The Washington Capitals came into Friday night’s action without their Russians but still left with their third victory of the season over the Buffalo Sabres. It wasn’t pretty but the Caps clutched up in the shootout and downed Buffalo by a final score of 4-3.

The Caps outshot the Sabres 32 to 27 but were out-attempted at five-on-five 49 to 42.

• The Caps were not good defensively in this game’s first two periods. That’s becoming more worrisome and less of a thing we can maybe chalk up to just getting used to a new system. The Sabres were in alone behind the Caps defense about 10 or so times in this game and due to poor finishing and great goaltending, the Caps weren’t really punished. Their third period however was far better as they limited Buffalo to just two scoring chances at five-on-five and didn’t give up a single high danger chance. Playing as they did in the third where they ground the Sabres out of the game in neutral, on the forecheck, and in the offensive zone cycle, muting their offense is how we should want the Caps to play sans Alex Ovechkin and Evgeny Kuznetsov.
• I noticed on their first two shifts of the game that Nick Jensen and Zdeno Chara were struggling to deal with Buffalo’s top attackers and that it was probably going to be a long night for them. The pair was on the ice for two of the Sabres goals and Jensen finished at five-on-five with a minus-11 shot attempt differential, a minus-9 scoring chance differential, and a minus-5 high danger chance differential. To put that in better perspective, the Caps overall at five-on-five finished with a team minus-7 shot attempt differential, a minus-7 scoring chance differential, and a minus-3 high danger chance differential.
• Tom Wilson has been phenomenal to start this season. With his assist on Jakub Vrana‘s goal, he now has six points in five games on the season to lead the Caps in scoring. Let’s hope what he was taken out of the game for is very minor and not something he has to deal with for an extended duration.
• On Nic Dowd‘s goal, John Carlson recorded his 376th career assist and that lifted him above Dale Hunter for the fifth-most apples in franchise history.

Zdeno Chara recorded an assist on Vrana's goal, his first point as a Capital.

— CapitalsPR (@CapitalsPR) January 23, 2021

• I thought Vitek Vanecek was fantastic. I saw some rumblings on Twitter that people wanted him to have the Sabres third goal but Riley Sheahan walked in alone from the left hash practically untouched and went to his backhand for the finish. That’s tough for a lot of goaltenders. He made 24 stops overall not including the four in the shootout that earned the Caps their victory.
• I thought the top line until Wilson went down was excellent. All three of those dudes now have three goals on the season and they’ll need to pot a handful more over the next three games.
• I don’t think Justin Schultz has put a single skate wrong so far this season. He played excellent next to Brendon Dillon and played even better with Jonas Siegenthaler in this one. The Caps dominated play when he was on the ice at five-on-five with 69-percent (nice) of the shot attempts, 75-percent of the scoring chances, and 67-percent of the high danger chances.

Numbers thanks to Hockey-reference.com and NaturalStatTrick.com.

RMNB Coverage of Caps vs Sabres

Screenshot courtesy of NBC Sports Washington