The Washington Capitals took out the New Jersey Devils on home ice in relatively easy fashion. The good guys used three goals from their bloodied captain and another sparkling performance from their rookie netminder to secure to 5-2 victory.
The Caps out-shot the Devils 38 to 34 and out-attempted them at five-on-five 53 to 41.
- The Caps were very, very good at even strength for the second straight game. The Devils were very lucky that Cory Schneider decided to summon up some of his old magic or this game could have reached ugly status on the scoreboard. The Caps fired 31 of their 34 total scoring chances at the Devils while five-on-five.
- Alex Ovechkin recorded the 25th hat trick of his career, tying Cy Denneny for ninth in NHL history in total hat tricks. It is Ovi’s second hat trick of the season, his fourth straight season with at least two hat tricks. He is now only one goal shy of tying Mario Lemieux (690) for 10th all time in goal scoring.
- John Carlson continues to rack up the assists, grabbing two more in this game. He is tied for second in the entire NHL with Leon Draisaitl at 46. Only Draisaitl’s Oilers teammate, the great Connor McDavid has more so far this season at 49.
Ilya Samsonov of the @Capitals is the 10th different rookie goaltender in NHL history to earn wins in 9+ consecutive decisions within a regular season. #NHLStats pic.twitter.com/SCFccEOuRb
— NHL Public Relations (@PR_NHL) January 17, 2020
- More Ovi milestones. With his 30th goal of the season, he passed Marcel Dionne for the sixth most multi goal games in NHL history, reached the aforementioned 30 goal mark for 15 consecutive seasons, becoming one of only three players in NHL history to record 15 straight 30 goal seasons (Jaromir Jagr and Mike Gartner), and he is only the second to do so from the very start of a career.
- Nicklas Backstrom assisted on the first two Ovechkin goals. He has assisted on an Ovechkin goal 257 times in his career so far. Only three players in NHL history have set up a teammate more. Wayne Gretzky (364) to Jari Kurri, Bryan Trottier (310) to Mike Bossy, and Henrik Sedin (280) to Daniel Sedin.
- Fantastic night from the first line overall in all three zones. That includes the defensive zone by the way. Defensive. Defense. Anyway, with that trio on the ice at five-on-five, the Caps grabbed 63-percent of the shot attempts, 76.5-percent (plus-9 differential) of the scoring chances, and 70-percent (plus-four differential) of the high danger chances.
Numbers thanks to Hockey-reference.com and NaturalStatTrick.com.
Full RMNB Coverage of Caps vs Devils
Headline photo: NBC Sports Washington
