The Washington Capitals hate playing any time before 7:00 PM. The Caps dropped their fifth game of that variety this season to the New York Rangers by a score of 4-1.

The Caps outshot the Rangers 28 to 24 and out-attempted them at five-on-five 40 to 34.

• The first half of this game saw the Caps actually playing pretty well five-on-five but once they were put in a larger hole by the Rangers things seemed to fall apart a little defensively. The Caps didn’t create a single high danger chance in a third period that they trailed the entire duration by two or more goals. That’s not a recipe for a comeback.
• The Evgeny Kuznetsov and Alex Ovechkin connection worked extremely well in the glorious run that was the end of the 2017-18 season. It has been downright terrible since. With the top line on ice five-on-five, the Caps saw 19-percent of the shot attempts, a minus-nine scoring chance differential, and a minus-two high danger chance differential.
• Connor McMichael tallied his first professional hat trick while this game was happening. That’s great news and a positive to take from a rather sour Saturday.

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

RMNB Coverage of Caps vs Rangers

Screenshot courtesy of MSG Network