall outshot them 41 to 37. All in all this was a very nice effort from the team out of DC for the first two periods, but they took their foot off the gas in the third. This allowed the Wings to tie the game and eventually take a lead themselves on the back of two Tomas Tatar goals.
A lot has been made of John Carlson stepping into a bigger role with the absence of Matt Niskanen, but the same can be said of Dmitry Orlov. Orlov played over 18 minutes at five-on-five alone and led the team in total ice-time, skating 27:37. He did so while also being the top defenseman in terms of shot attempt differential (plus-7) and tallying his first point of the season on Andre Burakovsky’s first goal of the season.
- Alex Ovechkin is already 1/5th of the way to 50 goals and he’s only played eight games. His 10th of the young campaign came in overtime, extending his league-wide lead this year and making him the NHL’s all-time leader in overtime goals.
- Ovechkin had fired 40 shots in his career against Wings goalie Petr Mrazek until finally beating the Czech goaltender Friday. Add another 30 shots if you want to know how many Jaroslav Halak saved from Alex Semin in the 2010 playoffs.
- Ovechkin was also highly critical of his line’s play at five-on-five, which is weird because statistically this was the trio’s best effort really since the first game of the entire season. The captain (plus-8), Evgeny Kuznetsov (plus-8), and Jakub Vrana (plus-6) all ended up heavily positive possession players.
- The two rookie blueliners, Madison Bowey and Christian Djoos, the Caps have playing this year fared measurably well, both playing at least three more minutes five-on-five than Taylor Chorney. Djoos came out dead even in terms of shot attempt differential and Bowey was a plus-1.
- 400. The number of games that Jay Beagle has played in the NHL. Beags made his special round number of games look even better with the second shorthanded goal of his career coming in the third period to give the Caps a short lived lead.
- Barry Trotz coached his 1,450th career game, passing Dick Irvin (1,449) for sixth place on the NHL’s all-time list among bench bosses. Definite stick taps to Barry for this one. That is a lot of screaming at refs.
- With his late goal to tie the game, TJ Oshie now has six to start the year in eight games. That is a 60 goal pace over the full 82 game slate. Based purely on general play, I think him and Nicklas Backstrom have clearly been the Caps two best forwards.
- There are 11 country songs in Friday’s recap. Whoever wrote that one should be arrested.
Numbers thanks to Hockeystats.ca and NaturalStatTrick.com.
Photo: Dave Reginek
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