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Oof, that stings: numbers for the morning after

By Chris Cerullo

 4 Comments

March 31, 2021 6:26 am

The Washington Capitals were finally burned by their inability to protect a lead. The Caps put the New York Rangers into a two-goal hole but New York responded with five straight to take the two points 5-2.

The Caps outshot the Rangers 32 to 27 and out-attempted them at five-on-five 39 to 37.

  • I thought the Caps played an overall great game, which is weird since they lost and got scored on five times. Individual errors, not finishing their chances at even strength, and not getting a save or two ruined what I thought was an effort deserving of a win. These pesky Rangers are just the Caps most annoying opponent this season.
  • Lars Eller returned and I really, really liked the line Peter Laviolette put him in the middle of. That line also including Jakub Vrana and Daniel Sprong got over 70-percent of the five-on-five shot attempts, scoring chances, and high danger chances. It would be a good idea to play that trio more than 8:46 at five-on-five in a game though.
  • Vitek Vanecek wasn’t “bad” in his 22 save effort, but I think Ilya Samsonov really deserves a large string of starts right now. He’s in a groove where he can save the squad a couple of goals against in a game like this and maybe force things to at least overtime.

  • The first line was probably the Caps “worst” and they really weren’t that bad. I’m just annoyed that Alex Ovechkin didn’t score again. I think we talked about him challenging for the goal scoring lead again too much.
  • The Caps will finish March with an 11-3-0 record and tied for the most points in the NHL (50) with the Tampa Bay Lightning and Florida Panthers.

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

RMNB Coverage of Caps at Rangers

Headline photo: KP8 Design

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