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Caps lay a super smackdown on San Jose: Caps beat Sharks 8-3

By Chris Cerullo

 4 Comments

March 4, 2023 8:45 pm

The Capitals did some more trekking through California on Saturday as they met with the San Jose Sharks. It was a battle of two teams finding it hard to win hockey games right now.

Tomas Hertl caught the Caps on a line change and opened the scoring. Alexander Barabanov was left alone directly in front of Darcy Kuemper and extended San Jose’s lead.

Craig Smith sniped his first as a Cap, Nicolas Aube-Kubel somehow filtered the equalizer in, Matt Irwin blasted the Caps into the lead, and Smith added another with an interesting cross-check marker. TJ Oshie added a third-period marker, Nico Sturm brought one back for the Sharks, and Alex Ovechkin labeled one of his own.

Ovi and Dylan Strome with the cherries on top.

Caps beat Sharks 8-3!

  • The Sharks left the first period with a 2-0 advantage on the scoreboard and a 20-5 advantage when it came to shots on goal. I don’t think you need much more of a summary than that. The Caps looked old and that’s despite probably playing the most youth they have in like 40 games.
  • We got our first glimpse at what Rasmus Sandin running the first power play unit is going to look like. The RMNB Discord was a fan. Let’s all pray the Maple Leafs made a gigantic mistake. Awesome start from him at five-on-five too. He finished his debut with three points.
  • Vinny Iorio made his NHL debut. Big congrats to him. He picked up his first NHL point on an Alex Ovechkin goal. Won’t forget that one.

  • If you go back and read the bullet about the first period, go ahead and just reverse everything for the second period. The Capitals scored four unanswered goals to take the lead.
  • Talk about secondary scoring. All four goals came from Craig Smith, Nicolas Aube-Kubel, and Matt Irwin. Only the true goalscorers on the team.
  • First points as Capitals players for Rasmus Sandin, Gabriel Carlsson, and Smith. Smith had only four goals with the Bruins this season before scoring two tonight. One of the prior four also came against the Sharks.
  • I was very annoyed by Brian MacLellan leaving Alex Alexeyev as a bit of an afterthought in his presser from yesterday when he was talking about the future of the blueline. He solely mentioned him in a “let’s see what he does down the stretch” way. Hot take – Alexeyev’s game against Anaheim was a better individual effort than anything Martin Fehervary has done this season and I also think Fehervary has been awfully inconsistent this year overall. Just keep actually letting Alexeyev play. I thought he was superb again in this one as the team’s time-on-ice leader (23:07).

  • More games like this. If the Caps aren’t going to make their draft pick better they should be required to win every game just like this one.
  • Alex Ovechkin put away career goal numbers 814 and 815. He also passed the legendary Stan Mikita on the all-time point list (16th) earlier in the game.
  • Everyone laugh at David Quinn getting ejected and then the Caps scoring like two seconds later.

The West Coast swing continues on Monday as the Capitals will visit Pheonix Copley and the Los Angeles Kings. It’s a 10:30 pm ET start. Goodness.

Headline photo courtesy of @VeggieTart/Twitter

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