The Washington Capitals traveled for the first and only time this season to New Jersey to take on the Devils. The Caps swept all eight games against the Devils last season.
Anthony Mantha parked his big frame in front and backhanded home a pass from Daniel Sprong to open the scoring. Dmitry Orlov joined in on the backhand party scoring one of his own off an Alex Ovechkin rebound. Daniel Sprong finished off a breakaway for his first of the season.
Evgeny Kuznetsov was at it again, his goal was the Caps fourth and final. Devils got a garbage time power play marker.
Capitals beat Devils 4-1!
- Another fantastic first period from the Capitals. Having six defensemen that can actually skate and make an excellent first pass makes this team look entirely different and better. Probably unlucky to only be up two after twenty minutes as Nic Dowd had a dangerous chance in front of the net and Connor McMichael was free on a half breakaway.
- Evgeny Kuznetsov started this one right where he left off. He has eight points through four games which is the team lead. Everyone do some sort of ritual to ensure that this version of Kuzy is around all season because both he and Alex Ovechkin are globetrottering right now.
- Anthony Mantha getting hot means we could be in for a barrage of goals from him throughout the rest of October. He has been listening to the RMNB Twitter account and crashing the net which has led to goals in two straight. It’s a good sign that he’s not even needing to use his elite shot yet to get on the board. Now it’s all about consistency.
— Good Tweet Pete 🌮 (@peterhassett) October 21, 2021
- The second was better for the Devils but the Caps kept it even in chances and scored the only goal. You cant really ask for much more than that in a period in which you brought a two-goal lead. Vitek Vanecek was tested a bit more and aced said test.
- Daniel Sprong using his speed to create scoring is always a thing of beauty. The finish five-hole on Wedgewood was even prettier. That second line is coming to life a little here and that’s a really good sign as you need depth scoring to win in the NHL.
- Look, Martin Fehervary is batting like 1.000 right now in one-on-one battles so there’s gotta be a rookie mistake coming somewhere but man is this kid absolutely rolling right now. He was put on the Caps top pairing and has looked like he’s been playing on it for the past ten years. You can tell he isn’t afraid of anything and his speed is a gamechanger in really all three zones. He’s not going to score a million points but he’s going to be very Orlov-like in terms of how he can put his mark on games.
- Another very good night from Connor McMichael and his line. It’s my opinion that I think the decision going forward is pretty easy and Hendrix Lapierre could probably use a full season of junior hockey and an appearance at this season’s World Junior Championship.
other players when they lose their stick, dumb: attempt to block pucks with their body
anthony mantha, a genius: simply pushes player attempting to shoot over pic.twitter.com/1wvRLBwsnU
— HockeyKot (@hockeykot) October 22, 2021
- Not a big fan of big stretches of the third. Too much prevent offense and not enough of what they did earlier in the game which was push the pace themselves.
- The power play since the game against the Rangers has been painful to watch. It’s the same issues they always seem to go through so I don’t know how much word space I have in my brain to keep talking about it.
- It feels like Vanecek has brought a shutout into 14 billion third periods and can never just finish the deal. It’s actually ten times in his career which is ten times too many. Help my boy out better, defense.
Here’s some Joe B for ya.
Next up, the Caps come back home to play a Western Conference team in the Calgary Flames for what feels like the first time in a decade.
Headline photo with permission from @notafan_jo and @kay_amerman
