The Washington Capitals returned from their extended break away from the rink and handed an Ovi-less loss to the Montreal Canadiens. The Caps shook off the rust quick, taking down the Habs 4-2.
The Caps out-shot the Habs 41 to 33 and out-attempted them at five-on-five 52 to 48.
- After a little bit of a rocky start, the Caps eventually took a pretty solid hold of this game overall at five-on-five. Even without Alex Ovechkin they had enough firepower to pump 38 scoring chances at the Habs and Carey Price. Great to get a win after the break against an underrated and unlucky (over the course of the season so far) Montreal team.
- Braden Holtby was pretty much spotless in his first post all-star break start. Holts was only beat on two defensive breakdowns down low that left him helpless at best. He stopped 31 of 33 shots fired his way and improved his career stats against the Habs to 14-2-2 with a 1.69 (ha, nice) goals against average and a 94.3-percent save percentage.
- Jakub Vrana is inching ever so closely to being on pace to score 40 goals this season. In nine January games, V has now scored eight goals. He is currently on pace for a 37 goal, 68 point season. The last Washington Capitals player not named Alex Ovechkin to score at least 35 goals in a season was Alexander Semin with 40 in the 2009-10 season. Taking Semin’s two seasons of that kind out of the mix and you need to go back to Jaromir Jagr‘s 36 goal, 2002-03 season.
The @Capitals’ 73 points through 50 games are the franchise’s second-highest total through as many games in a single season, trailing only the 2015-16 campaign (37-9-4, 78 points). #NHLStats pic.twitter.com/rAEUg6dQPN
— NHL Public Relations (@PR_NHL) January 28, 2020
- This was only the 31st Caps game since being drafted that Ovi has missed. 17 due to injury, 10 for suspension, two for family reasons, one for oversleeping the morning skate, and one game for rest. He has played in all other 1,133 games. Just otherworldly.
- The Caps are now 13-2 against the Atlantic Division this season. Would love if they could find a first round matchup in the playoffs against an Atlantic team and not the gosh darn Hurricanes again.
- Need to mention the fourth line being absolute studs again, but that’s getting sorta old news. They’re great. Lars Eller was my standout individual player. Dude loves to burn his old team. The Caps created 14 of their 30 five-on-five scoring chances with Eller on the ice.
Numbers thanks to Hockey-reference.com and NaturalStatTrick.com.
Full RMNB Coverage of Caps at Canadiens
Headline photo: TSN
