The Washington Capitals dropped a game they should have won to the Chicago Blackhawks 5-4 in overtime. It’s as simple as that.

Oh, Nicklas Backstrom is also back and was great so that makes things feel a lot better.

• If you ignore the 34 seconds of pure chaos that involved a five-on-three goal, five-on-four goal, and a five-on-five goal against this game looks pretty great for the Caps. Unfortunately, we can’t just do that…but we will anyway because this is the numbers post and the only rules here are like the ones on ‘Whose Line Is It Anyway?’. At five-on-five the Caps out-attempted Chicago 55 to 36, out-scoring chanced them 31 to 17, and out-high danger chanced them 15 to 6. That’s a win like over 70-percent of the time in the NHL. As they say, s-word happens. And that s-word is apparently actually named Marc-Andre Fleury and three-on-three overtime in which the Capitals have an 0-6 record.
• Nicklas Backstrom is back and played 18:13 in his season debut. As usual, the Caps controlled the puck with him on the ice. They held a plus-seven shot attempt differential and a plus-four scoring chance differential with number 19 out there five-on-five. He recorded his first point of the season on Ovi’s power play goal and actually fired five shots of his own on net.
• Martin Fehervary is a perfect child and in this game, he sure showed that statistically. Sorry if this upcoming terminology is already a little tired in this post but just stick with me because I’m trying to turn this “bad” result into some positivity. With Marty on the ice at five-on-five, the Caps held a plus-22 shot attempt differential, a plus-18 shot differential, a plus-15 scoring chance differential, and a plus-nine high danger chance differential. That’s an absurdly good game. Obviously coaching matchups, John Carlson, and the forwards in front of them all factor in there as well, but lawd have mercy.

Ovechkin has recorded 46 points (21g, 25a) in 29 games this season, which ranks first in the NHL.

— CapitalsPR (@CapitalsPR) December 16, 2021

• The main man was at it again as you can see in the above tweet. Alex Ovechkin‘s power play goal in the game was the 274th of his career, tying him with Dave Andreychuk for the all-time lead in that category. The goal was also the 25th in his career against Marc-Andre Fleury, making Fleury the goaltender he has scored most against. Henrik Lundqvist and Fleury were previously tied at 24 apiece.
• Daniel Sprong looked very “scorey” from the jump of this game. He ended up with a goal, six shots on net, and seven individual scoring chances. I wish we got that Sprong all the time and hopefully, this is the start of a good streak for him.
• Another player that keeps doing good things with limited ice time is Connor McMichael. In just 10:18 of total ice time, third least on the team, McMichael was tied with Sprong for the second most shots by a Caps player in the game with six, had four individual scoring chances, and three individual high danger chances. Buckets of goals are coming for this kid at some point in the NHL.

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