The Washington Capitals got back on track Wednesday night into Thursday morning in Los Angeles against the Kings. The Capitals did enough to stymie the Kings offensively and found offense from one of their forward lines to secure two points.
That third period isn’t how you’d draw it up but it worked. Back in the win column.
- I was pretty happy with that gutsy road performance. The Kings out-attempted the Caps 32 to 5 in the the third period but only created one more high-danger chance than the Caps at five-on-five which goes to show how well the good guys played defensively in front of their goaltender. A super positive second period that saw the team post positive differentials at five-on-five in shot attempts (+4), scoring chances (+3), and high-danger chances (+3) proved to be the difference.
- Connor McMichael continues his rise this season. With a two-point night (1g, 1a), the young center now ranks tied for second on the team in goals (5) and tied for third in overall points (10). His line with Anthony Mantha and Aliaksei Protas was the entirety of the Capitals’ offense, combining for six points.
- I’m not sure why Evgeny Kuznetsov keeps playing the most of any Capitals forward. He did so again in this game, skating 17:28 of ice time. The Capitals were at their worst with him on the ice at five-on-five, posting heavily negative differentials in shot attempts (-16), scoring chances (-10), and high-danger chances (-3). One of the very few Spencer Carbery decisions I really do not understand.
Charlie Lindgren stopped 38 of 39 shots to help the @Capitals improve to 7-3-1 in November. Only the Rangers (9-2-1) and Panthers (9-4-1) have more wins this month among Eastern Conference clubs.#NHLStats: https://t.co/gaN3xYgHFQ pic.twitter.com/KDlEAkznY8
— NHL Public Relations (@PR_NHL) November 30, 2023
- Charlie Lindgren ended up stopping 2.96 more goals than expected in another fantastic performance. That should see him shoot up to second place on MoneyPuck’s netminding leaderboard. What a season so far from him.
- Per Monumental Sports Network’s broadcast, the Capitals got their first win with 15 or fewer shots on goal since 2011. Not a recipe for sustained success at all and the lack of scoring is still incredibly worrying but grind-it-out wins count all the same.
- With the win, the Capitals moved back into one of the Metropolitan Division’s guaranteed playoff spots. Their 24 points are one more than the Philadelphia Flyers’ 23 and the Capitals have three games in hand on Philly.
Numbers thanks to Hockey-reference.com and NaturalStatTrick.com.
