The Washington Capitals continued their absolute ownage of the New Jersey Devils and bounced back from their worst loss of the season with an overtime victory 2-1. It took an extra frame but two points feel great after the display Thursday night.
The Caps outshot the Devils 40 to 23 and out-attempted them at five-on-five 46 to 44.
- The Caps for sure played better than they did on Thursday but I and four of you could have probably done the same. I didn’t think the offense was in sync the entire night even with a 40 shot output. The defense and goaltending matched New Jersey pretty well but you don’t really want to just “match” New Jersey when you’re playing them this season. This wasn’t a good enough effort to convince me the Caps aren’t in a little bit of a slump right now.
- One thing is for sure though…Devils fans have to absolutely dread seeing the Capitals logo come up on the schedule. The Caps have beaten them seven straight times this season and are 25-3-2 overall against the Devils since December of 2014. Yikes. Some payback for the early 2000s.
- I beleaguered the Dmitry Orlov and Justin Schultz pairing for their horrid showing against the Islanders and they responded by being the Caps best skaters of this game. Orlov obviously netted the overtime winner and with him on the ice at five-on-five the Caps out-attempted the Devils 27 to 9, out-scoring chanced them 13 to 3, out-high danger chanced them 4 to 1, and outshot them 18 to 3.
Carlson is one of four defensemen in franchise history to record six 10-goal seasons for the Capitals (Sergei Gonchar and Kevin Hatcher: seven; Scott Stevens: six). https://t.co/3BCS5gV6Z0
— CapitalsPR (@CapitalsPR) April 3, 2021
- Evgeny Kuznetsov played all of 9:10 at five-on-five. That’s worse than the usual treatment Jakub Vrana has been getting. It is very clear that Peter Laviolette does not trust Kuzy whatsoever. I have literally no idea what the Caps future plans are for number 92 but I don’t think it can stay like that.
- John Carlson scored the Caps first goal but his pairing with Brenden Dillon is just rough right now. The Caps at five-on-five were out-attempted 21 to 11, out-scoring chanced 6 to 2, and out-high danger chanced 2 to 0 with them out there. I’m not seeing a whole lot that Dillon does that Jonas Siegenthaler cant do.
- The Caps scored two goals and only created four high danger chances at five-on-five. If you want to score goals without producing a lot of chances you either need puck luck or elite offensive talent. One of the Caps elite offensive weapons was sitting in the press box.
Numbers thanks to Hockey-reference.com and NaturalStatTrick.com.
RMNB Coverage of Caps at Devils
Headline photo: KP8 Design
