The Washington Capitals hung on for dear life against the New Jersey Devils on Thursday night and they…well their goaltender’s efforts stole them a point. That third period was a prime example of why New Jersey is where they are in the Eastern Conference standings right now.

Darcy Kuemper has gotta be wondering where his team went for the final twenty minutes.

• That third period I referenced in the intro was entirely dominated by the Devils. Without any interruption in five-on-five play, New Jersey absolutely took it to the Caps as they out-attempted Washington 23 to 10, out-scoring chanced them 18 to 6, and out-high danger chanced them 8 to 0. It’s not like the Caps were too much better in the first or second period either as this was another game where they were out-chanced in both categories in every single period at five-on-five. I mean, just look at the heat map.
• Darcy Kuemper was absurdly good. He made 38 stops on 40 shots and saved almost two full goals more than expected over the course of regulation. He faced 16 high-danger shots against, the most he has seen in a single game this season, and turned away 15 of them.
• I’ve been complimentary of his play in the past couple of games so I’ve got to talk about him when things go the opposite way too. Alex Alexeyev road the struggle bus basically this entire game. With him on the ice at five-on-five, the Caps held heavily negative differentials in shot attempts (-13), scoring chances (-10), and high-danger chances (-6). He was also completely fooled by Dawson Mercer on Mercer’s second-period strike.

Dylan Strome scores his 15th goal of the season to tie the game 2-2. Strome extends his point streak to three games (2g, 3a).

— CapitalsPR (@CapitalsPR) March 10, 2023

• Alexeyev, who has been playing a ton of minutes lately, having that sort of trouble getting anything positive going meant that someone like Rasmus Sandin was getting sent over the boards and sort of just not ever leaving the ice. He ended up with 29:58 of total ice time. No points for Sandin this time but goodness gracious is that trade already looking good or what?
• I was very harsh on Evgeny Kuznetsov‘s defense in the last morning numbers post. That is not changing. He was on the ice for five New Jersey high-danger chances at five-on-five. The Caps held a 22.7 percent expected goals for percentage in his five-on-five minutes (14:36).
• I almost feel bad tracking this in every post at this point but after he was given a look on the top line at a recent practice…I must continue. Anthony Mantha has now gone 19 games without a goal and 12 games without a point.

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