It took them three tries this season, but the Washington Capitals have finally downed their Metro Division rivals, the Columbus Blue Jackets. The Caps 2-1 win in overtime sends them into the back half of their back-to-back with momentum.
The Caps out-shot the Jackets 36 to 28 and out-attempted them at five-on-five 56 to 39.
- The Caps overall dominated the heck out of this game at even strength. Their third period was especially impressive as at five-on-five they owned 69.7-percent of the shot attempts (plus-13 differential), 64.3-percent (plus-4 differential) of the scoring chances, and 100-percent (plus-four differential) of the high danger chances.
- In his first NHL start in front of his mom, Ilya Samsonov was absolutely phenomenal. He earned his 10th career win in only his 12th start, the least amount of starts in franchise history a rookie has taken to earn 10 wins. In his last five starts, Sammy sports a 5-0 record, a 93.2 save percentage, and a 1.80 goals against average.
- Carl Hagelin is finally on the board this season. His first of the year tied this game at one.
Through 39 games, the Capitals have not lost consecutive games in regulation, the only team in the NHL to accomplish this feat.
— CapitalsPR (@CapitalsPR) December 28, 2019
- John Carlson played in career game number 727. That puts him past Rod Langway for the second most games played for the Caps by a defenseman.
- Alex Ovechkin stated after the game that he will not be playing in this year’s all star game due to wanting to relax and prepare for the second half of the season. The NHL deems this offense more serious suspension wise (one game suspension) than most of the on ice conduct that they hand supplemental discipline out for. That’s ridiculous.
- Christian Djoos played 12:39 of ice time in his return to the big club and in regular Djoos fashion slayed that ice time real good. With Djoos on the ice at five-on-five, the Caps grabbed 77.3-percent of the shot attempts, 83.3-percent of the scoring chances, and 83.3-percent of the high danger chances.
Numbers thanks to Hockey-reference.com and NaturalStatTrick.com.
Full RMNB Coverage of Caps vs Blue Jackets
Headline photo: NBC Sports Washington
