The Washington Capitals got a sparkling performance from their goaltender and were able to take down the Buffalo Sabres for the second time in only six days. The Caps got goals from Chandler Stephenson and Tom Wilson on the way to a close fought 2-1 victory.
The Sabres out-shot the Caps 37 to 24 and out-attempted them at five-on-five 55 to 38.
- This really wasn’t a great game for anyone dressed in red other than Braden Holtby and Evgeny Kuznetsov. Holts made 36 stops and lets just be straight up honest he stole those two points from the Sabres. Earned that first star of the night and then some for sure.
- The other member of that aforementioned duo is Kuznetsov who was flying right from the jump of this one. Kuzy set up the winning tally by his linemate Tom Wilson and could have had a couple goals for himself if not for a dubious no-goal call by the officials and some bad puck luck.
- Speaking of Wilson, that late game winner was his tenth goal in 15 games this season and his 8th goal in his last 11 games. Folks, Big Willy is putting them in the back of net with regularity.
If we disregard Willy’s suspension and injury (do not advise but let’s have fun) he’d be on a 54-goal pace over a full season.
— RMNB (@russianmachine) December 22, 2018
- Someone else who is on quite the surprising roll, at least surprising to me, is Nic Dowd. Dowd has seven assists in his last nine games and is on pace to crush his career high of 22 points set with the Los Angeles Kings in the 2016-17 season.
- Friday night was a return to the lineup for Andre Burakovsky after being sat out healthy for four games. I thought it was a nice start back from Andre as he seemed engaged from puck drop, used his speed to get his line into the offensive zone, and was hard on the puck in all three zones. Still needs to look to shoot the puck more and it’d be nice if he wasn’t being played the least amount of time on the team (8:55). Kid isn’t going to get better on the bench, so if he’s in the lineup he has to play more.
- The Caps obviously got smothered attempts wise but the high danger chance for battle at all strengths ended 11-10 in favor of the Sabres. Not the worst game this season from the Caps, but certainly still not pretty. When I say all strengths that definitely includes the power play which is s-t-r-u-g-g-l-i-n-g at the moment. Yeesh, get it together a man up fellas.
Numbers thanks to Hockey-reference.com, NaturalStatTrick.com, and Corsica.hockey.
Full RMNB Coverage of Caps vs Sabres
Headline photo: Rob Carr
