The Washington Capitals jammed out in Music City to the tune of a 3-0 shutout of the Nashville Predators on Saturday. The Caps put together one of their better five-on-five efforts of the season in the victory.
More games like that, please.
- I think sometimes the whole “60-minute effort” deal gets a little misconstrued. No professional hockey team dominates another for every single minute of a game. It just doesn’t happen. So, yea, the Caps had some stretches in this one where they were on their heels a bit but it never lasted too long and they were the better side for the majority of the game. They came out of the gates with 17 five-on-five scoring chances in the first period and stayed competitive throughout the full 60 minutes, hence the title of this post.
- I talked a bit about the concept of sustained offense in the last numbers post and we luckily got plenty of positive examples in this game so I can bring it up again. The shift from the fourth line right before Aliaksei Protas‘ goal was the prime one. They didn’t get the goal and none of them were even on the ice for the goal but it was almost entirely created by their hard work. They kept the puck mostly below the circles and hemmed Nashville in. I’m glad they were rewarded with Beck Malenstyn‘s second NHL goal earlier in the game.
- Darcy Kuemper grabbed his first career shutout with the Capitals. He was unbeatable in the 34-save performance. There isn’t really much that I have to add if you watched the game. That’s just what a star netminder can do when he’s on. More of that, please.
- I mentioned him in the recap already but I’m going to do it again here. With John Carlson leaving the game very early due to a lower-body injury, Dmitry Orlov had to shoulder a lot of the load for the team’s defense corps. He played over 26 minutes total in a game for only the eighth time since the beginning of the 2019-20 season and he was superb. At five-on-five with Dima on the ice, the Caps held positive differentials in shot attempts (plus-7), scoring chances (plus-5), and high-danger chances (plus-3).
- The team’s penalty kill unit has killed off 13 straight opposing power plays over their last four games, including five in this game. Garnet Hathaway was very noticeable with some key shot blocks on a couple of Nashville chances.
- It’ll be interesting to see what the Caps do if they need some more recalls due to the injuries to Carlson and TJ Oshie. If they need a forward you would expect Sonny Milano to probably be the first name on the sheet as he’s started well in Hershey with two goals and an assist in four AHL games. On the backend, the Caps don’t have a ton of right-handed depth unless they want to give Vinny Iorio a very early NHL debut.
Numbers thanks to Hockey-reference.com and NaturalStatTrick.com.
