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Newcomers score in Caps preseason victory over defending champion Blues

By Chris Cerullo

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September 18, 2019 9:39 pm

The past two Stanley Cup Champions met in an intense (not) preseason hockey match in which your 2018 champion Caps came out on top 3-2.

Your Caps goal scorers were a couple of newcomers and an old, friendly face. Noted sniper, Radko Gudas, Richard Panik, and Nicklas Backstrom with a bounce pass from the blue line.

Radko Gudas goal, 1-1

Richard Panik goal, 2-2

Nicklas Backstrom goal, 3-2

Additional notes

  • Connor McMichael had another great preseason game. One might begin to wonder if there is any consideration towards him being a part of opening night over someone like Travis Boyd due to the Evgeny Kuznetsov suspension and Lars Eller‘s day-to-dayness. He should obviously be sent back to London shortly thereafter, but the most recent Caps first round pick is impressing me.
  • Brett Leason got his first look in a Caps lineup with a couple scrub linemates named Alex Ovechkin and Nicklas Backstrom. The big kid didn’t look out of place to me and I’m really excited to see what he gets up to in Hershey this season.
  • The Caps two highest ranked young bucks in net split the cage in this one. Vitek Vanecek got us started and made a few dazzling stops in the first before being beat by some wizardry type bounce off a skate in front. Ilya Samsonov was next up and immediately helped snuff out an extended Blues five-on-three.
  • The penalty box was full of Caps players, they took about 17,000 penalties. Are we entirely sure this is a new season?
  • I thought our first look at one of the new Caps, Radko Gudas was a great one. There’s obviously only so much you can tell from a preseason game but I liked his mobility, penalty killing, and overall active stick. We all already know he isn’t afraid to get amongst it physically and oh yeah he scored too.
  • I really hope the Caps have some new wrinkles to their power play this season…like really, really hope.
  • Most of the Caps veterans sure looked like they haven’t played game paced hockey in awhile.
  • I was high on Aliaksei Protas before the Caps even drafted him. That has no real relevance, I just have a large, but very fragile hockey prospects ego that needs to be stroked and Protas has flashed brilliance multiple times in two preseason games. He had a great feed in this one to Beck Malenstyn that should have been finished and a nice steal, mini-breakaway that he was probably unlucky to finish himself.

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