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Lead extended: Caps beat Flyers 3-1

By Chris Cerullo

 3 Comments

March 24, 2019 3:03 pm

The Washington Capitals continued this stretch of games on home ice with their final meeting of the season with the Philadelphia Flyers. The division race is ever tightening so all available points are needed.

Tom Wilson put a nifty deflection of a Nick Jensen wrist shot past Brian Elliot to open scoring. Travis Boyd added a deflection goal of his own before Jakub Voracek cut that lead in half on a Flyers power play. The superior Jakub restored said lead on a breakaway.

Caps beat Flyers 3-1!

  • The first wasn’t really that great for the Caps play wise, but I also don’t know where the stats sites are finding the Flyers eleven scoring chances and six high danger chances at five-on-five. On what planet? Play seemed gummed up in neutral for the majority of the period and the Caps failed on two power play attempts.
  • Tom Wilson opened the scoring and now has a goal in every game that he’s played against the Flyers this season. For those counting, that’s four goals out of his 22 total.
  • Pierre does this thing where he tells us that a conversation is happening at the benches between two players. He then doesn’t tell us what they are talking about. The game moves on from there and we are left to just Mad Libs via context I guess. This aggravates me.
  • Claude Giroux once called his current teammate, James Van Riemsdyk a “bleeping pigeon” during a game and then cooed at JVR on the ice.

  • The Caps second period was horrible and is probably up for their worst period this entire season. The little play going in the right direction was far too cute. There was a whole lot of gliding, general laziness, and a bunch of other bad stuff that involves expletives. The Flyers at five-on-five out-attempted the Caps 35 to 9, out-scoring chanced them 19 to 6, and out-high danger chanced them 9 to 3. Maybe all the boys are getting sick. I sorta hope that, that is the reason.
  • The power play I guess looked better in this game with some great puck movement, but once again the finish is missing. Inconsistency is the definite theme with the man advantage this season. Also, has the second unit ever looked good…like one time?
  • The Caps coaching staff decided to mess with the defensive pairings the entire game and I think it led to just utter confusion. John Carlson playing on his off side looked particularly lost…more lost than usual. I don’t understand the point of in game tinkering on a shift to shift basis.
  • Braden Holtby was outstanding in this game and is also just an outstanding human. Feels like the Flyers were trying to get under his skin all game and failed.

  • The third period was much, much, much better and was more reminiscent of the Caps team we’ve seen lately. Good stuff, three point lead in the division.
  • I’ve had Rains of Castamere stuck in my head all day. I feel like the whole “coat of gold, coat of red” thing could fit into a Capitals playoff hype montage. Someone more talented than me, get on that. Also, who else is preemptively crying for the final season of Thrones?
  • A particular bright spot for me in this game was the fourth line. Travis Boyd got on the board with his fifth of the season and I thought Andre Burakovsky was excellent again. Number 65 has completely turned around his season in my eyes at this point.
  • Ovi shoot at empty nets please.

Here is your Gritty moment of the day:

Next up for the Caps is a home and home with the Carolina Hurricanes. Carolina is a very good hockey team and a potential first round playoff opponent for the Caps. Quite the test.

Full RMNB Coverage of Caps vs Flyers

Headline photo: Patrick McDermott

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