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The Capitals have officially gone streaking: numbers for the morning after

By Chris Cerullo

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October 30, 2023 6:06 am

The Washington Capitals used a strong third period effort to down the lowly San Jose Sharks 3-1 on Sunday night. The victory was the Capitals’ third in a row and now they’ve officially gone streaking.

Two-game win streaks are so yesterday’s news. Are they even really a “streak”?

  • Didn’t really love the Capitals’ overall effort against a very, very bad Sharks team. Their first forty minutes were listless at best and featured zero goals. The team’s third period push was very evident via eye test and the stats follow there as well as the Capitals posted five high-danger chances to San Jose’s one in the final frame.
  • Major credit to team discipline as they went through the entire game without taking a penalty and forcing their very inconsistent penalty kill unit onto the ice. I’m normally of the faith that zero NHL teams ever play a fully clean game but I honestly can’t remember any obvious potential missed calls. Playing to a 0-0 draw special teams wise with an opponent definitely works when that opponent came into the game with an 0-7-1 record.
  • Tom Wilson was pretty awesome in his best effort of the young campaign. Outside of his game-winning goal that paired as his 300th career NHL point, the big winger fired a game high eight shots on goal to go along with his game highs in individual shot attempts (12), individual scoring chances (10), and individual high-danger chances (8).

  • Darcy Kuemper was very, very good yet again. Kuemper picked up his third win in October and stopped 1.48 more goals than expected in his 30-save effort. If he keeps this level of play up, he could hide a few of the team’s rougher spots and carry them though portions of the schedule.
  • Per NHL.com’s Tom Gulitti, the Capitals’ current three-game winning streak is their first since since December 17-27 of last season. Lordy, last year sucked.
  • Alex Ovechkin is “quietly” a point per game player with eight points (2g, 6a) in eight games to start the year. The Great Eight is producing and it’s no mistake that this run of form really started when he was put back with center Dylan Strome (6g). With those two on the ice at five-on-five this season (76:19 TOI), the Capitals see 62.6 percent of the shot attempts, 70.8 percent of the expected goals, 62.2 percent of the scoring chances, and 63.2 percent of the high-danger chances. They definitely see cushioned zone starts but you can’t deny their level of success right now.

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

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