As the title of this post states, the good vibes on the Capitals’ west coast road trip didn’t last too long as the Caps fell in overtime to the Seattle Kraken 3-2. Despite the loser’s point, the team will leave Washington state knowing they could have grabbed the full two as winners.
You really can’t go over 45 minutes without scoring in the NHL and win a ton of games.
- The Caps simply did not have the puck for the vast majority of this game. The Kraken out-attempted them at five-on-five 63 to 30. Although that possession didn’t lead to much offensively for Seattle due to the Caps’ defensive efforts, it also meant the Caps had almost zero time to even try to add to their lead. When you’re a team that has struggled to win a single game when scoring two or fewer goals, you kinda need to go and find that third. They didn’t.
- The power play went 1-for-4 and converted on a brilliant passing play in the first. However, I thought their late-game chances were absolutely toothless and they showed zero urgency on the opportunities that likely could have sealed the game had they been able to put another past Philipp Grubauer. Not good enough.
- Anthony Mantha played a team-low 10:40 in the game and got zero special teams time. I don’t have anything to specifically highlight there but it shows the coaching staff may be growing tired of waiting for him to break out this season. One might think a stretch of games playing with not Lars Eller could jolt his game back to life.
Alex Ovechkin recorded the secondary assist on Sheary's goal, his second assist of the game. Ovechkin has now recorded multiple points in four of his last five games.
— CapitalsPR (@CapitalsPR) December 2, 2022
- The Caps struggled mightily in overtime last season for a very long stretch and they haven’t been good in the extra frame this year either. They are now 1-4 this season when a game lasts past 60 minutes.
- Andre Burakovsky had two points in the game, assisting on the game-winner for his last one. Daniel Sprong got the primary assist on the game-tying goal with just a little over two minutes left in the third. Yeesh.
- The Caps have now played at least one more game than every other team in the Metropolitan Division. They sit sixth in the division with 24 points from 25 games. That is now six points behind the New York Islanders for third place.
Numbers thanks to Hockey-reference.com and NaturalStatTrick.com.
