Home / Analysis / The story of what was a 4-1 lead and how everything changed when the worst third period of all time attacked: numbers for the morning after

The story of what was a 4-1 lead and how everything changed when the worst third period of all time attacked: numbers for the morning after

By Chris Cerullo

 4 Comments

December 1, 2021 7:48 am

The Washington Capitals decided to play one of the worst periods I honestly can remember in recent team history. They threw away a three-goal, third period lead, and eventually lost to the Panthers in regulation 5-4.

Good. Lord. That was bad. This is also a preemptive apology for the tweet I will have embedded below as well.

  • This is the bullet where I normally try and frame the overall game. We’re gonna skip that and just talk about that third period. Yes, I’m going to force you to relive it through math like some sort of tenth grade Algebra II nightmare. The Capitals were out-attempted 34 to 4, out-scoring chanced 23 to 1, and out-high danger chanced 10 to 1 in the third. In one period. The one period where they had a 4-1 lead. They were lucky to be even in the game at all in the final minute. That’s an absolute joke of an effort and I really hope it doesn’t become a trend because their third against Carolina was very bad too.
  • 51 shots against and 26 of them came in the third period alone. The Caps on a great day hold a team to 26 shots over the course of an entire game. This is very much an outlier in the context of the whole season but holy cow that’s just impressively awful.
  • The first defensive pairing had an absolutely horrific time trying to do the whole defense thing. I love Martin Fehervary but it felt like he got away from what he does well and John Carlson had one of those nights where you just wonder if he maybe forgot to tie his skates or something. With Fehervary on the ice at five-on-five, the Capitals were out-attempted 30 to 12, out-scoring chanced 18 to 9, and out-high danger chanced 8 to 1. Get ready to read more of the very awkwardly worded “out-high danger chanced” because we aren’t done with it yet.

  • Six minor penalties against which is tied for the most they’ve taken in a game this season. Discipline wise the team has been fantastic so it’s not like this is a trend we need to watch but even with how dominant Florida was at five-on-five they still needed power plays to score the important goals. The Caps also gave up what feels like their 678th shorthanded goal against in the past three seasons but I’m very tired of talking about the power play so let’s just forget this whole game and Thursday is a new game day.
  • The top line could not find the slick cycle possession game that they’ve been showing off recently and they got caved in just like the top defense pairing. 13 scoring chances against and five high danger chances against with Alex Ovechkin on the ice at five-on-five. Both of those were team-highs among the forwards.
  • Good news though, I really liked the quotes postgame from Lavi, McMichael, Eller which you can find on the Capitals Twitter feed in video form. They know what the issue was and I have faith they’ll address it. Good news part deux, I didn’t think Ilya Samsonov really lost any of his mojo. The poor dude was just absolutely peppered. His 46 saves were the most he’s ever made in a game in his career.

Numbers thanks to Hockey-reference.com and NaturalStatTrick.com.

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