The Washington Capitals had a game stolen from them Sunday night by Vegas Golden Knights’ goaltender Robin Lehner. Could they have made it harder for him to do that by having a power play worth a single cent and some better ice time distribution?
Let’s talk about that.
- As I said in the intro, I think Robin Lehner kinda stole this game. At five-on-five the Caps held a plus-seven scoring chance differential and a plus-seven high danger chance differential. Lehner also helped fend off what was basically a full two-minute five-on-three advantage. The Caps just could not find the right trigger man at the right time.
- Speaking of “time”, Connor McMichael played 6:55 of this game and I thought he was absolutely excellent in the offensive zone in those limited minutes. It’s almost like when you’re chasing a game like this that you should play your more offensively talented players more. Instead, for example, we got Garnet Hathaway (11:42) playing more than someone like Tom Wilson (11:10) at five-on-five. There is something incredibly butt-backward about that. Down a goal with about two minutes left in the game? Gotta get Carl Hagelin out there. Good gravy that was bad.
- I thought the goal Vitek Vanecek gave up was an awful one but you can never really complain about your starting goaltender only giving up one goal in a game. He was pretty great in the third period as well and ended up with 28 stops on 29 shots.
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- I don’t know what else to say about the power play. I don’t think the team would ever consider letting Blaine Forsythe go mid-season but man, oh man is this thing just rotten stink to its core. 0-for-5 on the night including that very extended five-on-three. They are 30th in the league (14.2-percent) and creeping closer and closer to “jumping over” the Montreal Canadiens for 31st (13.3-percent). I don’t know…frustration personified.
- I saw even just from TV a number of RMNB jerseys in the crowd. At least one made it for sure to the broadcast and I’m using that as a bullet here because this was a 1-0 game and not a ton happened.
- That’s the first time they’ve been shut out this season so I guess they had that going for them.
Numbers thanks to Hockey-reference.com and NaturalStatTrick.com.
