Hello again. I’m back, long time no see. I hope everyone had a great summer. It’s that time again where we look at a bunch of numbers, big and small, and I shape a bunch of scorching hot takes around them to try and look smart. Join me once again this season, won’t you?
So hey, the Caps totally laid a good ole Beantown beatdown on the Bruins to open their Stanley Cup defending season. The 2018-19 season home opener couldn’t have went better for the boys in red as they put a touchdown plus an extra point on the scoreboard, beating Boston 7-0.
The Capitals out-shot the Bruins 37 to 25, but were out-attempted at five-on-five 45 to 41. The latter matters exactly 0.0 percent.
- First things first, you’ll notice the heat map has moved up and gone is the normal event chart. This is because hockeystats.ca is now defunct and I don’t think a single site out there has an attractive enough event chart to make it worthwhile to put in these posts. Trust me, your eyes will appreciate it.
- Only one Stanley Cup banner got raised last night around the league. That banner resides in Washington, DC. Don’t you ever forget that.
- Okay, now lets get weird right off the jump. Nic Dowd scored his first goal as a Capital in his first game with the team. The primary assist on the goal went to Nathan Walker, native of Australia. Dowd’s hometown is listed as Huntsville, Alabama. The Alabama-Australia connection is obviously a first in the NHL and because of that, is stronger than ever before. Roll Tide mate?
- Nicklas Backstrom recorded his 800th career point on TJ Oshie‘s insanely quick opening strike. Like Peter said in the recap, that is a big round number and I’m required by code of hockey etiquette to let you know about it.
- Speaking of hockey etiquette, literal trash can incarnate, Brad Marchand is apparently now the NHL’s official spokesperson on it. Marchand took exception to Lars Eller celebrating the Caps 7th goal of the game and jumped Eller because he wanted to “let him know” that it was “unnecessary”. This coming from the man who literally licked human beings on the ice a few months ago. Marchand is the definition of a repeat offender when it comes to the NHL’s rulebook and should be lengthily suspended for his multiple sucker punches landed on an unaware Eller. Lets hope the league office feels the same way.
- The Caps victory set the record for the largest shutout victory by a defending Stanley Cup champion in its season opening game. They also set the record for fastest two goals scored by a defending champ in a season opener, doing so in only 1:47. That bests the mark of 3:30 set by the Ottawa Senators in 1923. It could take this year’s Senators three hours and thirty seconds to score two goals.
- The Bruins have not beat the Capitals since March 29 of 2014. That is now thirteen losses in a row. Pure ownage.
- I don’t want to dive into any possession numbers for this one because this was a blowout from start to finish and a lot of those numbers are skewed because of that. However, major props of the night should go to Backstrom’s line and the pairing of Dmitry Orlov and Matt Niskanen. That set of players was matched up against Boston’s normally killer first line and held them to exactly one scoring chance at five-on-five and zero high danger chances.
- Braden Holtby did not record a single regular season shutout last season. As you can see, he has already done so this season with his 25 stops Wednesday night. He also did not record a single point last season and he has now already done that as well with his assist on Evgeny Kuznetsov‘s second goal.
- Alex Ovechkin‘s power play goal was the 608th marker of his career, tying him with Dino Ciccarelli for 18th in all-time scoring. Ho-hum.
- Last but not least, I have a pro tip for all you hockey players and coaches out there. Don’t get scored on seven times and you won’t have to worry about seeing seven goal celebrations.
Numbers thanks to Hockey-reference.com, NaturalStatTrick.com, and Corsica.hockey.
Full RMNB Coverage of Caps vs Bruins
Headline Photo: Kirk Will Newton
