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A hat trick, fights, and another loss: Wild beat Caps 5-3

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The Washington Capitals made the trip up to Minnesota to take on another of the NHL’s Central Division teams in the Wild. The Caps were hoping to get a better result than they did against the Blues at home on Friday.

Matt Boldy scored with less than a minute gone to open the scoring. Boldy struck again soon after to double Minnesota’s lead. Alex Ovechkin from his office with a blast past forever nemesis Marc-Andre Fleury cut the lead in half. Ryan Reaves got the two-goal advantage back with a deflection.

Brandon Duhaime made it four. Ovi potted another. Boldy completed his hat trick. Dylan Strome added one more.

Wild beat Caps 5-3.

  • Well, at least it wasn’t the first shot of the game this time? It only took the Wild three shots to grab the lead in the first which I guess is an improvement based on the last three games. Overall, I thought the Caps were utterly anonymous in the first twenty minutes. So, not great.
  • Randoms stream of consciousness recap bullet. More teams need green in their uniforms. Or, at least anything other than more red, white, and blue. The Kraken did it right.
  • Marcus Johansson tallied a point for every time the Capitals have traded him. I kid, I kid. That was definitely the right move and it’s nice to see Mojo having some fun. The Wild are a fun team to watch.

  • Outside of the constant march to the box in the second from both teams it sure felt like more of the same at five-on-five. The Caps were barely involved and just playing passenger.
  • Alex Ovechkin grabbed two power-play tallies to give him 39 goals on the season. He has now torched Marc-Andre Fleury 27 times. That’s the most goals Ovi has against any individual netminder in his career.
  • Letting Ryan Reaves score a goal should come with a points reduction in the standings.
  • Matt Irwin got into a “fight” at the end of the second period. He was promptly thrown to the ice by Mason Shaw. Irwin is probably a great guy and Laviolette loves him but it’d be nice to see someone like Bobby Nardella, Lucas Johansen, or Vincent Iorio given his ice time down the stretch. That would require the Caps to accept that they are out of the playoff race though and they don’t seem to want to do that.

  • Another game full of individual blunders leading straight to goals or high-danger chances for the Wild. Irwin and Dylan Strome with the most obvious errors for me.
  • Evgeny Kuznetsov left the game after being hit in open ice by Matt Dumba. TJ Oshie fought Dumba and got the only extra penalty on the play. I thought Dumba easily could have been called for charging.
  • Charlie Lindgren got the start as Darcy Kuemper is out injured. I thought he was decent. The team just isn’t playing any sort of defense right now so it’s tough to judge the goalies.

The Caps were on the road for just this one and will come back to DC to play the Columbus Blue Jackets on Tuesday. The Blooj were recently mathematically eliminated from playoff contention this season.

Headline photo courtesy of @Emily_Longtin/Twitter

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