The Washington Capitals have not had a great start to the four-game road trip that will take them into the All-Star break. The Minnesota Wild took it to them early on Tuesday night and despite a late charge from the Capitals, hung on for a 5-3 win.
Is the whole little too late thing becoming a trend? Not a fan.
- The Capitals did almost nothing for the entire first half of this game. Through forty minutes they recorded just two high-danger chances at five-on-five. In the third frame alone, they decided to show a little urgency and quadrupled that total by creating eight high-danger chances. While that’s good to see, you can’t play one period in the NHL and expect to win games. Hopefully, Spencer Carbery bottles whatever took over his team during that period and deploys it against a very good Avalanche team later tonight.
- Darcy Kuemper continues to be incredibly inconsistent. This was a poor showing for him despite some of those goals against definitely being on the team in front of him. MoneyPuck had him stopping 2.44 fewer goals than expected. On the flip side, Filip Gustavsson stopped almost exactly the amount of goals he was expected to (0.03). That’s the difference right there.
- Alex Ovechkin played just 9:51 of five-on-five ice time in the loss, second-fewest on the team. Some of that is likely energy conservation given the back-to-back situation but it’s hard to not make other conclusions when seeing that. The team was outscored 2-0 with their captain on the ice. It’s past time to just be slightly concerned about his season but you already knew that.
Mantha's three multi-goal games this season are tied with Dylan Strome for the most on Washington.
— CapitalsPR (@CapitalsPR) January 24, 2024
- Anthony Mantha potted two goals in the matchup, moving him into sole possession of second on the team this season in total tallies (14). Mantha is still on pace for 25 goals this year which would have been super nice if anyone else on the team other than him and Dylan Strome could consistently score.
- I have no idea what to make of what Carbery did with his forward lines. According to NaturalStatTrick, the Capitals deployed 11 different groups of three at five-on-five. That’s some elite line blender action. Carbery has yet to find a set lineup this season and at this point, he’s not going to. Peter and I seem to both believe that the current roster is a group of puzzle pieces but all from different jigsaw puzzles. The problem is that all the pieces are still wearing the same color jersey.
- The Capitals are now 5-6 in January. They have two games against two Cup contenders in Colorado and Dallas to try and salvage a winning record in a stretch of games that Carbery has emphasized as immensely vital for the team’s playoff hopes.
Numbers thanks to Hockey-reference.com and NaturalStatTrick.com.
