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An almost complete comeback: Blues beat Capitals 5-4 (SO)

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The Washington Capitals did battle with the hot St. Louis Blues inside Enterprise Center on Thursday night. To avoid a three-game losing streak, the Caps would need to topple a Blues team that had won four in a row prior to puck drop.

Brayden Schenn, Pavel Buchnevich, and Torey Krug tallied in succession in the first period to give the Blues a big early lead. Alex Ovechkin and John Carlson responded with two second-period strikes to get their team back into the game. Ryan O’Reilly quieted some of that momentum soon after with a nifty roofed backhand.

Carlson struck again on a late power play to make things interesting. Conor Sheary tied things up soon after. Nada in overtime, so shootout bullets.

  • Kyrou did not put the biscuit in the basket
  • Kuznetsov put the biscuit in the basket (very slowly again)
  • Tarasenko did not put the biscuit in the basket
  • Ovechkin did not put the biscuit in the basket
  • O’Reilly put the biscuit in the basket
  • Carlson did not put the biscuit in the basket
  • Schenn did not put the biscuit in the basket
  • Thomas did not put the biscuit in the basket
  • Strome did not put the biscuit in the basket
  • Buchnevich put the biscuit in the basket
  • Sheary did not put the biscuit in the basket

Blues beat Capitals 5-4.

  • The Caps have another disaster of a first period. Just one shot on goal halfway through it, their power play was an utter mess again, and they left for the first intermission down 3-0. Not a whole lot you can say about it other than calling it dull, lifeless, boring, and frankly rather ugly hockey.
  • Craig Laughlin said on tonight’s broadcast that the Caps have scored first on the road this season just three times. That is a lot of early holes to work out of with a roster that is severely depleted in terms of offense. No bueno.
  • We don’t really plug our Patreon a whole ton but with Twitter’s status currently up in the air, we do have a tier over there where you get to join our Discord server. There you can complain about the Caps with us and also talk to Peter about Andor or Ian about Ty Gibbs.

  • It took yet another horrible first to spur the Caps on to another dominant period after going down multiple goals. That is something I talked about in my last numbers post. It’s good to see them bounce back like that but it’d really be nice to not have to be in a hole first for it to happen.
  • Alex Ovechkin was the first one to finally beat Thomas Greiss. To some, that makes this game a win no matter what. It was Ovi’s ninth of the season and he’s now just eleven shy of 800 in his career and thirteen from passing Gordie Howe for second all-time.
  • John Carlson got on the board twice in his 900th career NHL game. His first goal came shorthanded which was surprisingly just Carlson’s second career goal scored with the Caps down a man.
  • The power play is now 1-for-24 over the past five games. Carlson’s second marker broke the slump with Lindgren pulled for a 6-on-4 advantage late in the third. A really strong move from the head coach paid off.

  • The Caps followed up that great second with another fantastic period in the third. Thomas Greiss just decided to have the best game of his life in the St. Louis net and that was the only reason the Caps didn’t win this one in regulation. Really nice to see them show that sort of fight. Just take a look at how the shots on goal totals ended.
  • It wasn’t the greatest night in the world for Charlie Lindgren against his former team. I didn’t love at least two of the goals the Blues scored on him. The Caps are all of the sudden not getting the goaltending help to save them from poor spells of five-on-five play.
  • That shootout lineup from Laviolette was absolutely horrible. Ovechkin hasn’t been good in the shootout for over a decade. John Carlson as your third? Where the heck is Sonny Milano?

It won’t get any easier for the Caps as next up they’ll meet the defending Stanley Cup champion Colorado Avalanche in DC.

Headline photo via b./@youripides

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