The Washington Capitals visited the Pittsburgh Penguins for the first time this season on Tuesday night. The battle of the once behemoths is now more like a battle between two middling sides that are still somewhat questionably hanging on to their glory days hoping for a likely futile push to another Stanley Cup.
But, doesn’t mean the games aren’t still good. And, the Capitals won.
- The Capitals sorta slogged their way through this win but the key word in that is “win.” Looking purely at the metrics, this game is super weird. From a pure eye test perspective, it was clear the visitors had the far better first period but the Penguins actually had six more five-on-five scoring chances in the opening frame. Then in the second period, where I thought the Caps looked listless and ineffective, they actually out-paced Pittsburgh in five-on-five scoring chances 11 to 7. Can I explain that? Nope. But I can explain that a regulation win in the NHL is worth two points and the other team gets nothing.
- That win moves the Capitals back into a playoff spot in the Eastern Conference and they hold games in hand over all four Metropolitan Division teams ahead of them. The Capitals sit in that coveted spot despite ranking 26th in the league in terms of goal differential. Like Peter wrote last week, when this team loses…they full-on lose.
- Alex Ovechkin got back on the scoresheet, finding the back of the net on a power play for his 830th career goal. Ovi’s goal was his first against Alex Nedeljkovic, the 172nd different netminder the Great Eight has scored against. He is just six shy of tying Jaromir Jagr for the record there.
History continues to be made Rockin' the Red#ALLCAPS | @LeidosInc pic.twitter.com/b0VrLVzTC3
— Washington Capitals (@Capitals) January 3, 2024
- If I asked you to guess which forward line posted the best five-on-five stats in the game, I would bet you’d get in one go because it’s the same story as like the past two dozen games. With Connor McMichael’s line on the ice at five-on-five, the Capitals held positive differentials in shot attempts (+4), scoring chances (+1), and high-danger chances (+2). They are the only Capitals’ line that can say that.
- Big congrats to Ethan Bear for recording his first point with the team. I’m not sure he works on his current pairing but it’s also just two games into his stint with the club so he’s going to need probably eight or so more games to fully get going again.
- Darcy Kuemper bounced back from two pretty awful starts where he gave up five goals in each game. Kuemper stopped 33 of 36 shots he faced on Tuesday and stopped over 1.5 more goals than expected which as you can tell by the scoreline, was a deciding factor in the game.
Numbers thanks to Hockey-reference.com and NaturalStatTrick.com.
