The Washington Capitals picked up two big points in the last game of their season-long homestand against the Tampa Bay Lightning on Friday night. A game with all sorts of action in both penalty boxes ended in a 5-1 stomping by the Caps.
I should have Bailamos’d in that recap, right? Darn.
- That was a really awesome performance at five-on-five by the Caps. I enjoyed watching that game from start to finish. That heat map is a pretty sight. Nine high-danger chances through forty minutes to Tampa’s five and then the Caps just shut the game down for both teams.
- Darcy Kuemper bounced back in a big way. He made 28 stops in the contest and 1.18 more goals than expected which shot him back up right behind the top five in the league there per MoneyPuck.
- Breakout night from Sonny Milano as he put away two goals and added an assist on Conor Sheary’s goal. Overall he had a super active night with four shots on goal, five shot attempts, five individual scoring chances, and five individual high-danger chances. A lot of the criticism of Milano in the past has been about his play on the defensive side of things and I really have not noticed him in a negative way there at all. So, if he keeps chipping in regularly offensively and stays that way defensively he might need to join Dylan Strome in some of those extension talks. Little too early to tell for him there though.
John Carlson recorded the primary assist on Milano's goal, marking his 600th career point. With the assist, Carlson also passes Michal Pivonka (599) for the fifth-most points in franchise history. pic.twitter.com/81TSQUp7kD
— CapitalsPR (@CapitalsPR) November 12, 2022
- The Caps’ fourth line was very, very good against Tampa’s top line. In the direct center-vs-center matchup of Nic Dowd and Brayden Point, the Caps came out on top five-on-five out-attempting Tampa 10 to 5, out-scoring chancing them 3 to 1, and out-high danger chancing them 3 to 0.
- Anthony Mantha recorded his third-career Gordie Howe hat trick after scoring a goal, assisting another, and fighting Corey Perry. He now has more Gordie Howe hat tricks in his career than the man himself. Howe only had two in 2,421 professional hockey games.
- Friday was a big day in Caps prospect land for three separate, recent draft picks. Ivan Miroshnichenko absolutely destroyed an opposing player with a hit and scored another goal in the MHL, Alexander Suzdalev had a four-point night with the Regina Pats in the WHL, and Vincent Iorio scored his first career AHL goal. Iorio’s goal was the game-winner in overtime for the Bears.
Numbers thanks to Hockey-reference.com and NaturalStatTrick.com.
