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Exciting but not advisable: numbers for the morning after

By Chris Cerullo

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January 29, 2021 7:37 am

The Washington Capitals in inexplicable fashion pulled off yet another victory over the New York Islanders. This time it was a thrilling six unanswered goal comeback that saw the lads in red take down another two points with a final score of 6-3.

The Islanders outshot the Caps 30 to 23 and out-attempted them at five-on-five 52 to 38.

  • Let’s start with the non advisable parts as there will be plenty of time to devote to the exciting parts. Going down three goals to none in any hockey game is a bad idea. The Caps weren’t necessarily outplayed in the first period by any stretch but they damn sure were outscored. We’ll then skip all the way to the third period where the Caps managed to fire a paltry, single shot attempt (which was blocked) at five-on-five. That’s not how we want to play with a lead. It didn’t hurt too much as the Isles didn’t really create much quality with their puck possession but a better team likely would no matter how well defensively you’re set up. One shot attempt in a period ain’t flying. But that’s it for the negative Andy stuff, let’s get to the fun.
  • Zdeno Chara scored his first goal as a Washington Capital and the entire team went wild in the celebration. What a wholesome and awesome moment and what a great performance from the big man overall. With Big Z on the ice at five-on-five, the Caps owned 56-percent of the shot attempts, 60-percent of the scoring chances, and had three high danger chances to the Isles zero. A lot of that goodness was helped along by his D partner Justin Schultz who has been almost infallible to start this season (six points in his last three games) and I hope he’ll be fine after taking a puck straight to the mush that caused him to miss the third period.
  • I mentioned in the last numbers post that I really liked Conor Sheary‘s energy in that game and he brought more of the same in this one. Sheary potted his first two goals as a member of the Capitals and his line with TJ Oshie at center and Richard Panik on the other wing was the Caps best trio of the night. I would like to see this Oshie at center experiment maybe even continue longer than coach Peter Laviolette is expecting it to.

  • Vitek Vanecek has yet to be beaten in regulation this season. He is one of two rookie netminders in franchise history to do so in his first six career games, joining Jim Carey who went 6-0-0-1 in the 1994-95 season to start his career.
  • The Capitals love scoring five goals in a period against the New York Islanders. The last three occurrences of them accomplishing that offensive feat have all come against the Isles. This one on January 28, 2021, another on January 18, 2020, and the last on November 5, 2013.
  • This win gives the Caps a 3-0-1 record without their four Russians. I think we know Ilya Samsonov has likely lost his starting role at this stage and Alex Ovechkin will obviously plug back into his customary roles in the lineup, but Laviolette and his staff might have some tougher decisions to make with Evgeny Kuznetsov and Dmitry Orlov. I think they’ll obviously get back into games but where exactly and who with on their line/defensive pairing?

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

RMNB Coverage of Caps vs Islanders

Screenshot courtesy of NBC Sports Washington

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