The Caps finished up their Californian travels with a win over the petulant Anaheim Ducks. The 3-2 win was the sixth in a row for the good guys and completed a clean sweep of their west coast road fixtures.
The Caps out-shot the Ducks 36 to 29, but were out-attempted at five-on-five 54 to 37.
- This was an ugly game and the Caps did not play well in it. They finished the night with negative differentials at five-on-five in shot attempts, scoring chances, and high danger chances. I’m gonna chalk up some of the very slow and seemingly structureless play to fatigue in what was the end of a long road swing. At the end of the day, the Caps grabbed the two points.
- Jakub Vrana scored the game winning marker, his 15th of the season. All 15 have come at even strength which ties him for the league lead in goals of that variety with Brad Marchand and Leon Draisaitl. He is now on pace for a 40 goal season and would be the first Caps player not named Alex Ovechkin to reach that total since Alexander Semin in the 2009-10 season.
- I thought Braden Holtby was positively stupendous in this game and he has been for quite some time now. After his very poor October, Holts posted a 8-1-1 November with a 2.24 goals against average and a 92.8 save percentage. He has followed that up with a 2-0 record in December with a 2.00 goals against average and a 92.6 save percentage. Those are Vezina finalist type numbers when paired with his win total. The beast is back.
For the first time in franchise history, the Capitals went 3-0-0 on the road against all three California teams (5-2 win against San Jose on Tuesday, 3-1 win against Los Angeles on Wednesday, ). It marks the first occurrence by any team in 2019-20.
— CapitalsPR (@CapitalsPR) December 7, 2019
- Evgeny Kuznetsov scored his 12th of the season on the power play. He is now on pace for a career high 31 goals this season. Guess who got the primary assist on said goal? John Carlson. Cant stop, wont stop.
- Other than that goal though, the Caps first line featuring Kuznetsov was pretty atrocious. The trio at five-on-five posted a 28.6-percent shot attempt percentage, 28.6-percent scoring chance for percentage, and a 25-percent high danger chance for percentage. Nicklas Backstrom needs to get healthy.
- The Caps are now 14-2-1 on the road this season. In the words of World Series champion Nationals manager, Davey Martinez…”Boom”.
Numbers thanks to Hockey-reference.com and NaturalStatTrick.com.
Full RMNB Coverage of Caps at Ducks
Headline photo: NBC Sports Washington and Manny DiCasimirro
