The Washington Capitals did not start well, end well, or do anything well in the middle against the Vegas Golden Knights on Saturday. Vegas put a 6-2 thumping on the Caps who were without their captain and leading scorer due to injury.
Feels like too many recent games where some or all of the tape needs to be burned. This is another.
- The Caps had a grand total of one high-danger chance at five-on-five through 40 minutes of play. Vegas had five goals at five-on-five during the same timeframe. I don’t think you need much more of a summary than that.
- Rough outing for Darcy Kuemper who got exactly zero help from his defense. In fact, it felt like they were directly sabotaging him at some points. He was pulled from the game in favor of Charlie Lindgren after allowing four goals on 18 shots.
- TJ Oshie and Marcus Johansson were the Capitals’ goal scorers. Oshie became the sixth Caps player to reach double digits in goals this season with his 10th. Johansson scored his 12th which sees him alone in second on the team behind just Alex Ovechkin (30).
Evgeny Kuznetsov recorded the secondary assist on Johansson's goal, his team-leading 34th assist of the season. Nineteen of Kuznetsov's 34 assists have come at five-on-five.
— CapitalsPR (@CapitalsPR) January 22, 2023
- Nothing really worked at all on the backend but I thought Dmitry Orlov had an uncharacteristically terrible game and the stats back that up. At five-on-five with him on the ice (17:49 TOI), the Caps were out-attempted by 7, out-scoring chanced by 7, and out-high danger chanced by 5. They didn’t record a single high-danger chance of their own in those minutes and got scored on three times.
- The Capitals have never won a regular season game at T-Mobile Arena (0-4-1). Luckily, they got the wins they really needed in the 2018 postseason.
- The Caps have yet to win two games in a row in the month of January. Their next chance to start a streak comes against the Colorado Avalanche in Denver on Tuesday and then back home against the Pittsburgh Penguins on Thursday.
Numbers thanks to Hockey-reference.com and NaturalStatTrick.com.
