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Canucks embarrass Caps in 6-2 beatdown

By Peter Hassett

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October 27, 2017 12:42 am

The Washington Capitals got humiliated by maybe the worst team in the National Hockey League. If you went to bed before the Vancouver Canucks put a six-spot up on the Caps, you were lucky. Then again, you might not believe it was so bad. Let this recap liberate you of any delusions you might have.

Tomas Vanek, Bo Horvat, and Mikael Granlund all scored in the first period. You might notice that none of those players play for Washington.

In the second, Brett Connolly got injured and left the game. Then Sven Baertschi got a weird one and Derek Dorsett piled on. Braden Holtby got the hook. Evgeny Kuznetsov scored his first goal of the season, which was cool, I suppose.

In the third, Tom Wilson punched faces and Baertschi got another power play goal. Chandler Stephenson got his first NHL goal in the waning minutes, which was nice, and then it ended.

Canucks beat the Caps 6-2. The Caps are under .500.

  • Braden Holtby faced 22 shots in 35 minutes. That is a bunch of shots. Braden Holtby gave up five goals on those 22 shots. That’s a lot of goals. This was not a good night for Braden.
  • But it was a worse night for Brett Connolly. This hit from Erik Gudbranson didn’t look egregious to me, but hits don’t have to be egregious to be impactful, and I’m worried about what the lasting impact will be.
  • I don’t know if DOPS will look at the Gudbranson hit, but the player is only a week removed from his last suspension, a one-gamer for doing something kinda similar to Boston’s Frank Vatrano.
  • After 20 minutes, the Capitals were down three goals, which looked bad, but sometimes goals will lie to you. They’re not lying to you here. During 5-on-5, the Caps got out-attempted 20 to 12. It was bad from the first puck drop.
  • Maybe that speaks to the dire situation of the Caps lineup. In addition to Matt Niskanen’s and Andre Burakovsky’s injuries, the team was without star forward Nick Backstrom, who was ill. His absence was a smoldering crater in the top six.
  • Also worthy of note: the Canucks are lost in the wilderness, organizationally speaking, and they were without Loui Erickson and Alex Edler. Excuses don’t help much.
  • With Andre Burakovsky and Brett Connolly out, Tom Wilson could have kicked it up a notch. Instead he just kicked up shit, instigating a fight with Connolly’s antagonist, Erik Gudbranson. The fight, misconduct, and instigator calls effectively ended Wilson’s night 30 minutes early.

  • The Vancouver Canucks had a 10 percent power play entering the night, but that was a small sample size. In a surprising act of good sportsmanship, the Capitals gave the Canucks several opportunities to practice their PP. It worked. The Canucks scored three power play goals.
  • Taylor Chorney, who has a bulldog, got his first penalty of the season. It was a trip. Also, he tripped a guy.
  • Congrats to Chandler Stephenson for scoring his first NHL goal at 12:38 in the morning! The only unambiguously good thing to happen all night.
  • Evgeny Kuznetsov‘s line was dreary, pulling up the rear in the possession game and taking more than 30 minutes to get any meaningful offense. Maybe that was due to having Alex Chiasson on the wing, or maybe it was something else. Nonetheless, Kuznetsov managed to score his first goal of the season in the second period, and it sure was a highlight for the ages.
  • Nathan Walker wasn’t bad.

Okay, you made it to the bottom. Congrats. Unless you work for the team, you don’t have to think about this game ever again.

If you do work for the team, oh, sweetheart, I’m so sorry. No, no, it’s real. This really happened. This is real life. But now you get to help decide what happens next.

Full Coverage of Caps at Canucks

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