Give me a seven, dealer. The Washington Capitals have won seven games in a row after their captain decided that he was sick of trailing for so long in this game and led his boys to a 2-1 victory.
The Rangers outshot the Caps 33 to 18 and out-attempted them at five-on-five 50 to 46.
- I thought the Caps had a good first ten minutes of this game but then decided to take the next thirty minutes off. Luckily, the Rangers were not in their 9-0 type form and didn’t create a whole lot with the amount of the puck they had. The Caps absolutely surged in the third though and I think actually deserved this win due to that comeback effort in a game that I thought was officiated rather poorly. The two goals came late, but just in time for a big ole dub.
- When you do a post like this for every game you sorta run out of adjectives to describe Alex Ovechkin like 200 games ago. The GOAT is just the GOAT. Ryan Lindgren decided to poke the bear and got his team bit a couple of times. Ovi now has at least one goal in five straight games and is only three game-winning goals shy of tying Phil Esposito for third all-time in that category.
- The Caps are now 11-1-0 in their last 12 games, have won seven in a row which is the longest active win streak in the NHL, and sit two points clear of the New York Islanders for the East Division lead (with a game in hand to boot).
Alex Ovechkin recorded his 147th career multi-goal game and tied 'Mr. Hockey' for fourth place on the League's all-time list. https://t.co/5VmmA08Mzo #NHLStats pic.twitter.com/3jpAWv1Lh9
— NHL Public Relations (@PR_NHL) March 20, 2021
- I thought Vitek Vanecek was fantastic when he needed to be. The Caps did a pretty great job defending the net even if they didn’t have a whole lot of the puck for the majority of the middle of this game, but Vanecek was called upon a few times and came up large. He made 32 stops and is now solidly within the top half of NHL “starting” goaltenders (goalies with at least 15 games played) in terms of save percentage (91.1-percent) and goals-against average (2.66).
- Zdeno Chara and Nick Jensen did it again. And “it” in this context is be absolutely dominant at five-on-five. With Chara on the ice at even strength, the Capitals held a plus-seven shot attempt differential, a plus-eight scoring chance differential, and a plus-three high danger chance differential (they didn’t allow one against). Chef’s kiss type stuff.
- So, the Caps went 7-0 during Tom Wilson‘s suspension. Who do you take out of the lineup? It’s gonna be Daniel Sprong, but who do YOU take out of the lineup to slide Tom back in?
Numbers thanks to Hockey-reference.com and NaturalStatTrick.com.
RMNB Coverage of Caps vs Rangers
New headline photo: KP8 Design
