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The Caps were never really in that game despite what the scoreboard said: numbers for the morning after

By Chris Cerullo

 2 Comments

March 7, 2023 5:43 am

The Washington Capitals had their mini, two-game winning streak halted by the Los Angeles Kings on Monday night. The Kings, solidly in the Western Conference playoff picture, beat up all over the Caps in an eventual 4-2 victory.

This was an incredibly ugly effort from the road team.

  • The Caps were out-attempted, out-scoring chanced, and out-high danger changed at five-on-five in every single period of this game. Their 19 high-danger chances allowed at five-on-five were the most they have given up in a single game this season. Their 12 scoring chances for and 4 high-danger chances for both tie their second-lowest, single-game outputs of the season. They should have been absolutely blown out of this game. It was almost like they didn’t even take the ice.
  • I think Evgeny Kuznetsov is almost, absolutely unplayable at this point of his career if he’s asked to do more than even the simplest things defensively. With him on the ice at five-on-five, the Caps were out-attempted 18 to 7, out-scoring chanced 12 to 2, and out-high danger chanced 8 to 0. They were also scored on twice and he in particular completely lost Gavrikov on LA’s first tally. Playing him with Ovechkin at this point is self-sabotage.
  • Speaking of Alex Ovechkin, he did score his 816th career goal. Probably the lone bright spot. Pheonix Copley became the 169th different goalie Ovi’s scored on.

  • I do not understand at all why the defense pairings from the win over San Jose were touched. Vincent Iorio and Gabriel Carlsson have chemistry from playing together in Hershey. Carlsson and Matt Irwin do not. With Carlsson on the ice at five-on-five, the Caps were out-attempted 17 to 4 and got scored on twice. I don’t really think anything lineup-wise was going to help the team in this game but there are just little things like that going on right now that make less than zero sense.
  • Rasmus Sandin has five points in his first two games with the team. That’s at least something to look forward to for next season. Hopefully, he is putting up more points on a much better Caps team.
  • I reference next season already because it would truly take an astronomical effort from the Caps and an absolute failure of immense proportions from multiple teams in front of them for the former to make the playoffs at this point. Mathematically it’s of course not over, but anyone calling these remaining games “important” for any sort of playoff race and such is holding a mirage in front of your eyes. The Caps came into Monday projected by Micah McCurdy to finish 11th in the East. They were .3 projected points ahead of the Ottawa Senators for 12th. The Caps then, obviously, lost to the Kings. These remaining games are important, yes. But, moreso for making sure the Caps increase the value of their first-round draft pick.

Numbers thanks to Hockey-reference.com and NaturalStatTrick.com.

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