The Washington Capitals took a few shots right to the jaw from the Pittsburgh Penguins but kept getting off the mat and eventually delivered a knockout blow in overtime. A Dmitry Orlov overtime winner sat the Pens down with a 4-3 final score.
Two points are two points.
- Look, the majority of this game was pretty ugly for the Capitals. It was like the Caps wanted to hand the Pens a taste of their own medicine from playoff games past by letting Pittsburgh dominate the puck at five-on-five but still come up short. The Pens out-attempted the Caps at five-on-five 58 to 35, out-shot them 31 to 20, out-scoring chanced them 23 to 14…but only out-high danger chanced them 9 to 8. So basically again the direct inverse of those incredibly mind-bending playoff Caps losses in the not-so-distant past. The Caps penalty kill was also very obviously not good letting the Pens score on three-out-of-five power plays. Yeesh.
- This bullet will have no associated number or numbers but I need to complain about that goaltender interference call. If that’s goaltender interference then Patric Hornqvist apparently should never have had a career in the NHL. The same goes for Tomas Holmstrom. I guess technically under the wording of the insanely confusing rule it’s the “right” call but it’s also a call that is literally never made. Dumb.
- As soon as Vitek Vanecek looked like he had hit a real groove this season he of course got knocked silly by Kasperi Kapanen forgetting how to skate. I thought Kapanen should have sat for two minutes because even if he was slightly impeded by Garnet Hathaway that doesn’t mean he should not have to face consequences for launching himself headfirst into a goaltender because he wanted to stay in the play instead of trying to dodge the contact. Accidents are still penalties, just look at every high-sticking call ever. Ilya Samsonov was absolutely phenomenal in relief, stopping 43 of 45 shots against. It’s performances like this one that make you want to slam your head into a wall because he seemingly just cannot find any level of consistency close to his true talent level.
Washington improves to 8-2-1 against Metropolitan Division opponents this season, having earned 17 out of a possible 22 points in those games.
— CapitalsPR (@CapitalsPR) February 2, 2022
- That’s three in a row for the Caps in three-on-three overtime since they started the season with an 0-7 record in the extra frame. Good thing literally none of that matters come playoff time.
- Alex Ovechkin is now goalless and pointless in his last four games. That’s not good. The Caps captain is getting cold right when the other stars around him at the top of the goal and point race in the league seem to be at their hottest. Let’s hope Ovi finds one of those ridiculous goal-scoring weeks/months soon.
- For my money Dmitry Orlov is the most underrated defenseman in the league the past five or six seasons. Two huge goals for him in this game including the eventual game winner.
- Connor McMichael played a grand total of 5 minutes and 9 seconds in this game.
Numbers thanks to Hockey-reference.com and NaturalStatTrick.com.
