The Washington Capitals hosted the New York Rangers, one of their most bitter rivals, at Capital One Arena on Tuesday night and took them to town and back. The 5-3 final scoreline does not tell the true story of the Caps’ dominance in their victory, as they genuinely ran the show in all three periods.
This one would not have even been close without the play of Igor Shesterkin in New York’s net. The NHL needs to establish a rule where you cannot play Andrei Vasilevskiy and Shesterkin in consecutive games.
#NHL GameScore Impact Card for Washington Capitals on 2024-10-29:#ALLCAPS pic.twitter.com/qMxysUNXaK
— HockeyStatCards (@hockeystatcards) October 30, 2024
- The Rangers legitimately could not touch the Capitals at five-on-five in any of the three periods. Washington ended the game plus-22 in shot attempts, plus-20 in scoring chances, and plus-7 in high-danger chances. They created 3.96 expected goals at five-on-five and 8.16 total in regulation, compared to New York’s 1.76 at five-on-five and 2.35 total. Total and complete domination.
- Washington was at their best with their second line made up of Connor McMichael, Pierre-Luc Dubois, and Tom Wilson on the ice. Head coach Spencer Carbery matched the trio up against Artemi Panarin’s line, and they made Panarin look like he was literally just a man made of bread. With Wilson on the ice five-on-five, the Capitals out-attempted New York 25-4, outshot them 15-1, out-scoring chanced them 13-1, and out-high danger chanced them 7-0. That line is unfathomably good early in the season.
- The only slight negative I’ll discuss is that I don’t believe the Mike Sgarbossa experiment with the third line changed much. They got out-attempted 10-4, and the Capitals recorded just one high-danger chance during their shifts compared to New York’s two. With how hot Ivan Miroshnichenko is down in Hershey, you have to wonder how long it’ll be until he gets a shot to see if he can liven up that line. Also, is it too early to talk about the Caps maybe adding a center at the trade deadline? Yes, Chris, yes, it is.
- Perhaps a note that needs to be talked about more is how the Capitals did all of this goodness while playing with just five defensemen for about 92 percent of regulation after Jakob Chychrun went out with an injury. Martin Fehervary led the team in ice time, skating 26:18, the third-highest amount he has ever played in a single game. Dylan McIlrath still played just 11:39, so John Carlson (25:18), Rasmus Sandin (24:45), and Trevor van Riemsdyk (23:00) all had extra-heavy workloads.
With a 5-3 win tonight, the Capitals improve to 13-3-0 in their last 16 games against the Rangers at home.
— CapitalsPR (@CapitalsPR) October 30, 2024
- McMichael had an absolutely absurd night fueled likely by the entirely scientific and proven “dad strength” theorem. The proud, new papa recorded 15 individual shot attempts, 10 shots on goal, 11 individual scoring chances, 8 individual high-danger chances, and scored his fourth goal of the year. His previous career-high in shots on goal in one game was six.
- Alex Ovechkin scored two goals and is now just 38 goals shy of passing Wayne Gretzky for the all-time goals record. He has four goals in eight games this season, which puts him on pace to tie Gretzky if he keeps up the same rate over the full 82-game schedule.
- I thought Aliaksei Protas was phenomenal in all three zones. He recorded three points (1g, 2a) in the win, giving him seven points (2g, 5a) through eight games. The three-point effort was the third of Protas’s career. He has extra jump to his game this season, and if he has unlocked this sort of finishing ability, the league is in trouble. A big man that big that can skate like that? Look out.
- There are too many great individual performances from this game to fit in one post, but Dylan Strome quietly added another two points to his season total. Strome, Washington’s scoring leader, now has 11 points (3g, 8a) through eight games. He’s on pace for 112 points over an 82-game slate. While we definitely need to temper expectations on that, it’d still be cool to see him yet again top his single-season best in points as he has done the past two seasons. He hit the 67-point mark last year.
Numbers thanks to Hockey-reference.com and NaturalStatTrick.com.
