The Washington Capitals traveled to Tampa Bay to take on the Lightning with their dads and mentors in tow. They took some of that transitive dad strength and used it to put down the Bolts 5-2 for yet another road victory.
The Caps out-shot the Lightning 34 to 28, but were out-attempted at five-on-five 41 to 37.
- Overall, another great road game from the Caps. They survived the Lightning’s sometimes lengthy second period offensive pushes and shut the door right in their face to open the third with two quick goals. Need to stay out of the box though.
- Ilya Samsonov was at times utterly magnificent in the first NHL game he has played with his father in attendance. The rookie netminder made 26 saves on 28 shots in his eighth career win and now has a 2.38 goals against average and a 91.8 save percentage this season. He leads all qualified rookie goalies in wins, goals against average, and save percentage.
- Congrats to Michal Kempny who played in his 200th career NHL game. He has revitalized his career here in DC and has become a favorite player of mine.
The League-leading @Capitals (15-2-1, 31 points) matched the NHL record for fewest games to 15 road wins in a season (18 GP), a mark set by Buffalo in 2006-07 (15-3-0, 30 points). #NHLStats pic.twitter.com/iuPpfM0OLH
— NHL Public Relations (@PR_NHL) December 15, 2019
- Alex Ovechkin only has one goal in six December games. I’m only adding this in so it spurs on some sort of anti jinx because moar Ovi goals is moar fun.
- Evgeny Kuznetsov is slowly and somewhat quietly climbing the Caps point leaders list. He is now only one point behind Ovi for second on the team to John Carlson. His assist in Tampa gives him points in four straight.
- I thought the Dmitry Orlov and Nick Jensen pairing were flying the entire night. They hardly put a foot wrong and it shows on the stat sheet as well. With Jensen on the ice five-on-five the Caps controlled 68-percent of the shot attempts, 68.8-percent of the scoring chances, and 66.7-percent of the high danger chances.
Numbers thanks to Hockey-reference.com and NaturalStatTrick.com.
Full RMNB Coverage of Caps at Lightning
Headline photo: NBC Sports Washington
