The back half of a back-to-back on the road is always a tough ask for two points. The Caps illustrated why in Buffalo on Tuesday night. The Sabres came away with a 3-1 win on the back of two Evander Kane goals.
The Sabres out-attempted the Caps 39 to 26 and also outshot them 32-25.
- Philipp Grubauer is really f’ing tired of losing. The Caps backup netminder is now 0-4-1 on the young season despite playing very well in some of those losses. He stopped 29 of the 31 shots he faced in this one for a .935 save percentage. The Capitals have scored only nine goals in the games he has played in. That’s an average of 1.8 goals per game.
- Nicklas Backstrom has been the best player on the Capitals this season when it comes to taking play to other teams. In most cases, his line does so against the opposition’s top line. However, Backstrom is now on a seven-game pointless streak, the longest of his career. A lot of that has to do with just how inept the Capitals power play has been to start the season.
- I’ve been championing Nathan Walker to get back into the lineup, as in his short time in the NHL he has been a positive influence on the team’s possession. However, Tuesday night, Jay Beagle and he ended up on the ice for only one, single shot attempt towards the Sabres net in around eight minutes of play five-on-five. They had the worst zone start percentages on the team, which was probably a major factor, but, man, that’s not good.
- John Carlson had another strong game, playing over 20 minutes of five-on-five. We are now 16 games into the season, so lets take a look at what his shot attempt percentage looks like with and without Brooks Orpik. Just entertain me here. In 187 minutes five-on-five with Orpik, Carlson has a 44.2 percent shot attempt percentage. When away from Orpik in 104 minutes at five-on-five, Carlason has a 60.5 percent shot attempt percentage. I’m not really telling you anything you didn’t already know, but there it is in a quantifiable manner.
- Despite being constantly saddled with Orpik and Devante Smith-Pelly five-on-five, Alex Ovechkin scored his 13th goal of the season. He is “quietly” second in in the league in goalscoring, behind Nikita Kucherov, due to this recent hot streak.
- Stealing a bullet from Pat’s recap, Christian Djoos played zero minutes on the penalty kill. However, both Aaron Ness and Taylor Chorney got time shorthanded. This is an example of a young player being disadvantaged just because of how many games he has played in the NHL. It’s fatiguing.
- Chandler Stephenson has been a nice surprise since coming up from Hershey. He had another nice game against the Sabres. He scored no points in the game, but the third line was solid overall and is still not playing enough. The trio received under ten minutes of five-on-five.
Numbers thanks to Hockeystats.ca and NaturalStatTrick.com.
Headline photo: Gary Wiepert
