The Washington Capitals entered into Saturday’s night game against the Columbus Blue Jackets one point above CBJ for the Metropolitan Division lead. They exited said game three points above their rivals, winning in impressive fashion 4-0.
The shots in the game were even at 28 apiece, but the Capitals won the five-on-five shot attempts battle 46 to 38.
- Congrats are in order for Dmitrij Jaskin and Travis Boyd as both fourth line wingers recorded respective firsts in last night’s victory. Jaskin finally tallied his first goal as a Washington Capital and Boyd scored his first NHL goal of any kind. Congrats to both, may you score many more this season.
- Braden Holtby stopped all 28 pucks fired on his cage to record his second shutout of the season. His first shutout came all the way back in October during the very first game of the year against the Bruins. Holts’ 34 career shutouts is only one shy of the franchise record in that category, set by Ollie Kolzig.
- At five-on-five, the Caps controlled the high rent districts at both ends of the ice. Just take a look at that heat map.
- In an unsurprising turn of events, Alex Ovechkin is now your current NHL league leader in goal scoring with 22 lamps lit. The man is 33 years old and still setting the pace in the league for all goal scorers.
#ALLCAPS Alex Ovechkin's 11-game point streak is the second longest of his @NHL career. Ovechkin had a 13-game streak from Jan.1-Feb.1, 2007
— Ben Raby (@BenRaby31) December 9, 2018
- One negative from the fixture is that the Caps power play is still sputtering. The more fun of the special teams units is one for their last thirteen and three for their last twenty-four. One thing this does do is make Ovi’s 11-game point streak look even better as fifteen of his sixteen points during that spell have come at even strength.
- Michal Kempny and John Carlson had pretty awesome nights, but lets just focus on Kempny because Carlson gets enough praise everywhere else. At five-on-five, Kempny had a plus-twelve shot attempt differential, a plus-fourteen scoring chance for differential, a plus-six high danger chance for differential, and was on the ice for three Capitals goals. He also recorded the primary assist on Ovechkin’s goal and drew a penalty after being not impressed by Pierre-Luc Dubois‘ attempted mugging.
Numbers thanks to Hockey-reference.com, NaturalStatTrick.com, and Corsica.hockey.
Full RMNB Coverage of Caps at Blue Jackets
Headline photo: Jamie Sabau
