The Washington Capitals extended their franchise-best road winning streak to nine games against the Montreal Canadiens on Saturday night. After falling behind 2-0 early, the Caps scored four unanswered to secure a 4-2 victory.
This team never quits. What a fun run we’re witnessing right now.
#NHL GameScore Impact Card for Washington Capitals on 2024-12-07
#ALLCAPS
— HockeyStatCards (@hockeystatcards.com) December 7, 2024 at 9:49 PM
- This post would look a lot different if Logan Thompson didn’t make those four breakaway saves in the third period. Despite those defensive lapses, though, the five-on-five stats really favor the Capitals. They finished the night ahead in shot attempts (60-42), scoring chances (29-23), high-danger chances (16-7), and expected goals (3.3-1.86). It’s a sign of a great team when you can look like you’re not playing your best, but the process is still clearly so good at the end of regulation.
- What a night for a dog who ate a bee, Tom Wilson. Wilson scored the two biggest goals of the game, tying the game 2-2 and then giving Washington a 3-2 lead. The 30-year-old winger now has 11 goals this season, giving three Capitals double-digit goal tallies this season.
- Pierre-Luc Dubois had another superb night. During his five-on-five minutes, the Capitals had decisively more shot attempts (23-10), scoring chances (14-4), and high-danger chances (8-1). Dubois notched two points (1g, 1a) in the win, giving him five points (2g, 3a) in his last four games.
The Capitals earn their League-leading 11th comeback win of the season to extend their franchise record road winning streak to nine games (11/9/24-12/7/24: 9-0-0).
— CapitalsPR (@CapitalsPR) December 8, 2024
- Aliaksei Protas chipped in two assists to give him 24 points (9g, 15a) through 27 games this season. He is on pace to record 73 points (27g, 46a), which would obliterate his previous career-high of 29 points (6g, 23a) set last year. May I remind you that this is a guy who has seen 1:33 of TOTAL power play time this entire season? No, he doesn’t average 1:33 of power play ice time per game, he’s only played 1:33 of power play ice the entire year. Here are just some of the guys Protas has more five-on-five points than right now: Connor McDavid, Sidney Crosby, Nikita Kucherov, Artemi Panarin, Leon Draisaitl, Matthew Tkachuk, Nathan MacKinnon, David Pastrnak, Mikko Rantanen, Mitch Marner, Anze Kopitar, Cale Makar, Jack Hughes, Brayden Point.
- I already mentioned Logan Thompson, but we gotta talk about him again. Thompson made 22 stops to improve his record to 11-1-2 this year. Over his last 10 starts, he has a record of 7-1-2 with a 2.19 goals-against average and a .926 save percentage. Let’s all laugh at Hockey Canada.
- Lars Eller played in his 500th career game with the Capitals. Per the team, he is the 32nd player in franchise history to play 500 games with the club. Shoutout to the Tiger.
Numbers thanks to Hockey-Reference, NaturalStatTrick, and HockeyStatCards.
