The Washington Capitals are absolutely remarkable in the back half of back-to-backs this season. They might not play their best hockey but they just find a way to get it done.
That was definitely the case on Thursday night against the Columbus Blue Jackets. Another nice, hard fought two points.
- The Capitals were sort of behind the eight ball at five-on-five in all three periods. They saved their best for last though, fighting very hard in the third period to try and prevent the game from going to overtime. While they ultimately weren’t successful, they out-chanced Columbus 10 to 9 and responded very well to the Blue Jackets’ late, game-tying tally. All around, they’ll definitely take those two points and run as the team has been playing a ton of hockey in not a ton of days lately.
- The win continues the impressive undefeated streak that the Capitals have in the back half of back-to-backs. They are now 6-0 in them this season which really cannot be a magical coincidence at this point. Spencer Carbery and his staff have found some sort of optimization that is putting the Caps in a great position to win these no-rest games.
- Charlie Lindgren absolutely owns the Blue Jackets this season. In three starts against them, he is 3-0 with a 1.96 goals-against average and a .944 save percentage.
The Capitals have earned at least one point in seven of their last eight games (5-1-2).
— CapitalsPR (@CapitalsPR) December 22, 2023
- Praise be, the streak is dead. Alex Ovechkin scored his 900th career NHL goal when you add up all of his regular season and playoff markers. Let us all hope this is the start of a deluge of lamps being lit by The Great Eight.
- Tom Wilson was absolutely everywhere in the win. He recorded six shots on goal, nine individual shot attempts, eight individual scoring chances, seven individual high-danger chances, and drew the penalty that gave the Capitals the OT power play that won the contest.
- Broken record time that’s probably going to upset some folks. The. fourth. line. plays. too. much. Back-to-back games where Nicolas Aube-Kubel (18:28), Beck Malenstyn (17:37), and Nic Dowd (16:06) play more five-on-five minutes than any other forward. I will never be on board with that and it will never make any sense to me. With Malenstyn out on the ice in those minutes, the Capitals were out-attempted 23 to 5, out-scoring chanced 6 to 1, and out-high danger chanced 3 to 0. Yes, they took a whole lot of defensive zone starts but so did last year’s fourth line and last year’s fourth line wasn’t terrible statistically. Try a new trio. Call Riley Sutter up. Something.
Numbers thanks to Hockey-reference.com and NaturalStatTrick.com.
