The Washington Capitals pulled a pretty darn good game out of their bags the day after Thanksgiving, outplaying the Tampa Bay Lightning in a comeback overtime victory 4-3. You love to see that.
The Caps out-shot the Lightning 35 to 30 and out-attempted them at five-on-five 60 to 46.
- I thought the Caps put a pretty solid effort together against a Lightning team that seems to be finding its footing of late. This game could have been out of hand early on in a positive way if not for some dope goaltending heroics via Andrei Vasilevskiy. There were certainly a couple lulls in the second and third periods where Braden Holtby had to be dazzling in his own right, but I thought the Caps earned these two points.
- Jakub Vrana is an elite player, y’all. He is becoming a deadly volume shooter, which is something Caps fans know very well because Alex Ovechkin has made a Hall of Fame career on being the same. Jake and Ovi combined for 16 of the Caps 35 shots on goal, 24 individual shot attempts, 16 individual scoring chances, and 7 individual high danger chances.
- Ovi’s power play goal was the 255th of that variety in his career. That mark ties Teemu Selanne for the third most power play goals all time. Just another day in the office…literally.
With seven shots against Tampa Bay, Alex Ovechkin has passed Marcel Dionne (5,363) for third on the NHL’s all-time shots list. Ovechkin sits at 5,365 career shots, surpassing Dionne in 237 fewer games played. pic.twitter.com/j3T63SdH1c
— CapitalsPR (@CapitalsPR) November 30, 2019
- The Caps now have five multi goal comeback wins this season, leading the league in that category. You normally want your team to dominate entire games and never trail, but as we know adversity can breed eventual success.
- Evgeny Kuznetsov had another game full of brilliant individual moments, however he just still does not work on a line with Ovechkin. You don’t want those two and Tom Wilson getting out-scoring chanced at five-on-five 11 to 6. Heal up, Nicky you legend.
- You know who has quietly been pretty phenomenal in his role this season? Jonas Siegenthaler. He’s obviously not playing the toughest guys on other teams a whole lot, but at five-on-five (adjusted for score and venue) you’ll take every single day of the week 52.9-percent of the shot attempts, 57.4-percent of the scoring chances, and 59.4-percent of the high danger chances when he’s on the ice. His role on the drastically improved penalty kill should also be highlighted.
Numbers thanks to Hockey-reference.com and NaturalStatTrick.com.
Full RMNB Coverage of Caps vs Lightning
Headline photo: NBC Sports Washington
