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Slapped up by the Sharks on Super Bowl Sunday: Sharks beat Caps 4-1

By Chris Cerullo

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February 12, 2023 4:00 pm

The Washington Capitals managed to get all the way to February without playing the San Jose Sharks. Which team would come out the victor in their first matchup of the campaign?

Evgeny Svechnikov opened the scoring on the Sharks’ first shot of the game. Alexander Barabanov doubled the lead in the second with a power-play strike. Evgeny Kuznetsov got the Caps on the board late in the second. Erik Karlsson lofted one in to extend the lead back to two. Tomas Hertl empty netter.

Sharks beat Caps 4-1.

  • I didn’t exactly love the first period. It felt like the Caps couldn’t put two passes together. Kaapo Kahkonen made a couple of big saves and Charlie Lindgren got beat by their first shot of the game. That was the difference in the first twenty minutes.
  • No Anthony Mantha as he came down with an illness. Outside of hoping he feels better ASAP, I really wonder what they do with him in the coming weeks. Dude cant be just a fourth-line winger making the money he does.
  • Super Bowl Sunday, folks? I’m not the biggest football fan in the world but I’ll probably tune in. We gotta go with Mahomes, right? Because anything Philadelphia-related doesn’t deserve sports happiness.

  • The Caps got on the board in the second but the period overall was an absolute disaster. They just weren’t in the game at all. At five-on-five, the Sharks out-attempted them 23 to 9, out-scoring chanced them 10 to 2, and out-high danger chanced them 7 to 1.
  • Aliaksei Protas got back into the lineup due to Mantha’s illness. He took an offensive-zone tripping penalty that led to the Sharks’ second goal of the game. Really don’t want to see that because he’s already finding it hard to get games.
  • Evgeny Kuznetsov scored that second-period goal as he took the puck hard to the net and slammed it by Kaapo Kahkonen. In the process, Kuzy bowled over the San Jose netminder and Kahkonen was pulled in favor of Aaron Dell likely due to a concussion spotter.
  • On Kuzy’s next shift, he took a very hard, late hit from Logan Couture and remained down on the ice holding his arm. He went immediately down the tunnel with head athletic trainer Jason Serbus but would return for the third period.

  • The Caps just didn’t have anything left in the tank in the third. There was no real comeback effort.
  • The power play is absolutely useless.
  • Anyone else think it’s kind of absurd to have a team play a back-to-back with travel when both were afternoon games? That feels like terrible scheduling and sorta, maybe dangerous for players.

The Caps will have Monday off and then take on the Carolina Hurricanes in a Stadium Series preview on home ice.

Headline photo courtesy of @Luke08_/Twitter

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