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The graveyard game: Caps beat Flyers 2-1 in OT

By Peter Hassett

 7 Comments

May 8, 2021 9:39 pm

The Washington Capitals are falling apart. Hi, this is an injury report what thinks it is to be a game recap. The Caps won, but lost first place.

No one scored until Scott Laughton did. Then, with forty seconds left in rego time, birthday boy Lars Eller tied it up to force overtime, where short king Conor Sheary won it.

Caps win!

  • Looking at the out-of-town scoreboard, seems like the Caps’ foe for the regular-season finale, the Boston Bruins, will most likely be their first-round opponent as well. The Penguins have locked the first seed in the East. I don’t know what the circumstances are that will lead to Isles or the Bruins. Everyone go argue about it in comments.
  • We already knew we would not have Ovechkin or Kuznetsov tonight, but we learned late the Caps would also be without Nicklas Backstrom and John Carlson. The Caps started the game short one skater. They’d play much of the first period and all of the third period with just ten forwards.
  • Tom Wilson left the game briefly in the first period following a knee-on-knee collision with Nicolas Aube-Kubel. Wilson returned, but he did not look his usual strong-skating self.
  • Then it got worse. Late in the second period, TJ Oshie got tangled up along the boards, again with Aube-Kubel. He did not return for the third period: lower-body injury. Oshie had four goals in his prior two games.
  • So here’s where Washington’s top seven point-getters are:

  • Garret Pilon made his NHL debut, clocking over ten-minutes with the shortened bench.
  • Ice-time leader Lars Eller (more than 25 minutes) scored the chicken mcnugget minute game-tying goal on his 32nd birthday. Big game for him.
  • So the Caps looked very ragged in this one. Chris’ morning-after post will not look kindly upon them. But Eller and Sprong had some good push late.
  • Craig Anderson did just fine in net until Scott Laughton’s rush attack in the third. He did great, tbh. Two big wins for him in his starts this season.


Maybe all these injuries are precautionary. Maybe Kuznetsov and Samsonov are fine and just resting up like good responsible boys. Maybe Ovechkin still has the resilience of a 25-year-old.

Or maybe the Weird Year caught up with the Caps at the worst possible time — with one game remaining before the loffs. What happens next?

p.s. don’t watch Elon Musk on Saturday Night Light. He’s just a spoiled kid, rich off apartheid cash, who bought his way into companies without ever actually inventing anything.

RMNB Coverage of Caps vs Flyers

Screenshot courtesy of NBC Sports Washington

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