The Washington Capitals got smacked in the mouth by the Toronto Maple Leafs for the second time in just over a week. The Leafs are clearly a matchup nightmare for the Caps and I’m glad the season series is over.
Going to need a quick bounce back against Boston on Saturday.
- We’ve gone over a lot of positives for the Capitals in these posts over the past few weeks, maybe even months. Unfortunately, not gonna happen in this bullet. This was a defensive mess against a team that you cannot afford to be a defensive mess against. Over the final two periods at five-on-five, Toronto recorded 14 high-danger chances and the Capitals recorded just three of their own. The Leafs outscored Washington 12-4 in their two recent outings against one another. Brutal.
- One of the lone positives is that Hendrix Lapierre picked up another point in his rookie season. In his last 17 NHL games, the 2020 first-round draft pick has recorded 12 points (6g, 6a). That’s a near 60-point pace over a full 82-game season. While this season still somewhat feels like a throwaway year despite the recent fun, these hard, big minutes for names like Lapierre, Connor McMichael, Aliaksei Protas, Ivan Miroshnichenko, Rasmus Sandin, Alex Alexeyev, etc. are so incredibly invaluable. I’m so happy the team fought their way into the playoff race so these guys can experience this sort of pressure.
- Speaking of Ivan Miroshnichenko just because we can, let’s run through some five-on-five stats since the first game of his second recall, and in parentheses will be where he ranks on the team in that category. Solely at five-on-five in the 12-game sample, Miro has recorded five points (4th), 19 shots on goal (3rd), 3.31 individual expected goals (1st), 51 shot attempts (2nd), 30 individual scoring chances (1st), 12 individual high-danger chances (2nd), and 32 hits (4th). This is a kid who just turned 20 two months ago and missed a huge chunk of one of his biggest development years due to Hodgkin’s lymphoma. He’s also scored at every level he’s played at so if his finishing ability ticks up…look out.
Dowd has reached the 10-goal mark for the fourth-straight season.
— CapitalsPR (@CapitalsPR) March 29, 2024
- Nic Dowd has chipped in some offense recently but his line is just not working the way we are used to it working. I’m not sure he’s entirely healthy after whatever injury took him out for a bit near the trade deadline. In this game, with him on the ice at five-on-five, the Capitals were scored on twice and had a -5 high-danger chance differential. He also only received two defensive zone starts in those same minutes so it wasn’t a purposeful matchup nightmare at fault like it sometimes can be with that line.
- Auston Matthews did not score his 60th goal of the season against the Capitals. Praise be, Charlie Lindgren.
- Good news, the Philadelphia Flyers and Detroit Red Wings also lost in regulation. Nothing in the standings changed. The Capitals are still two points behind Philly with two games in hand and two points ahead of Detroit with one game in hand.
Numbers thanks to Hockey-reference.com and NaturalStatTrick.com.
