The Washington Capitals found a big ole comeback and took down the Vancouver Canucks on Monday inside of Capital One Arena. The boys were down 4-2 and scored four unanswered to secure a 6-4 victory.
Not exactly the way you want to win but still great fun nonetheless.
- The first and second periods had periods of good play and periods of very bad play. That all turned around in the third as the Caps stormed all the way back and were great in all three zones. They held the Canucks to zero high-danger chances at five-on-five and recorded four of their own in that final frame.
- Those periods of very bad play featured some really awful examples of rush defense. The Caps gave up way too many rush chances (10 per Tarik) and a lot of it came down to pointless aggressiveness and sheer lack of communication. Players were driving to the net untouched from neutral zone faceoffs. It wasn’t good but was a lot better, as said previously, in the third.
- Two whole power play goals? They spoiled us. I’m going to use this bullet to highlight Dylan Strome as he scored one of those goals. Big thank you to Chicago for deciding they didn’t want to win a single game this season and gift-wrapping Strome for the Caps. He is second on the team in scoring with four points (1g, 3a) in four games. The Caps need to keep him around past this season. I’ve already seen enough.
— RMNB (@rmnb) October 18, 2022
- Two goals and four total points in the game from Alex Ovechkin. The game marked Ovechkin’s 159th career multi-goal game and his 398th career multi-point game. It was also the 31st time he’s had four or more points in a game. The Great Eight is now just 20 goals away from overtaking Gordie Howe for second on the all-time goals list.
- I have to say that Darcy Kuemper hasn’t exactly been stellar to start the season although I will say the team defense in front of him at times has been horrid. Historically, Kuemper is a slow starter. In his career, he tends to take his game to another level from January through March where he has on average a save percentage above .921, a goals-against average lower than 2.35, and has recorded 17 of his 25 shutouts.
- The penalty kill saw another goal against. They’ve started the season in the bottom ten of the league there at 70-percent effectiveness.
Numbers thanks to Hockey-reference.com and NaturalStatTrick.com.
