On authentic fan night the Capitals rewarded all you authentic fans out there with a big 4-1 win over their bitter rivals, the Pittsburgh Penguins. You could argue that this was the best Caps performance of the still-young season.
The Caps out-attempted the Pens 43 to 40 five-on-five and out-shot them overall as well 31 to 28.
- Braden Holtby was himself Friday night. By himself, I mean studly, good-looking, Vezina-caliber, awesome, handsome, real good, the best, etc. He stopped 27 of the 28 shots the Pens threw at him on the way to his 200th career win. Holtby is the second fastest goaltender in history to reach 200 wins, doing so in 319 games. This puts him only behind Ken Dryden (309) and in front of Jacques Plante (340).
- Believe it or not, we had another big round number milestone (Ian’s favorite) to celebrate after this game. Dmitry Orlov played in his 300th career NHL game Friday night. Orlov did not really have a good game to commemorate the night as he was the worst Caps player shot-attempt differential wise (minus-10) and his pairing with Madison Bowey struggled in the time they were deployed against Sidney Crosby‘s line. Hey, that’s a lot of games in the NHL though, good stuff Dima. Here’s to 300 more in a Caps uniform.
- The Caps power play was powerful once more. The man advantage unit went 2 for 6, scoring only the third and fourth power play goals at home this season. The unsuccessful tries also still looked dangerous and the entries all night were much smoother. The penalty kill, which has mightily struggled so far this year, successfully killed off four Penguins power plays. Good special teams equals good team.
- John Carlson played 28:43 and I don’t think he put a foot wrong in any of those seconds. His play this season has me wondering if he truly would find that Norris Trophy form that was so spoken about in years past if he had even a purely average NHL defenseman for a partner this season and in recent seasons past. Speaking of said partner this year, the much maligned Brooks Orpik actually had his best game of the season Friday night with a plus-10 shot attempt differential five-on-five. Him and Carlson, with a lot of help from Nicklas Backstrom’s line, completely neutralized Crosby and whichever two schmucks the Pens have on his wing that will score 70 goals in the playoffs out of nowhere.
- As said previously, the line of Backstrom, TJ Oshie, and Chandler Stephenson were phenomenal. In the around 6:30 of five-on-five time that they got against Crosby’s line, all three controlled at least 61 percent of the shot attempts and close to 80 percent of the scoring chances.
- Stephenson now has five points in eight games this season and did not look out of place whatsoever playing on the Caps top line. I think he fits perfectly with that line as all three players are what most like to call “two-way players”. His goal in the third virtually sealed the game and ended Backstrom’s seven game pointless streak. I’d like this trio to stick together for the foreseeable future.
- I might go to my death this season championing for Christian Djoos to get more minutes. The young defenseman only played ten minutes of five-on-five hockey and around 13 minutes total in the entire game. The Capitals held 71 percent of the shot attempts when he was on the ice five-on-five. I know he’s young and a rookie, but I’d like for the Caps to truly test what they have here and give this dude a heavier workload. He’s been quietly outstanding this season.
- The line of Alex Ovechkin, Evgeny Kuznetsov, and Devante Smith-Pelly is still not working. Stop me if you’ve heard that one here before. Yes, this season they’ve been playing a lot of minutes five-on-five with Orpik. They did not in this game, and they were the only three forwards not named Liam O’Brien (barely played four minutes five-on-five) to have negative shot-attempt differentials. And they were deeply negative, Ovechkin being the “best” at a minus-six. And actually, Carlson and Orpik were brilliant away from the line, posting better possession numbers with every other forward grouping. This is a one-game sample, but for me this line has been incredibly bad defensively for some time now. Even when they do produce good offensive spells, I don’t think a forward in Smith-Pelly, who posted nine points last year, is skilled enough to contribute on the scoreboard with Ovechkin and Kuznetsov.
Numbers thanks to Hockeystats.ca, NaturalStatTrick.com, and Corsica.hockey.
Full RMNB Coverage of Caps vs Penguins
Headline photo: Patrick McDermott
