The Washington Capitals had trouble almost the entire game against the New Jersey Devils on Wednesday night. The well-rested Devils took it to the no-rest Capitals and wrapped up a pretty easy 6-3 victory on the road.
I also don’t think this super congested, strange schedule is doing this team any favors. So many back-to-backs in the span of just a few weeks.
- The Capitals had a super rough night five-on-five. The Devils finished the game with a +23 advantage in five-on-five shot attempts and really stomped out the Capitals in a pivotal third period that put the game entirely out of question. In that third, despite being behind, the Capitals managed just one high-danger chance.
- Max Pacioretty made his Capitals debut and postgame was very displeased with his own efforts. He wasn’t exactly wrong. Patches did not record a shot on goal, had just one shot attempt, and took a tripping minor.
- Connor McMichael scored his first career power-play goal. McMichael is the team’s most consistent performer at all strengths and should probably be given even more of a look on the team’s man advantage unit. He’s eighth on the team among forwards in average power-play time on ice per game (1:03).
Rasmus Sandin recorded the primary assist on McMichael's goal, his 11th assist of the season. Sandin, who recorded his eighth career multi-assist game (2a) last night at Pittsburgh, has recorded five assists in his last five games.
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- Evgeny Kuznetsov recorded an assist on John Carlson’s power-play goal. With the assist, Kuzy passed Mike Gartner for the fifth-most assists (393) in franchise history.
- Really rough night from Hunter Shepard in the Capitals’ net. He made just 22 stops on 28 shots against and according to MoneyPuck, stopped 3.2 fewer goals than expected.
- No goals from Alex Ovechkin but he did rack up two assists. Ovi is now riding a three-game point streak and appears to have found a little more of his past offensive touch. Everyone please pray to the hockey gods that it continues.
Numbers thanks to Hockey-reference.com and NaturalStatTrick.com.
