The Washington Capitals ended their early-season winning streak with an unfortunate loss to the Tampa Bay Lightning on Saturday night.
Mitchell Chaffee tipped Nick Paul’s shot to give Tampa the lead five minutes into the night. Cut to early in the third, when Brayden Point doubled that distance, wrapping up a give-and-go with Nikita Kucherov. Not a minute later, Conor Geekie scored his first NHL goal, a gorgeous one-timer.
If you’re reading closely, you may have noticed by now that none of those goal scorers are Caps. Check out you with the eagle eye. Andrei Vasilevskiy earned his first career shutout against Washington in 21th appearance against them.
Caps lose 3-0.
- I’m not gonna slag on the Caps. They played fine. The Dowd line was great as always, but the Ovi line got some looks during five-on-five.
- I won’t rag on Charlie Lindgren either. The Chaffee tip was great, Point had a wide-open chance, and Geekie’s goal – his first in the NHL – was flawless.
- For the Point goal, it all happened in the aftermath of Trevor van Riemsdyk losing his blade. Not an excuse, just a thing that happened.
- On ice for all three of those Tampa goals: John Carlson.
- Hendrix Lapierre got a penalty for snowing Andrei Vasilevskiy. It was funny, but he deserved it, but more importantly it was funny.
#ALLCAPS No clue how Tampa is on the powerplay and we're not. Total BS pic.twitter.com/NsF4X5xGNd
— x – Capitals Replays 🍁 (@capsreplays) October 27, 2024
- Halloween songs. I have opinions. We’re gonna talk about it. Britney Spears’ “Toxic” is borderline. Rihanna’s “Disturbia” is closer. The Who’s “Boris the Spider” is in. The Eagle’s “Witchy Woman” is out entirely. “Spirit in the Sky” is not even allowed in the discussion. “Werewolf Bar Mitzvah” is in, but “Werewolves of London” is out. Do “Don’t Fear the Reaper” but don’t even come near me with “People are Strange” by the Doors. Get real. “Time Warp” is not welcome because I cannot stand the falsetto, but “Ghostbusters” is fine because we gotta play the hits. So “Thriller” – obviously, but I’ll zag on ’em with “So Hard” by Pet Shop Boys – I think just because of the synth lead. “Dragula” has to be included or else people will complain that there are not enough songs about slamming in the back of a Dragula. But let’s not overthink it: Just put on Ghost’s Opus Eponymous on loop. You’ll be fine. The first Powerman 5000 album too if you happen to share exactly my age and sex and socioeconomic circumstances. Okay, this bullet went long. This is probably up for debate by the way.
- Consulting the Omni Consumer Products out-of-town scoreboard, two pals face off tonight:
Ilya Samsonov vs. Vitek Vanecek as VGK look to keep their old friends in San Jose winless.
— SinBin.vegas (@SinBinVegas) October 27, 2024
- In the third, Dylan Strome took a puck to the chin but missed hardly any time.
- Brandon Duhaime fought Emil Lilleberg, but it didn’t come close to that McIlrath-Deslaurier epic from earlier in the week.
- I’d love to hear the opinions of the readers and other RMNBers, but I’m fully over the Protas-Strome-Ovechkin experiment.
locked in #joebsuitofthenight pic.twitter.com/gVv5fD9RYT
— RMNB (@rmnb) October 26, 2024
Andrei Vasilevskiy is a real good goalie. Sometimes that’s all you gotta say. Sometimes the reason you get the L is just that simple. Eventually, Washington’s 14.4 shooting percentage during five-on-five (second best in the league behind Columbus, who I would not worry about) had to drop. Maybe let’s just be grateful it dropped in one night.
Then again, maybe there was another fell force suffocating the Caps this night.
The Caps will head back to DC now to host the New York Rangers on Tuesday, by which time I hope the Dodgers will have a 3-0 series lead over the Yankees.
