The banged up and ill Washington Capitals traveled to Raleigh to complete the back half of a back-to-back against the Carolina Hurricanes. This half of said back-to-back did not go as well as the first with the Caps falling 6-4.
Shots were deadlocked at 29 apiece, but the Canes out-attempted the Caps at five-on-five 44 to 38.
- The walking wounded and sickness plagued Caps team didn’t really play that bad in this loss. They held positive differentials at five-on-five in both scoring chances and high danger chances after sixty minutes. Just couldn’t seem to get a save when they really needed one.
- Braden Holtby let five goals in on 28 total shots faced. The timeliness of those goals sucked the most as you’ll see further along in this post.
- Alex Ovechkin scored his 256th career power play goal. That puts him past Teemu Selanne for the third most man advantage tallies in NHL history.
Dowd cuts it to 2-1 — 1:46 later Hamilton makes it 3-1.
Ovechkin brings Caps within 3-2 — 3:06 later Foegele makes it 4-2
Kuznetsov cuts Caps deficit to 4-3 — 1:20 later Necas makes it 5-3
— Tom Gulitti (@TomGulittiNHL) December 29, 2019
- John Carlson is the first defenseman with 50 points in his team’s first 40 games since Phil Housley and Brian Leetch both hit that mark in the 1991-92 season.
- Radko Gudas out of nowhere now has five points in his last seven games. Carl Hagelin also recorded his 250th career point.
- Caps 2019 third round pick Aliaksei Protas, has put up five points in two games for the WHL’s Prince Albert Raiders after returning from the Division 1A World Junior Championship with Belarus where he won a bronze medal. Protas missed six WHL games while away on international duty, so he has slipped from first overall in league scoring to a tie for fourth at 47 points. He holds at least five games in hand on the players that have jumped him. Those players have 53, 54, and 56 points respectively.
Numbers thanks to Hockey-reference.com and NaturalStatTrick.com.
Full RMNB Coverage of Caps at Hurricanes
Headline photo: Fox Sports Carolinas
