Bright start: numbers for the morning after

January 15, 2021 6:57 am

Well, well, well…what do we have here? It’s another season of NHL hockey and another season to overreact to numbers of the daybreak variety. Join me yet again as we travel alongside a new look Washington Capitals with a new face calling the shots behind the bench.

Those Caps kicked off their 2021 campaign with a big ole W, taking down the Buffalo Sabres by a score of 6-4.

We’re back for another season of these and I still cant believe y’all read them enough for me to be able to keep doing them. Thank you all and lets just get right into this thing because we have been away from this sport for long enough.
I took a bunch of positive notes while watching the first game in the Peter Laviolette reign. Overall, it was quite a sloppy affair at times but that should be expected as players shake the rust off and adapt to a new system. The major thing we definitely saw is how active the Caps defensemen will be in creating offense this season as both John Carlson and Brenden Dillon made notable surges up ice. The team’s second period was clearly their best and pretty much killed off the game.
The Caps top line was almost faultless at even strength. They dominated the scoresheet and dominated play. Despite the scoreline, offense was quite muted for both sides due to the previously mentioned sloppiness so I don’t have a ton of specific stats that merit mentioning. You’re just gonna have to believe me (haha).

With Ovechkin's two assist night, he now has 363 multi-point games in his career, which is second in the NHL since his debut in 2005-06.

— CapitalsPR (@CapitalsPR) January 15, 2021

From an eye test perspective (vomits), I thought Justin Schultz looked quite good in his Caps debut. His pairing overall with Dillon was fun to watch and I think those two will gel well.
Ilya Samsonov was solid. Don’t think he could have done much about any of the goals he conceded.
As these games get going and we see what this team is really made of, I’ll have more bullets with more substance…I promise. One thing is for sure though, I’ll take as many 6-4 Caps wins as they want to give us.

DYK? @JohnCarlson74 is the sixth different defenseman in NHL history with multiple points in 3+ consecutive season-opening games contested by their team. #NHLStats #NHLFaceOff pic.twitter.com/nc8UZgyauk

— NHL Public Relations (@PR_NHL) January 15, 2021