The Washington Capitals continued their West Coast swing with another shutout win. This time it came over the San Jose Sharks 4-0 as Ilya Samsonov proved he really is not a fan of being scored on in the state of California.
The Caps finished their Cali section of the trip 2-0-1. Pretty great.
- I actually think this is one of the poorer 60-minute efforts the Caps have played this season and uh, they still won 4-0 and extended their point streak to seven games. A lot of that is thanks to Ilya Samsonov who I think you could honestly say stole this game even with that scoreline. The team defense just felt slow and lacked cohesion. They relied more on the Sharks’ lack of true offensive talent than actually playing well for large stretches of the game. You also have to really appreciate just how boring the three California teams have made this road trip so far. Oh, an Eastern Conference team is coming to town to play three hours later than they normally do? Time to torture them and their fans by stacking the neutral zone with our entire team.
- Alex Ovechkin scored twice and assisted on another goal to give him 14 goals and 29 points in 18 games this season. That three-point effort has tied him with Mats Sundin for 28th in all time scoring at 1,349 points. He also has the most five-on-five points in the entire league with 18. At what point does Edmonton having both McDavid and Draisaitl exclude both from the “MVP” conversation this year? Asking for a friend…from hockey.
- I’ve mentioned him twice already but he deserves his own bullet as well. Ilya Samsonov pitched another shutout, this time stopping 22 Sharks shots. Mike Vogel tweeted out that Sammy is the first Capitals goalie with shutouts in consecutive starts since Braden Holtby in January of 2017. He is also the first Capitals goalie to do that on the road since Clint Malarchuk in February of 1988.
Posting 2 goals and 1 assist to help the @Capitals toward a 4-0 win over the Sharks on Saturday night, ageless wonder Alex Ovechkin now owns a fantastic 14 goals & 15 assists through 18 games. That ties him for 2nd on this legendary list of sensational veteran starts to a season pic.twitter.com/IfHn68k2h1
— StatsCentre (@StatsCentre) November 21, 2021
- I think it’s past time for Carl Hagelin to get traded or waived. That’s not exactly a hot take at this point but it has become increasingly more obvious with how well Caps rookies have performed in recent weeks. He makes far too much money a la Richard Panik for what he outputs at this stage of his career. He is second on the team in minor penalties taken with six, a player like Axel Jonsson-Fjallby who is far younger, cheaper, and arguably better has emerged due to team injuries, and I’m not sure Hagelin’s “strengths” at this point aren’t just based on reputation alone. I think Brian MacLellan needs to take the decision out of Peter Laviolette’s hands or else that “fourth” line is just always going to be played together almost exclusively in the defensive zone and I personally think their effectiveness at that assignment has waned compared to others. I thought they were particularly bad in this game and still…play…too…much.
- Someone who should be getting more of that ice time at least in the short term is Aliaksei Protas. Protas recorded his first NHL point on Conor Sheary’s first goal and I thought his line was really the only Caps forward line that was a true positive throughout the game. All seven rookies the Capitals have played this season have now all recorded at least one point. This one for Protas felt like it was coming three games ago.
- Speaking of Conor Sheary, what a pickup he has been. That’s now five points in his last five games, featuring four goals which put him on pace for over 20 this season at his current rate.
- I’ve been a little critical of John Carlson for his defense recently so I need to give him some praise when he’s producing as he has over the past few games. Carly has seven assists in his last four and is all of the sudden only one point back of Roman Josi for the league lead in scoring by a defenseman.
John Carlson recorded the primary assist on Ovechkin's goal, his 12th assist of the the season. It marks Carlson's 419th career assist, passing Michal Pivonka (418) for third on the franchise assists list.
— CapitalsPR (@CapitalsPR) November 21, 2021
Numbers thanks to Hockey-reference.com and NaturalStatTrick.com.
