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Reaves rocks Wilson, Schmidt scores game-winner as Knights beat Caps 5-3

By Peter Hassett

 2 Comments

December 5, 2018 12:44 am

The Washington Capitals returned to the Nevada desert intent on racking up another win, but the Vegas Golden Knights had other ideas. Seems like maybe they’ve been holding a grudge?

Ryan Reaves gave Vegas an early lead with a power-play goal, but the Caps responded later that period with a great rush goal from Vrana, set up by Brett Connolly. The second period was packed with big hits but the lone goal belonged to Alex Ovechkin, cleaning up a lively bounce off a Madison Bowey shot.

The Knights killed a five-minute major in the third and then scored a tricky deflection goal to tie the game. All of sixteen second later, Cody Eakin gave Vegas the lead. With about eight minutes left, Jakub Vrana recorded his second goal of the game to tie it up. But tthen, with just a minute and change to go, that goddamn Nate Schmidt scored the game-winner for the Knights and added an empty-netter.

Caps lose 5-3.

  • We’re gonna talk about Ryan Reaves a bit, so get settled in. Reaves scored thanks to a sloppy Washington penalty kill, which is a problem, but not nearly as much of a problem as there being altogether too much penalty killing for the Caps. Even when the team is controlling play, which they did on Tuesday, the Caps get busted way too often. It’s gotta change
  • Okay, let’s put Reaves on pause for a moment.
  • Alex Ovechkin delivered a clean, bracing hit on Tomas Nosek in the second period. It was devastating and delightful. It was a simpler, more innocent time. (Oh, also, Ovi scored. He’s got twenty now. He’s one behind Laine. He’s Ovi. He’s never gonna stop.)
  • One last thing before we get into it: Evgeny Kuznetsov committed a very Kuznetsovian penalty. Vegas’ Nick Holden got his stick stuck in the glass, then Kuznetsov dropped his own stick. Then Kuznetsov grabbed Holden’s stick and tried to play with it. You… you can’t do that. I love Kuzy.
  • Ovie interlude! I love you, Ovie! (I love you too, Saffy, not pictured below.)

  • Alright, so Ryan Reaves put a blindside hit on Tom Wilson. The puck was gone, Wilson was unaware, and the hit was high (though did not seem to contact Wilson’s head). Wilson lost his helmet then hit his head on the ice. He was very obviously injured and did not return. Reaves was assessed a five-minute major penalty and ejected.
  • Of course, Vegas killed the penalty and then scored two goals inside twenty seconds. I think that’s literally adding insult to injury?
  • Reaves is definitionally a goon with little offensive upside, but up until very recently Wilson was the same. That’s an unfortunate similarity, plus the hit Reaves put on Wilson was eerily like the hit Wilson put on Brett Seney last week. Wilson did not have the puck and did not see Reaves. Reaves could have and should have pulled up, but he did not. The primary point of contact was the shoulder. However, I see two big distinctions: Wilson slammed his unhelmeted head on the ice, and also Tom Wilson is Tom Wilson. It’s hard to have unclouded thoughts about a guy whose very existence is a vortex of controversy and drama. I’ll try: the hit was bad, the injury worse, and I hope he wakes up tomorrow feeling better. I hope Reaves gets a long chat with DOPS, though I’m skeptical he’ll get suspended.
  • With his shiny red apple on the first Vrana goal and the Ovi goal, Brett Connolly has already tied his assist total from all of last season.
  • I like Nic Dowd a bunch, but with six penalty minutes in Vegas — four of them a double minor in the final few minutes of the game — he’s at the heart of the team’s shorthandedness problem.
  • Nate Schmidt is dead to me. Never liked that guy.

I imagine we’ll have some unsavory takes in the comments about Wilson deserving what he got. Only the most base, crude, and cruel notions of justice would allow that idea. I’ve no time for vicious nonsense.

Now, ex-Caps defenseman Nate Schmidt, lost in the expansion draft to Vegas and the Caps’ former GM, who then dragged his team to the Cup Final in their first season of existence only to lose to his former friends and teammates, scoring the game-winning goal in his first game against his former team, and doing so late in the third period against the very goalie for whom he was a kind of ersatz goalie coach – well, that’s probably justice. I still hate it.

Full RMNB Coverage of Caps at Golden Knights

Headline photo: David Becker

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