The Washington Capitals didn’t make their coach happy but still managed to find a 4-2 win against the Buffalo Sabres on Sunday night. They went down early 1-0 on a fluke goal but battled back for another comeback victory.
Did they really ever get out of first gear? No. Did they need to? I don’t think so.
#NHL GameScore Impact Card for Washington Capitals on 2024-12-14:#ALLCAPS pic.twitter.com/ptJKb95iPD
— HockeyStatCards (@hockeystatcards) December 15, 2024
- Spencer Carbery seemed a little steamed by his team’s effort, but I, whose opinion matters significantly less than Carbery’s, really didn’t think it was all that bad. They certainly had some lulls in their play, but the first goal was a fluke, and the second was just a really great deflection. There were no stretches where the Sabres really took it to the Caps. I think he might look at the game in a more positive way on a second look. Washington limited the Sabres to just 21 shots on goal and recorded 66 percent of the expected goals in the win.
- John Carlson recorded three assists in the win, his second three-assist game this season and 14th in his career. The Capitals were yet again ridiculously good with Carlson on the ice at five-on-five, out-attempting Buffalo 18-16 and recording more scoring chances (13-5) and high-danger chances (6-0).
- Tom Wilson put away two more goals to give him 13 on the season. Both goals came on power plays, giving him a career-high six power-play goals this year. Wilson is now on pace for a career-high 68 points (37g, 31a) this season.
The Capitals’ 21 wins are the second most in the NHL, trailing only the Winnipeg Jets, who have played three more games.
— CapitalsPR (@CapitalsPR) December 15, 2024
- Another brilliant performance from Logan Thompson. He made 19 stops and many of them were tough ones. Per MoneyPuck, he saved another 0.82 more goals than expected. Thompson is now 12-1-2 with a 2.48 goals-against average and a .913 save percentage this season.
- Really nice night for the special teams. The Capitals went 2-for-3 on their power play and 2-for-2 on their penalty kill. They are up to 13th in the league in power-play effectiveness (22.5%) and fourth in the league in penalty-kill effectiveness (83.9%).
- Per the team, the Capitals extended their season-long point streak to nine games (8-0-1) with the win, which is the longest point streak by a team this season.
Numbers thanks to Hockey-Reference, NaturalStatTrick, and HockeyStatCards.
