The Washington Capitals followed up their great win over the Tampa Bay Lightning with another big two points on the road in Pittsburgh. The boys clad in white found the end zone in their 6-3 victory.
That one felt good. The six different goal scorers included Marcus Johansson, Dmitry Orlov, Alex Ovechkin, Tom Wilson, Evgeny Kuznetsov, and Martin Fehervary.
- This wasn’t a dominant performance by any means from the Caps at five-on-five but it was a gutsy, well-deserved type of win that we should applaud. The expected goals in the game at all strengths ended 5.4 to 3.9 in favor of the Caps so let’s go ahead and thank some really big specials teams play for that. The Pens have now lost four games in a row and the regulation win sees the Caps pull only four points back of them for third in the Metro with two games in hand.
- I was really harsh in the recap on Ilya Samsonov and to be fair, his first period was truly atrocious. But, in regular Samsonov fashion, he looked like a completely different goaltender over the final forty minutes. Sammy stopped 29 of 32 shots to get the win and blanked Pittsburgh in those final two frames.
- I thought Dmitry Orlov was really, really, really good in this game. Orlov and his partner Nick Jensen played the majority of their five-on-five ice time matched up against Sidney Crosby’s line. The team still ended up with a plus-4 shot attempt differential, a plus-9 shot differential, and a plus-2 goal differential with Orlov on the ice at five-on-five. Dima also set his new single-season, career-high in goals by blasting home his eleventh.
The Capitals 45 shots today against the Penguins mark the most they've recorded in a regulation game this season.
— CapitalsPR (@CapitalsPR) April 9, 2022
- Alex Ovechkin scored again and is still on pace to get to the 50 mark by the end of this season. His 774th career goal gave him markers against 158 different goaltenders in his career – the fourth-most in NHL history.
- Take one guess whose line performed the best statistically for the Caps at five-on-five. If your guess was Connor McMichael‘s, you’d be right and I appreciate your knowledge. With that “third” line on the ice at five-on-five, the Caps held a plus-8 shot attempt differential, a plus-3 scoring chance differential, and a plus-3 high danger chance differential. The kid just constantly and consistently helps create offense whenever he’s on the ice even if it’s not exactly the most flashy and noticeable. I also love TJ Oshie riding shotgun with him. That combo just works.
- Tom Wilson threw eight hits, blocked four shots, drew a penalty, made fun of Jake Guentzel, and recorded two points in the game. The first of those points was the game-winning goal where he looked off Ovi and sniped top shelf on an odd-man break.
Numbers thanks to Hockey-reference.com and NaturalStatTrick.com.
