The Washington Capitals got after it again on Thursday night in New Jersey. The Devils didn’t beat the Capitals a single time in eight tries last season and that streak will continue.
The Caps used a fast start en route to an easy 4-1 victory on the road for the first time this season.
- It’s very hard to dominate an NHL team for a full sixty minutes. Peter Laviolette said during training camp that the goal for an excellent team game is to control a game for 60-percent of the action. That tracks with me and that’s what the Capitals did against the Devils on Thursday night. They jumped out with another fantastic first period and led the game at one point in the third by a score of 4-0. They were ahead by at least two goals for the majority of the game which means score effects come into play and some of the major stats we look at get a little muddled, but that’s to be expected in single game analysis. If we adjust for score and venue at five-on-five, the Capitals would expect to get 62.3-percent of the goals. Pretty on target there for coach Lavi’s estimation.
- What if I told you that the Capitals player that had the worst game purely numbers-wise at five-on-five was Martin Fehervary? You’d probably look at me crazy, but it’s true. I didn’t notice his and John Carlson’s pairing in a bad way at all with my eyes and believe me I’d call it out if I did. I thought Fehervary was excellent in one-on-one battles but with him, on the ice, the Caps gave up 16 scoring chances and seven high danger chances, both team highs. Feels like an aberration and not evidence of the play I saw. What do you think?
- I think Connor McMichael in his two games has looked far more personally effective than Hendrix Lapierre did in his. The third line overall has performed far better with him at center. They were the only line that was not on the ice for a New Jersey high danger chance and created four of their own. I’d like to see Laviolette trust him more ice time-wise because it’s a little tough to see Garnet Hathaway playing more at even strength than TJ Oshie.
Evgeny Kuznetsov recorded two points (1g, 1a) against New Jersey, his third multi-point effort in four games this season. Kuznetsov’s eight points (3g, 5a) this season are tied for the most he has recorded through the first four games of a season in his career (2017-18: 0g-8a-8p)
— CapitalsPR (@CapitalsPR) October 22, 2021
- Evgeny Kuznetsov and Alex Ovechkin have started this season on fire. Both Kuzy and Ovi have put up eight points in their first four games. They share the team lead in scoring. If it weren’t for that pesky Connor McDavid (11 points) they’d also be leading the whole league in scoring.
- Vitek Vanecek was fantastic again. Him making a habit of being this great will mean only good things for the Capitals. He made 24 stops and now sports a 1.30 goals-against average and a .946 save percentage after three starts.
- It would be very remiss of me not to mention the contributions from the second line. Daniel Sprong put together a two-point performance that included his first goal of the season and Anthony Mantha got on the board for the second game in a row.
- For you faceoff freaks out there, the Caps centers went 22-19 in the dot. Hopefully, that calms you, savages.
Numbers thanks to Hockey-reference.com and NaturalStatTrick.com.
