The Washington Capitals stayed in the game longer than they should have against the Toronto Maple Leafs on Monday night but still met what has become a regular fate at home in a 5-3 loss.
Tick-tock, tick-tock.
- Another game, another team massively outworking and outplaying the Capitals at five-on-five. I didn’t expect much different in a game against this high-flying Maple Leafs team but getting out-attempted 48 to 37, out-chanced 26 to 14 is still not fun. It kinda felt like watching the Young Guns era Caps of yesteryear beating up on an older team that only sticks around because the defense and goaltending they’re up against is more than a little suspect.
- At least Tom Wilson had a really nice night and with 17 goals on the season is now on pace for a career-high 25 this season.
- The Caps will end the first two months of 2022 with an 8-14 record (counting a handful of OT/SO losses in that 14). That’s over a quarter of the season playing like that. Yikes.
Leafs ENG. Capitals headed to their first 6-game regulation skid on home ice in over 40 years.
— Ted Starkey (@TedStarkey) March 1, 2022
- To put the above stat into further perspective via @keredtop on Twitter, the Caps lost a grand total of five times in regulation at home the entire 2009-10 season. And it doesn’t get any easier as the Eastern Conference-leading Carolina Hurricanes are in town next.
- Ilya Samsonov had another stinker. He let in three goals on 10 shots (1.1 expected goals). The Caps better hope Vitek Vanecek finds the form he was in before he got injured or they’re in even more trouble because Samsonov just cannot get it done this season. Vanecek was good in relief which is a great sign, stopping 16 of 17 shots.
- Weirdly, Auston Matthews went without a single shot on goal which I believe snapped a 151-game streak.
Numbers thanks to Hockey-reference.com and NaturalStatTrick.com.
