The Washington Capitals bounced back from a very poor loss to the Arizona Coyotes with a crucial, losing-streak ender 5-4 victory over the Edmonton Oilers.
Was that a fun hockey game to watch or what? More of that, please.
- The Caps played a really great first forty minutes against the Oilers and it ultimately was those first two periods that won them the two points at the end of regulation. Before the third started the Caps at five-on-five were out-attempting Edmonton 40 to 27, out-scoring chancing them 19 to 16, and out-high danger chancing them 8 to 3. That’s not an easy task against a team with Connor McDavid who is likely a literal alien playing hockey.
- McDavid played over 22 minutes in the game as the Oilers tried to work back from being behind for most of regulation. He scored a goal, assisted on another, recorded seven individual shot attempts, five individual scoring chances, and four individual high-danger chances. He’s a menace. An absolute menace.
- Not to be outdone, Alex Ovechkin of course turned up for a Canadian national TV date. With his two-point night, Ovi has now recorded 399 multi-point games in his career. His 788th career goal came against the 163rd different goaltender he has scored on in his career.
Most career multi-point performances by a winger in NHL history:
540- Jaromir Jagr
511- Gordie Howe
399- Alex Ovechkin (Via a goal and an assist in his @Capitals 5-4 defeat of the Oilers tonight)
399- Mark Recchi
395- Guy Lafleur
385- Jari Kurri
382- Brett Hull
382- Teemu Selanne pic.twitter.com/tBykSlmANe— StatsCentre (@StatsCentre) November 8, 2022
- The Caps’ power play showed up big time, converting four times on five chances. One of the big reasons for that was the smooth play of defenseman Erik Gustafsson as the quarterback at the point. He tallied three assists, giving him three career games of that variety. Caps PR says he is the first Capital to record three power-play assists in a game since Marcus Johansson did so on March 28, 2017 in Minnesota.
- Dylan Strome and Evgeny Kuznetsov both had huge personal nights. Strome tallied three points while Kuznetsov put away his first two goals of the season and added two assists on top of that.
- Tuesday also saw a Capitals debut for Nicolas Aube-Kubel and a season debut for Lucas Johansen. I thought both looked good. Aube-Kubel, in particular, blew up Evander Kane with a big hit and played 8:54 of five-on-five ice time with the team’s third line which was their best line on the night possession-wise (72.2 CF%).
Numbers thanks to Hockey-reference.com and NaturalStatTrick.com.
