The Washington Capitals visited the Minnesota Wild on Sunday and will come straight back home completely empty-handed. The Caps couldn’t figure much out offensively at five-on-five and doubled up on more defensive miscues.
Pretty demoralizing stuff.
- The Caps recorded just five high-danger chances in the game overall and just two at five-on-five. The five all-strengths chances tie a season low and the two at five-on-five created a new season low. The heat map pretty much tells the same story. When you combine that with some of the individual mistakes that led directly to goals against…well, you can do the math.
- Dylan Strome was responsible for one of those individual errors but he also put away his 17th goal of the season and added an assist. His 12 points in nine March games lead the team.
- Alex Ovechkin added three more points to his team-leading total (68). Ovi has now scored on Marc-Andre Fleury 27 times which is his highest number of goals against any one goaltender in his career.
Alex Ovechkin has never left Minnesota without recording a point – he now has found the score sheet in all 12 games he’s played in the state (including 8 in which he has scored a goal).#NHLStats: https://t.co/V30QteHSN3 pic.twitter.com/nAnuLpmM28
— NHL Public Relations (@PR_NHL) March 19, 2023
- The emergence of Alex Alexeyev continues. Alexeyev played the second-most minutes of anyone on the team (22:14) and the Caps were at their best with him on the ice at five-on-five. Some of that good is shared with his defense partner Martin Fehervary as it seems those two have renewed the chemistry they likely created earlier in their pro careers with the Hershey Bears. At five-on-five with Alexeyev skating, the Caps held positive differentials in shot attempts (+4) and scoring chances (+4).
- There is a much larger discussion that we need to have about Rasmus Sandin which we will have soon when I get around to writing the post. But, just for how this specific game went, the Caps were out-attempted 25 to 10, out-scoring chanced 14 to 6, out-high danger chanced 9 to 1, and scored on three times with him on the ice at five-on-five.
- Before this game started, MoneyPuck had the Caps’ chances of making the playoffs at 1.8 percent. They then lost a game they were out of within a minute of the first puck drop. It’s rough to watch right now, especially when they come up against a team like the Wild that is much younger and more properly built for today’s game. I think there needs to be some massive roster turnover this offseason if the Caps are serious about becoming a playoff team again. Will we get that? In my opinion, we’ll get some but not enough.
Numbers thanks to Hockey-reference.com and NaturalStatTrick.com.
