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Afternoon blues: Rangers beat Caps 4-1

By Chris Cerullo

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February 20, 2021 3:03 pm

A Saturday matinee was on the books for the Washington Capitals who hosted the New York Rangers as the two sides did battle for the second time this season. The Rangers came into play losing four of their last five and the Caps came holding a two-game win streak.

Chris Kreider struck on a power play to open the scoring. Alexis Lafreniere beat Vitek Vanecek in tight for his second career goal and less than a minute later Ryan Strome beat Vanecek again through a screen from deep.

Dmitry Orlov finally got the Caps on the board with about 30 seconds remaining in the second period. Mika Zibanejad empty netter.

Rangers beat Caps 4-1.

  • An incredibly boring first period ended with a Rangers lead due to an offensive zone penalty from Lars Eller. The Caps played well defensively and created more concrete offensive chances than New York at even strength. That’s about all I got for that first frame.
  • Another game and yet another puck right in the mush of a Capitals player. This time it was Tom Wilson in his very first shift this afternoon and he had to go down the tunnel for repairs. Oy very. That is now Wilson, Backstrom, Chara, and most notably Schultz on a list that you do not want to be on.
  • My main takeaway from the start of this one is that Rangers bench boss, David Quinn looks like Doctor Strange and it would be very unfair for a hockey team to have Doctor Strange as their coach.

  • The back half of the second period was not good for the Caps. The Rangers struck twice in a minute to grow their lead to three and Vitek Vanecek was quite the busy lad in the home team’s net. Luckily, Dimitry Orlov grabbed one back on a beautiful individual effort thirty seconds or so before the horn sounded.
  • I wish I could skate 1/16th as well as Nick Jensen. The edgework he displayed on a chance in the second was some of the prettiest skating I have ever seen from a Capitals defender. That isn’t just me exaggerating for content either.
  • It might be a little confirmation bias but it seems like the Caps have taken about 6,876 offensive zone penalties so far this season.
  • Igor Shesterkin is annoyingly legit and will be a problem for probably the next 15 years.

  • Not enough urgency in the third. New York clogged up neutral pretty dang well and the Caps couldn’t find a way to challenge their net.
  • Nada on the man advantage and they got a few opportunities in key parts of the game. Zone entries and just about everything else was not great, fam.

The Caps will get right back into action tomorrow night against the New Jersey Devils where we will likely/probably/hopefully see the return of Ilya Samsonov to the Washington net.

Full RMNB Coverage of Caps vs Rangers

Screenshot courtesy of NBC Sports Washington

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