The Washington Capitals eked out a 2-1 win in overtime over the Columbus Blue Jackets on Thursday night. They got two big goals from their very big Belorussian sensation and became just the 12th team in NHL history to win 10 consecutive road games.
The process was fantastic in this game. The finish? Not so much.
#NHL GameScore Impact Card for Washington Capitals on 2024-12-12:#ALLCAPS pic.twitter.com/6RZJ8fTue4
— HockeyStatCards (@hockeystatcards) December 13, 2024
- I was expecting to see some rust from the Capitals after their long break away from game action and they definitely had some of that going on. Washington created a season-high 38 five-on-five scoring chances but scored just one five-on-five goal. In their three other games this season when they’ve created 30+ scoring chances at five-on-five, they’ve scored a combined 11 five-on-five goals. Luckily, they still had the puck for about 64 percent of the game, so their lack of hot shooting didn’t harm them too much.
- Aliaksei Protas made me look like a genius for this tweet that went kinda nuts last week and then my subsequent follow-up article on him. Big Pro recorded his first-ever multi-goal game and hit the 11-goal mark this season, making him the fourth Caps player in double digits this year. This week has been great for the Protas brothers, as Ilya Protas, Aliaksei’s younger brother who the Caps drafted in the third round of the most recent NHL Draft, extended his point streak for the OHL’s Windsor Spitfires to eight games on Thursday. In those eight games, he has 20 points (7g, 13a).
- When your team isn’t finding the back of the net like they usually do, you need your goaltender to have a great night. Charlie Lindgren did just that, making 32 stops in his ninth win of the season. Per MoneyPuck, Lindgren saved 2.91 more goals than expected. A ton of that great work came on the penalty kill as the Capitals decided to march to the box five times in the first two periods.
The Capitals have outscored the opposition 48-21 during their current ten-game road winning streak.
— CapitalsPR (@CapitalsPR) December 13, 2024
- Washington was absurdly good with John Carlson on the ice at five-on-five. During his minutes, they out-attempted Columbus 30-5, outshot them 19-3, out-scoring chanced them 20-2, and out-high danger chanced them 4-0. Team USA truly snubbed him.
- Broken record time: Pierre-Luc Dubois was awesome again. Against his former team, he deftly set up the game-tying goal for his 20th point of the season. He also was tremendous in the faceoff circle, winning 10 of his 12 draws. Dubois has six points (2g, 4a) in his last five games.
- Per the team, the Capitals are the second team in the NHL to reach 20 wins this season and have tied the franchise record for the fewest games played to record 20 wins in a season.
Numbers thanks to Hockey-Reference, NaturalStatTrick, and HockeyStatCards.
