The Washington Capitals played the Anaheim Ducks yesterday and partially today. The game ended 3-2 in overtime in favor of the Ducks.
Three-on-three is just as bad as a shootout in determining points in a professional sport. Don’t @ me.
- The Ducks aren’t a better team than the Capitals. I’m willing to just outright say that. The Ducks are just very hot right now and are riding a whole bunch of luck. The Caps got the better of them at five-on-five in scoring chances 27 to 21 but it felt like those scoring chances were just falling a lot to either the wrong players or were just whiffed at by the right ones.
- Vitek Vanecek made a couple of huge saves in this game but I also think he should have stopped at least two of the Ducks goals. Last night, I proposed a question to my Twitter peeps about if they thought a team could win a Stanley Cup with either one of the current Capitals’ goaltenders. In their current state of being inconsistent not even game to game but period to period sometimes, I personally don’t think so. It’s also late and I’m probably just cranky though. Vanecek made 28 total stops on 31 shots faced.
- I talk a lot about how people sometimes overvalue faceoffs. That can be true but at the same time, you cant get almost beat out in faceoffs wins as an entire team by one, single player on the other team, and expect to have too good of a night. The Caps won 17 total faceoffs in this game. Ryan Getzlaf won 14 by himself.
Connor McMichael skated a career-high 15:46 against Anaheim and recorded two shot on goal and one takeaway.
— CapitalsPR (@CapitalsPR) November 17, 2021
- The Capitals are now 0-5 in overtime this season. At what point does it go from, “Oh, it will even out eventually” to maybe they aren’t preparing properly for a process that has now cost them crucial points in the league’s toughest division? I don’t know.
- The first line had really their first rough night of the season and when you’re missing the guys the Caps are missing that is going to result in a tough offensive game. With Evgeny Kuznetsov on the ice five-on-five, the Caps were out-attempted 29 to 16, out-scoring chanced 14 to 6, and out-high danger chanced 8 to 1.
- The rookies that have been forced into the lineup this season due to injury have pulled their weight. Six of them have at least one point and five of them have scored their first career goal. The future looks bright.
Numbers thanks to Hockey-reference.com and NaturalStatTrick.com.
