The Washington Capitals could not end their regular season on a high note as they fell to the New York Rangers 3-2 inside of Madison Square Garden. The next time we see the Caps on ice will be in Florida for Game One of the first round.
Playoff time.
- I didn’t really have that big of an issue with how the Caps played at five-on-five and it was certainly a better effort than what they showed against the Islanders. They created next to no offense in the first period (five scoring chances, zero high danger chances) even though they controlled the majority of the puck so that was probably their worst twenty minutes in the game.
- Trevor van Riemsdyk recorded the primary assist on Justin Schultz’s goal for his 17th point this season. That is a new single-season, career-high for TVR.
- Ilya Samsonov made 30 stops on 33 shots and outside of the first goal against, I thought he was actually pretty great. It’s just those mental lapses like that first goal that make him so hard to lean on.
Evgeny Kuznetsov and T.J. Oshie picked up the assists on Carlson's goal. Kuznetsov now has 78 points (24g, 54a) in 79 games, the second-highest points per game rate (0.99) in a season in his career (2017-18: 1.05).
— CapitalsPR (@CapitalsPR) April 30, 2022
- The Caps went 1-1-1 this season against the Cats but also haven’t played them since November. This will be the first time in a decade that Washington will start a playoff series on the road. That 2012 series saw Joel Ward take the Boston Bruins out in seven games.
Numbers thanks to Hockey-reference.com and NaturalStatTrick.com.
