The Washington Capitals went down early to the New Jersey Devils but staged a valiant, late comeback that saw them avoid losing both games over the weekend. On the back of a three-point effort from TJ Oshie, the Caps took down the Devils 4-3.

The Caps outshot the Devils 41 to 25 and out-attempted them at five-on-five 56 to 49.

• The pure stats will tell you that the Caps dominated this game at five-on-five in really all three periods. This is one of the very rare times that I’m going to tell you to trust my eye test instead because the Caps weren’t very good in really the whole first 30-35 minutes of this game. But the effort they displayed in the final 25-30 was some of the best hockey they have played all season and leaves me wondering why we can’t see it more often. It was a fantastic comeback and a win that I think they very much needed.
• The Caps power play proved a big factor in the win as the unit scored three times in four chances. That’s the most power-play goals the Caps have scored in a single game this season.
• Special shoutout to Craig Anderson who obviously had some nervy moments in his first appearance for the Caps in relief of Vitek Vanecek previously but responded very well to his first opportunity to start in a Caps uniform. Anderson made 22 total stops and came up with a few key ones to keep the Caps comeback opportunity alive.

T.J. Oshie recorded three points against New Jersey, marking his 34th career game with at least three points and his second three-point game this season.

— CapitalsPR (@CapitalsPR) February 21, 2021

• The player that played the least on the entire team at five-on-five was Evgeny Kuznetsov (10:31). I feel like it’s becoming noticeable that Peter Laviolette doesn’t exactly trust Kuzy too much in close games.
• I thought the Dmitry Orlov and Justin Schultz pairing was noticeably good. Orlov in particular had some jolts up ice into the offensive zone that created scoring chances directly from his stick work. With Schultz on the ice five-on-five, the Caps saw 57.5-percent of the shot attempts, 69.2-percent of the scoring chances, eight high danger chances for, and zero high danger chances against. That’s absolute money, folks.
• Carl Hagelin led the Caps in individual scoring chances with four but is still stuck on one goal in 17 games for the season.

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

RMNB Coverage of Caps vs Devils

Screenshot courtesy of NBC