The Washington Capitals were tough luck losers on Thursday night and come away from their road trip with just one total standings point. That could have been even worse if they didn’t force the Blues to overtime with two late goals to eventually take the 5-4 shootout loss.
Need to string together a handful of games played like those final two periods.
- The Caps were sunk against the Blues by their poor first period which has, unfortunately, become commonplace this season. The overall five-on-five stats look like a massacre in their favor but you can’t dig a 3-0 hole after twenty minutes in the NHL and expect things to go very well from there on. Their response was excellent but I wish it didn’t need to be a “response”. At five-on-five the Caps out-attempted the Blues 65 to 27, out-scoring chanced them 40 to 14, and out-high danger chanced them 16 to 6.
- Charlie Lindgren made his return to St. Louis and had his poorest performance in a Caps sweater yet. It’s tough to put a game on a goaltender but I think he’d want at least two of the goals put past him back. When your team puts on that sort of performance five-on-five and outshoots their opponent 51 to 24, you’re gonna want to win that one. Lindgren let in 1.5 more goals than expected according to MoneyPuck. That was the difference.
- Alex Ovechkin scored his ninth goal of the season and the 789th of his career. Ovi was everywhere in this game trying to put the Caps on his back like he has done in hundreds of games before. He ended the night with nine shots on net, twelve shot attempts, nine individual scoring chances, and five individual high-danger chances.
The Capitals limited St. Louis to three shots on goal in the third period, the fewest shots they have allowed in a single period this season.
— CapitalsPR (@CapitalsPR) November 18, 2022
- John Carlson played in his 900th career NHL game and scored two goals. One of those goals was his second career shorthanded tally and another was a power-play rocket. Via Caps PR, he is one of only three players (Bo Horvat, Mika Zibanejad) to record a shorthanded goal and a power play goal in the same game.
- Every single forward in the lineup played at least thirteen minutes in the game…bar one. Connor McMichael skated a game-low 8:01 of ice time. He needs to be sent back to Hershey.
- This was the first time Marcus Johansson was tried on the left wing of the team’s checking line. It’s something they tried a bit in the preseason but went away from once the real schedule started. It worked like a charm on Thursday. The Caps with that line on the ice at five-on-five, out-attempted the Blues 14 to 3, out-scoring chanced them 8 to 0, and out-high danger chanced them 4 to 0.
Numbers thanks to Hockey-reference.com and NaturalStatTrick.com.
