The Washington Capitals had their season-long, five-game winning streak halted by the Dallas Stars on Thursday night in a 2-1 loss. The streak did not end with a whimper as the Caps will typically come away with two points with that sort of effort. They just had to deal with a wall in the opposing cage.
Darn you, Jake Oettinger.
- I was really, really happy with the Capitals’ effort despite it coming in a losing effort. The Stars have been one of the league’s top teams this season and they really didn’t look like it against the Caps. The Caps held positive differentials at five-on-five through forty minutes, before any Stars’ goals necessitated a fervent comeback, in shot attempts (+16), scoring chances (+2), and high-danger chances (+2).
- The difference was simply Jake Oettinger being absolutely unreal in Dallas’ net. According to MoneyPuck, Oettinger stopped over 2.3 goals above expected in his 45-save effort.
- Good to see Alex Ovechkin still get on the scoresheet even if it wasn’t in the way everyone really wanted him to. Ovi set up Conor Sheary for the Caps’ lone goal with a sweet, on-the-money pass that gave Sheary an empty net to aim for. The 37-year-old Ovechkin is now on pace for 51 goals and 90 total points this season.
Alex Ovechkin earned the primary assist on Sheary's goal, his 15th assist of the season. Ovechkin extends his point streak to five games (7g, 3a).
— CapitalsPR (@CapitalsPR) December 16, 2022
- Conor Sheary‘s marker was his tenth of the season. It’s the seventh-straight season that he has hit double digits in the goal column. He is the team’s second-leading goal scorer behind Ovechkin who doubles him up at 20.
- Big night from Dmitry Orlov on the stat sheet as he looked his best since returning from injury. Dima fired eight shots on goal and recorded five individual scoring chances.
- We can talk about how good the performance was in the loss but at the same time, we need to realize the Caps badly need to rack up standings points. Three teams ahead of them in the Metropolitan Division all won on Thursday night. The Pittsburgh Penguins and Carolina Hurricanes were two of those teams and now sit six points ahead of the Caps for second and third in the division.
Numbers thanks to Hockey-reference.com and NaturalStatTrick.com.
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