The Washington Capitals put together another big offensive showing in Monday night’s 6-3 victory over the Ottawa Senators. With a very banged-up roster coming into the matchup, the team leaned on their youth, and the youth delivered.
The Capitals are now 4-0-1 over their last five games with a big test against Detroit on Tuesday.
- This was a wild one. When Hendrix Lapierre scored his first goal of the game early in the second period, there had only been 22 total shots on goal in the contest and eight of them went in. That’s good for a .636 combined save percentage for both teams. Head coach Spencer Carbery made a point to recognize the Capitals’ efforts in the third period to completely slow the game down and I thought that was noticeable for really the entire back half of the game. Ottawa ended up with just three five-on-five, high-danger chances in the final two periods combined.
- I pointed this out in the recap but it deserves repeating after what we went through last season with the team’s youth getting shoved down the depth chart. Aliaksei Protas recorded the second three-point game in his career and now has seven points (2g, 5a) in his last five games. Connor McMichael had a multi-point game for the third time this month and now has six points (4g, 2a) in his last four games. Hendrix Lapierre scored twice for his first multi-goal NHL game and now has three points (2g, 1a) in his last two NHL games.
- Not a ton of movement in the standings as there were only four games on the docket last night and two were irrelevant to the playoff hunt in the Eastern Conference. The Capitals did move up over the New Jersey Devils again and are now just four points from the Philadelphia Flyers for third in the Metro with two games in hand.
Max Pacioretty and Beck Malenstyn score 14 seconds apart to put the Capitals ahead 4-2. It marks the quickest back-to-back goals scored by the Capitals this season (previously 15 seconds with goals from Aube-Kubel and Malenstyn, 11/10/23 at NJD).
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- Two of the things I was a bit peeved about from the last game, Carbery immediately addressed in this one. He gave Pierrick Dubé 12:25 of total ice time and put Alex Ovechkin back with Dylan Strome. While the latter two names did not do him well being reunited as they were on the ice for three goals against and zero for, immediate changes like that are why Carbery is such a breath of fresh air and one of the reasons I like him so much. Glad he and the team got a win.
- I thought Ethan Bear had a really nice game, perhaps his best in a Capitals uniform. Good to see after he was sort of in Carbery’s dog house late last week and sat out of another game healthy. With him on the ice at five-on-five, the team saw positive differentials in shot attempts (+10), scoring chances (+4), and high-danger chances (+3). The Capitals did not give up a high-danger chance with him on the ice and I thought his puck touches and outlet passes were top-notch.
- Five different players had multi-point efforts in the victory. Zero of them were named Alex Ovechkin, John Carlson, Dylan Strome, or Tom Wilson. That’s a great showing for the team’s depth.
Numbers thanks to Hockey-reference.com and NaturalStatTrick.com.
