The Washington Capitals “got back on track” with a win against the Buffalo Sabres 4-3 that puts the Caps back even with the New York Islanders for first in the East Division. Find out why I put part of that sentence in quotes below.
Shots finished tied at 33 apiece and the Caps out-attempted the Sabres at five-on-five 49 to 48.
- First things first, a win is a win. Two points are two points and nothing will ever change that. It’s math, yo. But…this iteration of the Buffalo Sabres even with Jack Eichel and Taylor Hall (which they were without in this game) was/is quite possibly a bottom-five team in the entire history of the league. The Caps were out-chanced at five-on-five 20 to 15 by that team. This wasn’t the performance you want to see out of a team looking to break out of a slump playing against the hockey equivalent of the Washington Generals. If you’re more of a visual person and don’t want to listen to just my ramblings, look at that heat map.
- I’m going to preface this by saying that this was a back-to-back against the worst team in the league so this sort of makes sense. The two forwards that played the most in this game were Nic Dowd (17:06) and Carl Hagelin (16:38) and their linemate Garnet Hathaway played the fifth most (14:52). The Caps are an old team that sure looks a little gassed lately so I’m not exactly “unhappy” about this, but they are also a team that I personally believe is floundering for more reasons than just having tired, weighed down legs. Playing a great, dominating game against the Sabres may have helped that. Even a numbers guy like me believes in momentum for both teams and individual players.
- A player that has surely needed some positive momentum of late is Jakub Vrana and Jake got his first goal in exactly a month. He also played the least amount of any Caps player (11:04) and is probably the last Caps player that needs “rest” right now considering his little break in the press box. So, against the worst team in the league, Peter Laviolette couldn’t find some time to give to a guy that really seems like he needs more time out there to work out of this? It’s not like that fourth line that played a whole lot was actually good in this game. In fact, at five-on-five they were out-attempted 19 to 8, out-scoring chanced 6 to 2, and out-high danger chanced 2 to 0. It would be disingenuous of me to not mention that, that line literally did not get a single offensive zone start though.
Vitek Vanecek earned his 16th win of the season, which leads rookie goaltenders and ranks tied for fifth among all goaltenders. Vanecek has stopped 90 of 95 shots faced over his last three starts (.947 SV%).
— CapitalsPR (@CapitalsPR) April 10, 2021
- One player that I liked in this game that I’ve complained about lately is Evgeny Kuznetsov. If Kuzy has a lot of the puck he is a great player. Unfortunately, Kuzy doesn’t have a lot of the puck this season. But in a game like this, he’s capable of controlling entire periods by himself. I think if he and Alex Ovechkin got more than 14-15 minutes in this game (and if bogus offside challenges weren’t a thing) they would have ended up with multiple-point nights. Those two were good.
- Justin Schultz had a three-point game, his first three-point game as a Washington Capital. Schultz has 15 primary assists this season which comes in at fourth overall among all NHL defensemen. I’m still a big fan of his signing, but his pairing with Dmitry Orlov needs to find some consistency on both sides of the ice because I wouldn’t say they were exactly great in this game from an overall play standpoint.
- The Caps are 14-0-1 against the Sabres and Devils this season. That means they are 12-11-3 against everybody else.
Numbers thanks to Hockey-reference.com and NaturalStatTrick.com.
RMNB Coverage of Caps at Sabres
Headline photo: KP8 Design
