The Washington Capitals didn’t have it in any of the three zones on Tuesday night and it showed as they fell 5-3 to the New York Rangers. They dearly missed their captain, Alex Ovechkin as he seems to be nursing an injury in this latter part of the season.

That makes the loss hurt even more. No Ovi goals.

• That felt like exactly the sort of game that was going to happen when it was announced that Alex Ovechkin would be out. The Caps kept their defensive sketchiness going and didn’t have the guy that could score the big goal on the other side of the ice. New York jumped out with a big first period, scoring three goals, and didn’t look back. They also out-scoring chanced the Caps 17 to 2 and out-high danger chanced them 7 to 0 in those first twenty minutes. Not ideal.
• Aliaksei Protas got into a game for the first time since February 12 and immediately earned the primary assist on the team’s first goal. I don’t have much more to add to that other than how frustrated I am about how little he has played this season.
• Nic Dowd scored his 12th goal of the season in the game. That’s a new single-season career-high for him. Cannot ask for much more from your fourth-line center.

Dylan Strome registered his 32nd assist of the season on Dowd's goal, extending his point streak to five games (3g, 5a). Strome ranks second on the Capitals in assists and third in goals (16), points (48) and power-play points (14).

— CapitalsPR (@CapitalsPR) March 15, 2023

• Adding more to the Protas conversation, I don’t think it’s any mistake that Dowd had fantastic results at five-on-five with Protas back on his wing. Those two have been tremendous when played together this season. With Dowd on the ice at five-on-five, the Caps saw positive differentials in shot attempts (+10), scoring chances (+6), and high-danger chances (+3). Oh, and they got exactly zero offensive zone shift starts.
• On the flip side, still pretty brutal with Evgeny Kuznetsov on the ice. No Caps forward was on the ice at five-on-five for more opposing high-danger chances (5).
• Pretty interesting game for Alex Alexeyev. He had been getting some more defensive-leaning assignments recently and faltered a little. In this one, he was on the ice for zero defensive zone faceoffs at five-on-five and kinda filled the stat sheet. Double-A led the team with five shots on goal and ten individual shot attempts. He also recorded three individual scoring chances and one individual high-danger chance. His deployment is something to keep an eye on for the rest of the season.

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