The Washington Capitals hatched out of the egg they laid against the Buffalo Sabres and put a big ole 6-3 beatdown on the Philadelphia Flyers. The scoreline actually makes this one look closer than it should have been.
The Caps outshot the Flyers 41 to 25 and out-attempted them at five-on-five 56 to 24.
- The Caps tombstone piledrived the Flyers at five-on-five in this game. They out-attempted them 56 to 24, out-scoring chanced them 23 to 4, and out-high danger chanced them 8 to 1. The only reason the Flyers were even “in” this game in the third period was because of a few individual errors and some tough luck penalties. I think some of that is the Flyers just giving up on this year and some of it is the Caps are just actually very good when they have their game together for the most part.
- Anthony Mantha hit the center of an empty net to give him a goal in all three games he has played in a Caps uniform since being traded to DC. He is the fourth player in franchise history to score a goal in his first three games with the Capitals and the first since Sergei Berezin did so in 2003.
- John Carlson had a very big game as he recorded four assists which is his single-game career-high. Those four assists catapulted Carlson into the overall lead for scoring by a defenseman at 42 points. Is another Norris nomination in John’s future?
The Capitals ranks first in the NHL in goals for (158).
— CapitalsPR (@CapitalsPR) April 17, 2021
- Alex Ovechkin, Evgeny Kuznetsov, and Dmitry Orlov teamed up for seven total points and Ilya Samsonov is now 5-0-0 against the Flyers this season, to go along with a 2.40 goals against average and a .924 save percentage. Ovi has a goal in every game he has played against Philadelphia in 2021 (six games), Orlov is on a four-game point streak, and Kuzy picked up his first three point game of the season.
- I can’t really single out a single line or a single defense pairing purely statistically in this game as every single Caps player had great numbers at even strength. With my eye test though I can say that I thought the second line was very dominant in terms of keeping possession of the puck in the offensive zone and creating repeat chances on a single shift.
- The man with a new contract, Conor Sheary immediately responded to the faith shown in him by the Caps with his twelfth goal of the season. Sheary has four goals and six points in his last four games and would be on pace for 23 goals and 39 points if he had played a full 82-games this season.
Numbers thanks to Hockey-reference.com and NaturalStatTrick.com.
RMNB Coverage of Caps at Flyers
Headline photo: KP8 Design
