The Washington Capitals took a commanding 4-1 lead over the New Jersey Devils and then totally wrapped the game up with a nice bow…right? Nope. In one of the more bizarre recent Caps games, they completely capitulated in regulation and were forced to come up with an overtime winner from Jakub Vrana to secure a 5-4 win.

The Devils outshot the Caps 31 to 30 but were out-attempted at five-on-five by the screaming eagle-clad boys 47 to 36.

• This game was a mess and a half. The Caps offense was sure working but on the other end of the rink, they looked like my JV high school hockey team. What in the world was the team defense in this game? Did it even exist? Did they forget you need to do both parts of the whole hockey thing? The Devils ended up with 10 high danger chances at five-on-five to the Caps two and that third period was mind-numbingly garbage. I have a few of the Caps defensive “highlights” artistically telestrated on my Twitter feed (@CJC_95) if you want to do a quick scroll.
• Brenden Dillon made an error that literally made me facepalm before the puck was even in the Caps net yet, but I actually don’t think his pairing was the Caps worst of the night. I think it was actually the pairing that I have praised most this season in these posts which is the one manned by Dmitry Orlov and Justin Schultz. Orlov made a pass directly up center ice from his own zone that led to the Devils tying goal and Schultz looked like a scrambly mess all game. With Schultz on the ice at five-on-five, the Caps were out-high danger chanced six to zero. Weird.
• Alex Ovechkin had four shots on net, nine individual shot attempts, three individual scoring chances, and one individual high danger chance. Yet, he could not find the back of the net. I keep saying a deluge of goals is coming for the Great Eight and I still think it is if he keeps those rates up.

The Capitals improve to 15-6-4 on the season with the win against New Jersey. The Capitals are 9-2-1 since Feb. 16, tied with the New York Islanders for the most wins and points (19) in the NHL during that span.

— CapitalsPR (@CapitalsPR) March 10, 2021

• Yo, Jakub Vrana is still riding the pine late in games and it drives me nuts. He took three whole shifts in the third period for less than two minutes of ice time. Vrana (15:05) has the lowest time on ice per games played in the entire NHL among players who have 18 points or more (stick taps to KP8 for this one). He scored twice, giving him 10 goals on the season which is tied for the team lead and he now has seven points in his last six games. I’m gonna keep saying it even if some of you may disagree. The kid needs to play and play a lot.
• Daniel Sprong now has four goals in 14 games and over a full, normal 82 game season that is a 23-goal pace. In a lot of those games, he was only skating fourth-line ice time as well. I think the Caps need to have him part of their future plans because he’s still only 23, has speed, and a nasty shot. I know Caps Twitter agrees with me.
• Vitek Vanecek wasn’t bad, but he also wasn’t great in his 27 save outing. I wanted to see Ilya Samsonov rewarded with another start after his performance in Philly so I surely hope that’s the plan for Thursday. No disrespect intended towards Vanecek as the kid has saved the Caps butts this season.

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

RMNB Coverage of Caps vs Devils

Screenshot courtesy of NBC Sports Washington