One team decided that they wanted to win Tuesday night’s game and it was not the Washington Capitals. The New York Islanders blitzed the Caps net in the third period like the Caps weren’t even there on the way to a 1-0 victory.
The Isles outshot the Caps 39 to 29 and out-attempted them at five-on-five 54 to 45.
- I’m just going to put it simply…the Islanders just absolutely own the Capitals right now. They have a second gear that they just turn on and the Caps have been absolutely shellshocked by it twice in a row now. Look at the molten pit that surrounds the Caps net on the heat map. The majority of that damage came in a third period that started 0-0 on the scoreboard and featured 13 high danger chances for the Isles to the Caps three. I think you can extrapolate from that which team played to win in those final 20 minutes.
- Without Vitek Vanecek making 38 stops and some great work from the goalposts, I think this could have gotten as ugly as the last matchup between these two teams. Rumors have been flying and swirling lately about the Caps looking to acquire a goaltender and there are numbers that would back that decision up in terms of expected goals against, but can you really count many games that you can blame on the netminders this season instead of the defensive work from the dudes in front of them?
- The Brenden Dillon and John Carlson pairing is just sort of a disaster lately. With Carlson on the ice five-on-five, the Caps were out-attempted 23 to 11, out-scoring chanced 15 to 5, and out-high danger chanced 11 to 3. You’re asking a whole lot of your rookie goaltender if you’re “number one” pairing is getting beat that bad. Normally when Caps Twitter finds a scapegoat it’s usually a tad overblown, but man Dillon in particular just seems actually, completely lost right now. Jonas Siegenthaler is calling out from the press box.
Tonight marked the first game this season that the Capitals did not score a goal. Entering tonight's game, Washington was one of two teams (Ottawa) in the NHL that had not been shutout.
— CapitalsPR (@CapitalsPR) April 7, 2021
- One player that I thought was individually good, and it seems he’s hit a stretch of noticeably good play here overall, is Conor Sheary. Sheary shared the team lead in shots on goal at four, had five individual shot attempts, five individual scoring chances, and three individual high danger chances.
- Before this loss, the Caps were 14-0-4 in one-goal games. If they had successfully gone all season without losing a one-goal game in regulation they would have been only the second team ever, joining the 1917-18 Montreal Wanderers who played…six total games that year.
- At least the penalty kill seems to be working as they’ve killed off 12 straight opposing man advantages.
Numbers thanks to Hockey-reference.com and NaturalStatTrick.com.
RMNB Coverage of Caps at Islanders
Headline photo: KP8 Design
