The Washington Capitals got back on the ice post-Christmas on Thursday against the New York Rangers and unfortunately left their consistent five-on-five effort in last week. The team was doomed by a rough middle frame and some tough goaltending results in the 5-1 loss.
Not the best way to come out for this last spell of 2023 games.
- The Capitals matched the Rangers at five-on-five for a lot of this game other than in the second period. At five-on-five in the middle stanza, the Rangers won the shot attempt battle 15 to 14, scoring chance battle 8 to 3, and high-danger chance battle 5 to 0. That was the period most broken up by special teams play and that really seemed to derail any sort of positive momentum that the Capitals had going. New York put away three of their goals during that 20-minute stretch and basically won the game right then and there.
- The other issue at hand was Darcy Kuemper reverting back to some really inconsistent netminding. He took the loss, stopping just 26 of the 31 shots fired at him. While the one-goal of run support is an obvious issue, per MoneyPuck, Kuemper let in 2.68 more goals than expected. A few bounces here and there go differently and that’s a game-deciding poor effort.
- On a more positive note, Anthony Mantha is still scoring goals. Mantha now has goals in three-straight contests and four goals in his last three games. Over his last 14 total games, Mantha has recorded 12 points (8g, 4a). That is the sort of production that the Capitals paid for when they acquired the big winger. More please, Manthony.
It marks Mantha's fifth game-opening goal of the season. Mantha’s five game-opening goals are tied for the second most in the NHL.
— CapitalsPR (@CapitalsPR) December 28, 2023
- You’ll never guess who grabbed an assist on Mantha’s goal…Aliaksei Protas. Protas is on a career-best, four-game point streak and is now tied with Alex Ovechkin for the second-most assists on the team (14). That normally great line had some defensive issues in this game though overall, facing four New York high-danger chances at five-on-five and creating none of their own.
- I know that Spencer Carbery wants to get Ivan Miroshnichenko on a line with Evgeny Kuznetsov but I’m not sure if that trio is really working out. Kuznetsov finished Wednesday night with literal zeros across the entire scoresheet. The only thing he contributed was four faceoff wins.
- An AHL shoutout is in order as Capitals prospect Pierrick Dube has grabbed sole possession of the league lead in goal scoring this season after tallying for the 17th time in 31 games. Dube, 22, is a former junior teammate of Hendrix Lapierre and may turn out to be a great, late-blooming acquisition from general manager Brian MacLellan. The French-born winger is probably deserving of an NHL look at some point this season.
Numbers thanks to Hockey-reference.com and NaturalStatTrick.com.
