The Washington Capitals had no time to rest after beating up on the lowly Columbus Blue Jackets. The Nashville Predators met them in DC for a cross-conference duel between two teams playing the back half of a back-to-back.
Thomas Novak opened the scoring with a mini-breakaway that beat Charlie Lindgren. Sonny Milano tied things up after a power play had just expired. Yakov Trenin was left alone in front of the Caps’ net to give the Preds their lead back.
Nicolas Aube-Kubel scored his second goal in as many days to tie it back up. Ryan McDonagh with a pretty, go-ahead goal very late in the third.
Predators beat Capitals 3-2.
- It felt like in the first period that the Predators had two total chances and they scored on both of them. Both featured some real weak defense from the Caps that I wasn’t too happy to watch. Too much reach, not enough moving feet.
- Sonny Milano scored to tie the game at 1-1. It was his seventh of the season and the 100th point of his career. I’m just going to be straight up. He needs to stay in the lineup.
- What do y’all think about Aliaksei Protas being a healthy scratch? I think his eventual demotion to the AHL kinda “has to” happen given he’s the only player waiver-exempt on the roster but he’s also been superb this season. I’m a huge fan. If I had it my way he would be going nowhere.
Linesman took this one in a tough spot 😬 pic.twitter.com/kbEjMqPDIN
— Brady Trettenero (@BradyTrett) January 7, 2023
- I was not a fan of the second period at all. What was that? The Caps zombie walked through it and were lucky to get out of the period 2-2. The Preds also played last night so that is no excuse.
- Nicolas Aube-Kubel now has two goals in two games at the exact moment when his spot in the lineup is probably in question. The one from this game was very pretty. He made a few Nashville defenders look silly.
- The ice was not great. It’s consistently my least favorite thing about Capital One Arena.
- This is your yearly reminder that Martin Erat scored a grand total of two goals in 62 career games played for the Washington Capitals.
lil wave 🥹#CapsDads pic.twitter.com/otEdFoU9cF
— Washington Capitals (@Capitals) January 6, 2023
- The Caps were the better team for the first half of the third but didn’t seem to have the urgency to find the go-ahead goal. The Preds waited them out, played even better than they did for the second half of the frame, and came up with that goal themselves. Just not good enough all around tonight from the home team.
- Charlie Lindgren was solid as he always seems to be. I know Darcy Kuemper is getting paid the starter’s money but I really wouldn’t be opposed to seeing Lindgren get a couple more starts on a regular basis.
- I normally don’t like to complain a ton about the officiating but the refs were noticeably bad in this game. That was summed up by seeing Dmitry Orlov take a cross-check right in the numbers against the boards and both players involved stopping for a second while expecting a call to be made. There’s “letting them play” and just being incompetent. A whole lot of the latter in this one.
The Capitals are back on NBCSWA (praise be) and that means Joe B and Locker #joebsuitofthenight pic.twitter.com/vkO0re9fPg
— RMNB (@rmnb) January 7, 2023
Next up for the Caps is another date with the Columbus Blue Jackets. That will come Sunday evening after the team takes a day off on Saturday.
Headline photo courtesy of @Adwm_RL/Twitter
