In a thrilling game and despite their best efforts, the Washington Capitals defeated the New York Rangers on Saturday afternoon. The Capitals tried real hard to lose this one but were ultimately unsuccessful. Jokes aside, this was a great damn hockey game. Watching it was the perfect way to spend the day.
Caps goalie Logan Thompson left his net and passed the puck to Chris Kreider, who you’ll recall plays for the other team. Dylan Strome worked hard in a long, scrambling sequence to tie it up on the power play.
In the second period, Lars Eller redirected Martin Fehervary’s shot in the best example of Slovakian/Danish cooperation since the 2002 Memorandum Of Understanding Between Denmark And The Slovak Republic About Implementation Of An Agreement In The Field Of Reduction Of Greenhouse Gases Emission Based On Articles 6 And 17 Of Kyoto Protocol. Andrew Mangiapane teamed up with Nic Dowd to extend Washington’s lead, but New York made it 3-2 when Sam Carrick scored following an Ovechkin turnover. Before that busy period was up, Connor McMichael expertly redirected Dylan Strome’s pass to make it 4-2.
Halfway into the third period, Filip Chytil roofed it on a breakaway to bring the Rangers within one. No biggie, Alex Ovechkin responded with 872, a backhand goal that snuck under Jonathan Quick’s leg. Mika Zibenajad scored on the rush to make it a one-goal game yet again with seven minutes remaining. Unacceptable, Aliaksei Protas said, I imagine, so he cleaned up a rebound off Pierre-Luc Dubois’s rung post. Tom Wilson got the empty netter.
Caps win 7-4!
Let’s embed the classic Bailamos for a classic game.
- I wanted several things from this game. I will now itemize them using an RMNB-rare nested list:
- McMichael revenge goal
- Ovechkin goal
- Peter Laviolette humiliation
- Win (nice-to-have)
- I got that, plus an exciting two and a half hours. Nice.
- Maybe Logan Thompson was envious of Charlie Lindgren having the worst goalie play of the season. In the first period, with icing washed out, Thompson left the crease to play the puck. Rather than banging it off the boards (safe, wise, boring), Thompson sent it down the center of the ice towards Chris Kreider (bad, real bad, super bad).
- Add to that Alex Ovechkin’s turnover in the second period to giftwrap a goal for Sam Carrick, the Caps owned assists on two Rangers goals today.
- Aside from those two mistakes, the Caps were still really bad in the first half of this game. The Rangers doubled them up in attempts and expected goals in the first period. Things got better from there, but there are still issues here.
- Head coach Spencer Carbery spent the week in the lab with his beakers and graduated cylinders and bubbly elixirs and whatever and emerged with new lines. They worked. Huge success. No notes. First period didn’t happen. Even Lars Eller of the cursed third line scored. Eller hadn’t scored since late November.
- Connor McMichael got yet another revenge goal against ex-coach Peter Laviolette. Felt good.
- So Nic Dowd is back to breaking bad on penalties. After keeping his nose clean for nine games, he’s been busted twice in the last two games.
- The second period was interrupted by a lengthy, Caps-initiated, ultimately successful challenge for offside to nullify a Rangers goal. Some people moaned about how a lengthy review sucks the energy out of the game. Some people moaned about how the ESPN broadcast did not know how to cover the challenge and transparently wanted the call to go in New York’s favor. These takes are wrong. The only right take is that video coach Emily Engel-Natzke is a goddamn assassin.
- Alex Ovechkin is so good. It’s stupid. He’s got four goals in his five games since returning from – if I recall correctly – a shattered pelvis and partial torso reconstruction. RMNB.
some suits, not Joe B, not good, everything sucks pic.twitter.com/vv9yAbto2c
— RMNB (@rmnb) January 4, 2025
You might think we’re being petty when we enjoy watching Peter Laviolette struggle. You could say we’re holding a grudge and that it’s sad and that it’s undignified and that we’re pathetic.
You are correct.
Reminder: we are watching professional sports. This is the single most pointless thing you can do in contemporary life. It doesn’t even help prevent prostate cancer. Here we are allowed to be rotten and even a little anti-social. We can do mutual aid and critical support and praxis and whatever on Sunday; today we’re just basic. Peter Laviolette is probably about to get fired for the fifth time, and it’s delightful, and we’re bad people for feeling this way, and that’s okay, because this is make-believe.
manifesting
— Peter Hassett (@peterhassett.net) 2025-01-04T17:04:03.527Z
Back to reality for a brief moment: the Capitals have seen their flaws exposed over the past few weeks. There’s a lot of room for improvement. On Monday they will break up a decent homestand with a trip to Buffalo to take on the Sabres, 3-6-1 in their last ten despite shooting a league-best 13.6 percent during five-on-five play.
