The Washington Capitals completed a comeback effort over the Anaheim Ducks with the help of some young guns. No not those young guns, some new ones. The 3-2 victory was capped by a terrific overtime strike by none other than Alex Ovechkin, sending us to slumber happily.
The Ducks out-shot the Caps 30 to 27, but were out-attempted by the Caps five-on-five 67 to 58.
- Tom Wilson was an absolute monster in this game. He had seven individual shot attempts, four shots on net, an assist, and before overtime a team high game score of 2.14. The Caps got 79.4 percent of the five-on-five shot attempts when he was on ice and 80.9 percent of the five-on-five scoring chances. His two linemates, Nicklas Backstrom and Alex Ovechkin share similar numbers. Fantastic night from the first line.
In his 343rd career game, #Caps Tom Wilson played a career-high 19:58. Also worth noting, he did that despite serving a 5-minute major as well.
— Ben Raby (@BenRaby31) December 17, 2017
- Ovechkin’s overtime goal tied him with Nikita Kucherov for the current NHL goal lead and was the 21st regular season overtime goal of his career, extending his all-time lead in the category. It also was his 99th career game-winning goal, passing Brett Hull and Guy Lafleur for sole possession of ninth place on the League’s all-time game-winning goals list.
- Christian Djoos was another young player to have a standout game. The young Swede was out-pacing a probably semi-injured Brooks Orpik in minutes for most of the game, until late in the third. In those minutes the Caps got 64.3 percent of the five-on-five shot attempts, 69.6 percent of the scoring chances, and 75 percent of the high danger chances, leading all Caps defensemen in each. Orpik was team worst among defensemen in all of those categories even with a more healthy share of offensive zone starts than he usually gets. Conclusion, Djoos still needs to play more.
- Lastly, one non-Caps related bullet. Erik Karlsson, for my money, is the best player in the league and also happens to be my favorite non-Capitals player. He played 33 minutes of the Sens and Canadiens outdoor game Saturday night, was on the ice for all three Senators goals, tallied an assist, seven shots on goal, and blocked eight shots all in that insanely cold weather. Oh yeah, also while playing on basically one ankle.
Numbers thanks to Hockey-reference.com, Hockeystats.ca, NaturalStatTrick.com, and Corsica.hockey.
Full RMNB Coverage of Caps vs Ducks
Headline photo: Patrick McDermott
