Blackhawks down: numbers for the morning after

November 22, 2018 6:35 am

The first game home from a long road trip can turn into a trap game for a lot of teams around the league, but the Washington Capitals were available to avoid that fate Wednesday Night. The Caps played Mystical Space Typhoon and destroyed the Chicago Blackhawks trap card, taking the Windy City squad down 4-2.

The Blackhawks out-shot the Caps 39 to 27 and out-attempted them at five-on-five 61 to 37.

All things considered, this was a pretty boring game right? The two teams combined for a grand total of 11 high danger chances at five-on-five and even though they got absolutely blown away in both even strength shot attempts and scoring chances, the Capitals actually held a majority of those high danger chances with six. That matches up with my eye test takeaway that neither Corey Crawford or Braden Holtby seemed to come up with any huge, ten bell type saves. Things seemed very clogged up in neutral to me and featured a bunch of Chicago shot attempts coming from very low percentage areas.
The first line of Tom Wilson, Alex Ovechkin, and Nicklas Backstrom got on the board very early with Wilson’s second goal and sixth point of the season in his fifth game. After that goal, they proceeded to get pummeled to a tune of a minus-15 shot attempt differential, yet all three ended up with a plus-2 high danger chance differential and were not on the ice together for a goal against. This game was weird.
John Carlson‘s assist on Devante Smith-Pelly‘s goal was the 273rd apple of John’s career. That gives him sole possession of fourth all time among Capitals defensemen in assists, passing Sergei Gonchar (272). Next up is Kevin Hatcher at 277.
The Chicago Blackhawks have not won a game in DC since January 10, 2006. Adam Munro was their winning goaltender that night as Kyle Calder gave Chicago the win by putting an overtime tally behind Ollie Kolzig. Alex Ovechkin had the 26th goal of his rookie season and assisted on a third period Brian Sutherby goal to force the extra frame.
Michal Kempny had a pretty fantastic night against his former brethren. Kemper scored a goal, was on the ice for another in the Caps favor, and had a positive scoring chance for (plus-4) and high danger chance for (plus-2) differential at five-on-five. Way to show them once again that they made a mistake, Michal.
Happy Thanksgiving!