The Washington Capitals matched up with the NHL’s best in the Colorado Avalanche on Tuesday night and took the Avs down in a thrilling 3-2 victory. The Caps are now 6-1 in their last seven games and that stretch includes wins over teams like Tampa Bay, Boston, Pittsburgh, and now Colorado.
More where that came from, please.
- There was never a spell during that game where I thought the Avs looked like a team that was 20 standings points ahead of the Caps and that’s a testament to how good a road game the boys in white played. There were still sure a few shaky moments defensively and they got a couple of bounces but that’s just hockey, baby. You’ll take a result like that one ten times out of ten. The only period Colorado out-attempted them at five-on-five was in the third (19 to 16) and even then a whole handful of those came towards the end of the frame as the Avs got desperate.
- I have to give props to Ilya Samsonov because I thought he was excellent and probably deserved an even better result on the scoreboard when you consider he literally got shoved into the net for their second goal. 24 stops on 26 shots against for Sammy as he bounced back incredibly well from his poor showing in Toronto. For the 1,567th time…just wish he played like that consistently.
- Alex Ovechkin scored career goal number 778 which was also his 48th of just this season. Those 48 goals tie Ovi with Teemu Selanne for the most goals by a player aged 36 or older in NHL history. Via Caps PR, that was also Ovi’s tenth career goal against the Avalanche which puts him into a group with Joe Sakic, Brendan Shanahan, and Marian Hossa as the only players in NHL history to score at least 10 goals against 28 NHL franchises.
The Capitals have killed off 10 straight opposing power play opportunities over their last three games. Since March 1, Washington’s 86.9 penalty kill percentage (8 power play goals allowed on 61 opportunities) ranks third in the NHL.
— CapitalsPR (@CapitalsPR) April 19, 2022
- A line that a lot of Caps fans, including myself, were definitely side-eyeing when the morning skate rushes came out was the second line consisting of Marcus Johansson, Nicklas Backstrom, and Conor Sheary. They ended up being easily the team’s best unit at five-on-five and Johansson scored the clutch game-winning marker off an excellent steal and feed from Sheary. With them out there, the Caps saw 72.2-percent of the shot attempts and held a plus-three scoring chance differential.
- Garnet Hathaway grabbed career point number 100 on his 14th goal of this season. Grabbing an assist on the goal was Johan Larsson who has five points in his last four games and has now set a new career-high in helpers with 14 this season. That fourth line is humming.
- The Caps are now just one point behind both the Pittsburgh Penguins and Boston Bruins and they have one game in hand on the Pens still. It looks like it may come down to the final days of the season to determine who plays who in the Eastern Conference’s first round.
Numbers thanks to Hockey-reference.com and NaturalStatTrick.com.
