The Washington Capitals went unbeaten in regulation for nine games to start the season but now have dropped two in a row in that fashion after a Thursday night loss to the New York Rangers by a score of 4-2. It was a boring, sloppy, stinker of a game.
The Caps outshot the Rangers 33 to 31 and out-attempted them at five-on-five 46 to 39.
- You’re welcome for that title. The Caps played one good period in this game which was their second and even that didn’t lead to much offense, as some bounces seemed to finally not go their way. Other than that the first was bad and the third was incredibly sloppy and had about 20-percent of the urgency needed considering the Caps were trailing and trying to not start a losing streak. They muted New York’s offense by quantity but matched them for quality in the third at five-on-five. That’s not gonna work.
- I will never understand the logic behind going with seven defensemen and eleven forwards. It just causes you to have one cold defenseman that plays five minutes and one line that has no consistency the entire game. Jonas Siegenthaler played a total of seven minutes in the game and Daniel Sprong played 5:27. Daniel Carr has shown he can do a fourth-line job and do it well.
- This is another thing that I really don’t like. The only forwards to play under 11 minutes at five-on-five in this game were Sprong, Michael Sgarbossa, and…TJ Oshie. In my opinion, Peter Laviolette is playing that “third” line far, far, far too much and it’s hurting minutes for guys like Oshie, Richard Panik, and Jakub Vrana.
Carl Hagelin scores his first goal of the season to cut New York's lead to 2-1. Hagelin's 55.9 goals for percentage (76 for, 60 against) at even strength over the last three seasons ranks tied for 48th among NHL forwards with at least 100 games played.
— CapitalsPR (@CapitalsPR) February 5, 2021
- Alex Ovechkin is the greatest goal scorer of all time. Just a reminder. The Great Eight scored his 709th career goal which saw him jump Mike Gartner for sole possession of seventh all-time in NHL history. Next up is Phil Esposito at 717 career goals. Lets hope he blows past that…and soon.
- Nicklas Backstrom was noticeably good and has been the Caps’ best player this season. Really good to see after he seemed to have some slow stretches scoring-wise last season. Nicky grabbed the primary assist on Ovi’s goal and now has 14 points in 11 games.
- Next up is the Flyers on Sunday afternoon to try and not let this losing streak get to three games.
Numbers thanks to Hockey-reference.com and NaturalStatTrick.com.
RMNB Coverage of Caps at Rangers
Screenshot courtesy of MSG Network
