The Washington Capitals five-game winning streak has come to the end at the hands of their hated rival, the Pittsburgh Penguins. The Pens rode a very strong second period and some great puck luck in the third period to a 2-1 victory.
The Caps out-shot the Pens 32 to 30 and out-attempted them at five-on-five 46 to 38.
- On the day Alex Ovechkin‘s career high point streak ends at 14 games, Lars Eller‘s pointless streak is also now over as it had reached seven games before he scored for the first time in twelve games to get the Caps on the board first.
- Tom Wilson earned the primary assist on Eller’s goal. His seventh assist of the season gives him 16 points in 14 games. Wilson also delivered one of the cleanest knockouts in NHL fight history, at least during my lifetime. How about that one, Rutherford? Jokes aside, you never want to see anyone injured, so I do hope Jamie Oleksiak is okay.
- The Capitals power play is going through a dry spell right now. For me, the man advantage unit may still have a pretty decent percentage of success, but it’s still probably the most inconsistent thing about this Caps team this season. They were 0-for-5 on the night and squabbled many a chance to really stick it to the Pens
- On the other hand, the Caps penalty kill is pretty consistent. Consistently mediocre to very bad. They allowed another goal last night, capitalizing on one of Michal Kempny‘s six minor penalties in the last three games. Not good, my boy.
- All things considered, very even game between these two rivals. All things considered, great hockey game. All things considered, as a non-neutral observer I’d rather the Caps dummy the hell out of the Pens and knock them further down the playoff standings.
- Peter has hinted at this on Twitter. Here comes Matt Niskanen and Dmitry Orlov folks. The pairing that have played a ton of minutes over the past three-ish seasons are seemingly at full strength of late. It was a more than rocky start to the year, but we’ll take a plus-14 shot attempt differential and plus-7 scoring chance for differential every single night, thank you very much.
Numbers thanks to Hockey-reference.com, NaturalStatTrick.com, and Corsica.hockey.
Full RMNB Coverage of Caps vs Penguins
Headline photo: NBCSN
