The Washington Capitals sealed a successful road trip, securing six out of a possible eight points in four different cities. The latest road victim over the past seven days came north of the border as the Caps downed the Montreal Canadiens 5-4 in overtime.
The Canadiens out-shot the Caps 44 to 34 and out-attempted them at five-on-five 54 to 51.
- The easy stand out line offensively for the Caps is your first line. After a bit of an uneasy first few shifts with Lars Eller at the reigns, head coach Todd Reirden went back to old faithful, reuniting Alex Ovechkin, Nicklas Backstrom, and Tom Wilson. That decision proved correct as Ovechkin at five-on-five with Backstrom recorded a plus-11 shot attempt differential, plus-6 scoring chance differential, and a plus-1 high danger chance differential. Wilson’s numbers with just Backstrom during the same context are very similar.
- Speaking of young Tommy, Wilson now has five points in his first four games of this season. I will preface this next point by saying we must take into consideration the extremely small sample size. In 53:48 of five-on-five time with Wilson, Alex Ovechkin has a 58.3-percent shot attempt percentage, 53.1-percent scoring chance for percentage, and a 56.3-percent high danger chance for percentage. In 253:01 of five-on-five time away from Wilson this season, Ovechkin has a 44.8-percent shot attempt percentage, 46.6-percent scoring chance for percentage, and a 36.4-percent high danger chance for percentage. Now, Peter brought this up in our Slack channel last night that some of this could be contributed to Backstrom and Eller replacing Evgeny Kuznetsov on that line, but we need more context and time to be able to truly tell.
- Ovechkin’s two goals on the night gives him sole possession of second place in current NHL goal scoring, two goals behind Boston’s David Pastrnak. Ovi alone drew a penalty, fired five shots on net, recorded 10 shot attempts, six scoring chances, and two high danger chances. My guy loves scoring in Canada and now has 30 goals in 47 games versus the Canadiens in his career, the 11th team he has at least 30 tallies against. Try and guess the other 10 without cheating in the comments.
Alex Ovechkin ties the game at 4-4 with a power play goal. He's now tied with Mario Lemieux (236) for seventh place on the NHL's all-time power play goal list and four goals shy of passing Joe Sakic and Jarome Iginla (625) for 15th on the NHL's all-time goals list.
— CapitalsPR (@CapitalsPR) November 20, 2018
- Braden Holtby was positively sparkling in relief of Pheonix Copley (four goals against on 22 shots). Holts stopped all 22 shots fired his way and looks real good heading into his probable start against the Blackhawks in the Caps next fixture. Recognition is needed however for Copley as he guided the Caps through Holtby’s injury very well.
- I thought Brett Connolly was also a bright spot. Conno got his third goal of the season and paced the Caps in five-on-five high danger chance differential with a plus-6. In my opinion, he should never drop to the fourth line.
- The fourth line got trounced once Dmitrij Jaskin got moved off of it onto the third line. The bottom six seems to go wherever Mr. Jaskin goes. Dude is very good at what he does best, which is limiting offense. Hell of a free pickup.
- I’m never going to pass on an opportunity to praise Christian Djoos and this time you can lump his defensive buddy Madison Bowey in as well. The young defensemen brought up the rear on the defense core for ice time and got exactly zero offensive zone starts (6 out of 8 faceoffs started in defensive zone). Even with that, they ended up with a positive differential at even strength in the categories that matter.
Numbers thanks to Hockey-reference.com, NaturalStatTrick.com, and Corsica.hockey.
Full RMNB Coverage of Caps at Canadiens
Headline photo: Eric Bolte
