The Washington Capitals had a few days off and returned to the ice to take on the Blues in St. Louis. It didn’t go well. They got plastered 5-1 and had to pull their netminder.
Let’s hope tonight against the Wild goes far better.
- First things first, I need to blame RMNB patrons in our Discord for the title. I was bullied into that. You too can bully me if you sign up for the ‘Crashers’ tier on our Patreon.
- This game was won based on two things. The Caps got sloppy on defense at very inopportune times and just could not buy a save from their goaltender. The scoring chances at five-on-five actually ended in the Caps favor 24 to 20, but the high danger chances fell for the Blues 9 to 5. It never really felt like the Caps could put together a cohesive five-minute stretch in this game.
- Ilya Samsonov had a rough one. He let in four goals against on 16 shots. The Blues only had 1.37 expected goals during that timeframe. Zach Fucale looked really strong in relief and I hope he gets the net in Minnesota.
- The Sheary, Eller, Wilson line is a line that just looks like it will never work on paper and it didn’t in this game. The Caps only saw three shot attempts with them on the ice and not a single scoring chance of any variety. They gave up three high danger chances though in 3:19 of time and were almost immediately broken up. The amount of offensive talent on the shelf still makes it even more confusing why Connor McMichael is being scratched.
Daniel Sprong opens the scoring or the Capitals to give them a 1-0 lead with his sixth goal of the season. With six goals in 29 games, Sprong is scoring at a 16-goal pace over an 82-game season, which would be a career high.
— CapitalsPR (@CapitalsPR) January 8, 2022
- Tom Wilson played in his 600th NHL game. He is the third-youngest forward in franchise history to reach that mark, behind only Mike Gartner (27 years, 109 days) and Alex Ovechkin (27 years, 220 days).
- Another 0-for night for the power play. Now operating at 14.6-percent and still third-worst in the league.
- Guess who has won ten games in a row? The Pittsburgh Penguins. The Pens are only three points back of the Caps and have two games in hand.
Numbers thanks to Hockey-reference.com and NaturalStatTrick.com.
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