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Saved by the backup: numbers for the morning after

By Chris Cerullo

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November 5, 2023 5:57 am

The Washington Capitals are back in the win column after eking out a 2-1 victory against the Columbus Blue Jackets on Saturday night. The Capitals are taking advantage of their season-long home stand with three wins out of four and have a chance to make that record look even better when the Florida Panthers come to town on Wednesday.

Solid effort against the Blooj and two points in the division. That’s a great night that let me make a Saved by the Bell joke in the title.

  • Very much a back-and-forth game in terms of who was controlling most of the play. The Capitals didn’t come out of the gates strong in terms of puck possession but they took advantage of their chances and got solid goaltending to come out of the first period up 2-0. Then they really took the game over at five-on-five and through the next forty minutes out-scoring chanced Columbus 19 to 11 and out-high danger chanced them 9 to 5. The problem there is that they yet again were not able to turn a single one of those chances into a goal. The story of the season so far.
  • Charlie Lindgren was phenomenal in his second start of the season, stopping 34 shots and really saving his best for last near the end of the third period. MoneyPuck has Lindgren saving 3.11 more goals than expected which is an elite outing. Really good to see because it felt like Charlie really flamed out towards the end of last season.
  • The penalty kill was an absolutely massive part of the win. They killed off all four of Columbus’ man advantages and are 12-for-12 on kills over the team’s last five games. The power play on the other hand is still a complete mess. To me, it feels like they’ve just reverted to the same old, same old and that is so unbelievably frustrating to watch. They now rank 31st in the NHL in terms of success a man up.

  • The Capitals’ third line made up of Connor McMichael, Anthony Mantha, and Aliaksei Protas was the team’s standout trio for me and the stats match the eye test. With McMichael on the ice at five-on-five, the Capitals saw positive differentials in shot attempts (+9), scoring chances (+5), and high-danger chances (+2). They pinned Columbus in on multiple, long shifts and it’s really nice to see McMichael’s great play driving a line and staying consistent despite the position change.
  • No goals for Alex Ovechkin in four games. That’s the same number of games he went without a marker to start the year. He’s due, folks.
  • Trevor van Riemsdyk played just 1:34 in the game before departing with a lower-body injury and not returning. Taking a look at the Hershey Bears, if the Caps don’t just fill a potential hole with their current roster, the three options at right-handed defense would be Vincent Iorio, Chase Priskie, and Dylan McIlrath. Iorio would normally be the obvious, popular pick but he’s had a pretty up-and-down start the season playing on Hershey’s third pairing.

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

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