The Washington Capitals did not play their greatest ever against the New Jersey Devils on Monday but they used some sharpshooting and incredibly strong goaltending to come out 6-3 victors.
Praise high shooting percentages and Charlie Lindgren.
- As you can tell by the above heat map, uh, the Capitals were not really in this game at five-on-five. The stats tell the story there as they were out-attempted 52 to 31, out-scoring chanced 28 to 16, and out-high danger chanced 15 to 7. They really all need to be thanking their goaltender for those two points.
- That goaltender was Charlie Lindgren who ended the game with 37 saves. MoneyPuck has him stopping 1.78 goals above expected in the game and when you add that to the 1.4 above expected from his other start against Toronto that places him just outside the top five netminders in the entire league in the category (~3.2). You don’t need me to tell you that’s very good.
- This next bit comes to you courtesy of Peter. In the last three seasons, that was the second lowest expected goals for percentage (31.1%) the Capitals have recorded in a game that they have won.
- In better news, Alex Ovechkin got on the board for his 783rd career goal. The marker took him past Gordie Howe for the second-most, game-winning goals in NHL history (122). Only Jaromir Jagr (135) remains on that list for him to track down.
- Really nice to see Aliaksei Protas finally rewarded this season with his first goal and assist. Give him all the minutes. What a patient, slick, and skilled move for his goal too.
- Via Caps PR, eighteen of the 21 skaters the Capitals have dressed this season have recorded at least one point.
Numbers thanks to Hockey-reference.com and NaturalStatTrick.com.
