The Washington Capitals really needed a good performance and a win on home ice Wednesday against the Tampa Bay Lightning. They got both.
Great stuff.
- Man, I really, really loved that total effort from the Caps. The Lightning came into the game needing a win to right their ship just as much as the Caps did and the boys in red played them out of the barn at five-on-five. Without some shoddy goaltending and with some more finish, I think the Caps probably win that game like 6-2. Just almost exactly the sort of performance this team needed. The Lightning had a grand total of one high danger chance at five-on-five in the final forty minutes to the Caps eight. Well played.
- Ilya Samsonov is still an issue. He needs to make the save on the second goal. Just straight up bad there. Then he completely lost the puck on the third goal where he looked like a high schooler in net he was so far out of position. 25 total stops on 28 shots and a couple were excellent. The story of his season.
- John Carlson had a point on every goal the Caps scored for four on the night including two goals. That was his third career four-point game and his second of this season. The team was excellent whenever that top defense pairing hopped over the boards at five-on-five. They held a plus-10 shot attempt differential, a plus-7 scoring chance differential, and a plus-four high danger chance differential (zero against) in those minutes.
The Capitals are 5-0-1 this season when Fehervary scores a goal this season.
— CapitalsPR (@CapitalsPR) April 7, 2022
- Goal number 773 for Alex Ovechkin which was his 1,400th career point and he added a later assist to make it an odd 1,401. He currently sits 21st on the all-time points list with the late Dale Hawerchuk up next at 1,409 points.
- I really don’t think you can keep Connor McMichael out of the lineup. He had a notable netfront miss in this game but he again shows up all over the stat sheet where we want to see him. Tied for second on the team in five-on-five individual scoring chances with three and he only played 9:40 of ice time. I am a bit of a fan of his as I believe you can tell over the past handful of these posts.
- A really encouraging 2-for-5 on the power play. I thought they were slinging the pill around better than they have all season. It seems like Evgeny Kuznetsov has really found a groove on the man advantage and is the difference-maker on the unit. His creativity is noticeable lately and it keeps the whole thing from feeling stagnant.
Numbers thanks to Hockey-reference.com and NaturalStatTrick.com.
