The Washington Capitals survived a recalled goal, a scary overtime period, and a lengthy shootout on the way to their second win a row. The Capitals took down the Minnesota Wild 3-2 and secured their first winning streak of the 2023-24 season.
Momentum is a crazy thing in sports and the Capitals could be building some. They are no longer in the basement of the Metropolitan Division as that spot now belongs to the Pittsburgh Penguins. Everyone laugh.
- The Capitals and Wild played a pretty smack dab even game at five-on-five for the majority of the contest. The good guys still had some of their typical second-period issues, giving up three high-danger chances in that period and creating none of their own but survived that bad spell on the back of their special teams units. They went 1-for-3 up a man and killed off all five of Minnesota’s man advantages. Great stuff.
- The top line had a very nice game with both Dylan Strome and Tom Wilson pitching in goals and Alex Ovechkin grabbing an assist. With that line on the ice at five-on-five, the Capitals saw 65 percent of the shot attempts and 62.5 percent of the scoring chances. Ovechkin leads the team in overall scoring with six points (2g, 4a) from seven games while Strome already has five goals to start the year.
- Darcy Kuemper was locked in early as his former team fired a ton of rubber his way. While the bulk of his stops weren’t exactly of the high-danger variety, he made timely stops when the Capitals needed them and was the MVP of both overtime and the shootout. Kuemper finished with 39 total saves as he downed the team that drafted him in 2009 for the fourth time.
John Carlson scores in the seventh round of the shootout to give the Capitals a 3-2 win. It marks Carlson's fourth career shootout goal and first since Dec. 6, 2021 versus Anaheim.
— CapitalsPR (@CapitalsPR) October 28, 2023
- Have to say that I’m more than a little worried about Nick Jensen. Another brutal game on the statsheet from the veteran blueliner. With him on the ice at five-on-five, the Capitals were out-attempted 12 to 6, out-scoring chanced 9 to 3, and out-high danger chanced 2 to 0. On the season, Jensen has been on the ice for a team-high 12 goals and 94 scoring chances against at five-on-five. He is the team’s worst regular defender in terms of five-on-five shot attempt percentage (29.3%), expected goals for percentage (22.5%), scoring chance for percentage (24.2%), and high-danger chance for percentage (21.7%). His zone start stats are also comparable to both Trevor van Riemsdyk and Martin Fehervary so that context doesn’t necessarily help him out either.
- Matthew Phillips, Aliaksei Protas, and Alex Alexeyev are three players that have seen a whole ton of the bench in the last two games. Phillips was the most affected on Friday, skating just 3:18 of total ice time. Our short king also played just 5:37 against the New Jersey Devils. Feels like something has got to give on the Capitals’ roster soon because that’s not gonna work long term.
- TJ Oshie leads the Capitals in individual scoring chances (26) and individual high-danger chances (14). He has just one assist in seven games to show for them.
Numbers thanks to Hockey-reference.com and NaturalStatTrick.com.
