The Washington Capitals still didn’t play very good hockey for large stretches of Sunday afternoon’s matchup with the Pittsburgh Penguins, but they came away with a 5-3 win. You’ll take that and any win over the Pens literally ever. Lets hope the boys build from it.
The Pens out-shot the Caps 36 to 23 and out-attempted them at five-on-five 45 to 35.
- The Caps kinda looked like the Caps of a few months ago (which is good) for the first ten minutes of this game. Then they scored and seemingly forgot how to hockey again all the way until the third period. The third was a very even frame and the Caps took advantage of some hot shooting to claim a win and first in the Metro from the flightless loserbirds.
- Remember when Carl Hagelin had like zero points for seemingly eternity? Well things have changed and with his two goals in this game, he now has seven total goals this season to go along with 21 total points in 51 games. That’s a pretty decent output considering his start to the season and when you remember his career high in points is 39, set in 2015-16 with the Ducks and Pens. He’s been one of the few Caps forwards that has actually looked good-ish in this horribad stretch of games.
- Other notable goal stuff is that TJ Oshie has hit the 25 mark for the fourth time in his five seasons with the Caps (he had never done so prior with the Blues). Tom Wilson is back in the 20 goal club as well for the second time in his career. Willy also now has a new career high in points with 41 as his previous high was set last season at 40 points in 63 games.
With an assist, John Carlson surpassed Calle Johansson (113-361—474 in 983 GP) for most points by a defenseman in @Capitals history. https://t.co/geUSQ6gR2t #NHLStats pic.twitter.com/N44fu8aCnv
— NHL Public Relations (@PR_NHL) February 23, 2020
- Jakub Vrana opened scoring for the Caps. Jake snapped his cold streak, grabbing the 24th goal of his season, tying his career high set last season in 82 full games.
- One thing that I thought was great to see is that Brenden Dillon was impressive for the first time in a Caps uniform. He was physical, hello Geno, and on the ice for three Capitals goals at five-on-five. He, as one of the very few players to maintain positive differentials in all your favorite even strength statistics, rightfully received the Nationals batting helmet in the room after the game.
- The trade deadline is tomorrow. Dillon and Ilya Kovalchuk are in. Will this win maybe extinguish anymore of Brian MacLellan‘s potential plans? Should the Caps even use more assets to try and fix problems that are more systematic than anything else? Find out next time on Dragon Ball Z.
Numbers thanks to Hockey-reference.com and NaturalStatTrick.com.
Full RMNB Coverage of Caps vs Penguins
Headline photo: NBCSN
