The Washington Capitals fell 3-1 to the Flyers on Saturday night in a game that they win probably nine out of ten times if they play the exact same way. That’s just how the cookie crumbles in the NHL sometimes.
But, at the same time, perhaps it was for the best.
- The Capitals got goalie’d out of what should have been a surefire two points here. At five-on-five they out-attempted Philly 69 (nice) to 35, out-scoring chanced them 29 to 17, and out-high danger chanced them 17 to 7. Carter Hart stopped over three goals more than expected. This wasn’t like the game in Philadelphia, the Caps should have won.
- But, as I hinted in the opening lines of this post and in the title, perhaps it is somehow better that they didn’t. I say that because the lineup alterations made by head coach Peter Laviolette were baffling, to say the least. I cannot even conceive how scratching Dylan Strome was even an option. The same goes for splitting up Garnet Hathaway and Nic Dowd. Just so this bullet has some “number” to it given it’s a “morning numbers” post. Here is the number of active Capitals forwards I would scratch before Strome: 9.
- Alex Ovechkin scored his 810th career goal. His first-period tally was the 400th of his career scored at home. He is the fifth player in NHL history to score 400 home goals, joining Wayne Gretzky (492), Gordie Howe (449), Jaromir Jagr (411), and Mike Gartner (401).
Alex Ovechkin ties Mike Gartner for most 30-goal seasons ever in NHL
- Nicklas Backstrom saw another uptick in his ice time. He played 17:01 of the game which is almost three minutes more (14:03) than he played in his debut.
- The Caps have finished their season set with the Flyers 2-2. They are done with Philly before they’ve even played the New York Islanders a single time.
- The Capitals’ 24 total high-danger chances at all strengths were their most in any game this season. They are 8-2 in their top ten games producing high-danger chances but have bizarrely lost both this first-ranking game and the game that came in second (22) on November 17 against the Blues.
Numbers thanks to Hockey-reference.com and NaturalStatTrick.com.
