Come one, come all as we embark upon yet another year of Washington Capitals hockey. If you’re new around these parts, this is the series of posts where I ramble about each and every game that the Capitals play in a season and sometimes we learn a thing or two with the corresponding math and fancy numbers that come up.
Last season, I kicked off the campaign by making a High School Musical reference and quoting the phenomenal “Start of Something New” sung by the tremendous Troy Bolton and Gabriella Montez. That turned out to be a waste of a great bit because the true start of something new happened on Friday night.
Peter Laviolette is out and Spencer Carbery’s reign as head coach of the Capitals commenced in the team’s Home Opener against the Pittsburgh Penguins. Things didn’t go great. Let’s talk about it.
- The Capitals dropped their season-opening matchup with the Pittsburgh Penguins, 4-0. Unfortunately, that means there’s not going to be a whole ton of positive things to talk about in this post and normally the beginning of seasons is when I’m at my most peppiest and least cynical. So, why exactly did the Capitals get shutout on home ice? Simply put, they just did not create enough offense. 19 shots on goal isn’t good enough. Five all-strengths high-danger chances isn’t either. On the bright side, both Carbery and some of his players were very cognizant of that postgame.
- In a less than ideal turn of events for the pure sporting side of things, number one netminder Darcy Kuemper was a bit of a late scratch as he and his wife welcomed their first child into the world. That meant typical backup, Charlie Lindgren, got the first start of the year. Lindgren faced 35 shots and stopped 31 of them. I’m personally not too convinced by Lindgren after the end of his first season in DC but he wasn’t bad per se in this game.
- The Capitals’ “fourth line for now” made up of Nic Dowd, Beck Malenstyn, and Anthony Mantha saw a handful of shifts against Sidney Crosby’s line in the game. They went very poorly. Crosby had positive differentials at five-on-five in shot attempts (+10), scoring chances (+4), and high-danger chances (+2) in those minutes. Carbery clearly saw the matchup was not working, among many other things that didn’t work, and mixed up his forward lines by the end of regulation.
- One of the components of that fourth line, Anthony Mantha is in quite the weird spot with the Capitals. Despite his large frame, I don’t think Mantha is capable of playing the fourth-line role that complements Dowd and Malenstyn. Despite his past offensive success, he has never found consistent point production in DC while playing in the top six. To be entirely honest, I’m not sure why he made the Opening Night roster. Mantha’s stat sheet included two faceoffs lost, one giveaway, and one shot attempt. That’s it.
Tonight marks the first time the Capitals have ever been shutout in a Home Opener (and a season opener) per ESPN+.
— Ian Oland (@ianoland) October 14, 2023
- Alex Ovechkin, like the rest of his teammates, was not able to find the back of Tristan Jarry’s net. Ovechkin has scored in eight previous season-opening games and had his normal volume of attempts on Friday to try and make that nine. The Great Eight finished with four shots on goal, nine individual shot attempts, three individual scoring chances, and one individual high-danger chance.
- The lone moral victory the Capitals can possibly take out of the evening is that Lars Eller did not record a point against them. Even just writing that is weird. Seeing the guy in a Penguins jersey was borderline bizarre. Gross.
- Special teams were a huge topic of conversation last season and both of those units started off on the same, wrong foot. The power play went 0-for-3 and recorded just a single high-danger chance. The penalty kill gave up two goals to Sidney Crosby on three opportunities. That’s the worst.
Numbers thanks to Hockey-reference.com and NaturalStatTrick.com.
