The Washington Capitals mostly looked lifeless in their Saturday night roadie against the Nashville Predators, but in zombie movies the lifeless guys win pretty much every time.
After a scoreless and highlight-less first period, Tom Wilson converted on a power play to improve the vibes. Immediately thereafter disemboweling the vibes was Ian’s Babadook, Filip Forsberg, who converted on a power play of his own.
In a great third period, Ethen Frank scored his first NHL goal, taking a stretch pass from Matt Roy to score the game-winner in his second ever NHL game. Andrew Mangiapane scored an Autumn 2024-style Caps goal, with linemates outworking on opponents behind the net so he can get a quick look from the slot.
Empty net. Ovi scoar. You know this.
Caps win 4-1!
- Alright, I’ll say it: The Capitals are in crisis. Their ability to control the flow of games has vanished in the last three weeks. They’re hardly generating any offense at all anymore. Five shots in the first period; three in the second, enough in the third to win it, but still. Yikes. Let’s put all that aside and talk about some good stuff.
- Tom Wilson was twelve feet from the net with a clear lane, and he roofed it over the crossbar. The Caps had not a single shot on goal in the second period to that point. I was desperate, I was doomscrolling, I was impulse-buying dropshipped merch from Twitch streamers. After the ensuing faceoff Wilson got another shot from around the same spot. He scored on that one.
- Wilson has 19 goals in 43 games. That’s like a 36-goal pace.
- Check out this save by Logan Thompson. That’s a great save on Jonathan Marchessault, who I forgot played for Nashville until just now. I didn’t even notice the neutral-zone failure by Martin Fehervary.
- The navy helmets are good actually. What everyone misunderstands about sports aesthetics is that it’s all bad. You have seen nothing but awful uniforms on your screen since the moment you were able to discern shapes and colors. You have the fashion equivalent of lifelong industrial chemical poisoning. They all look ghastly; navy helmets don’t change anything.
- Filip Forsberg scored, but if you think about it like this it’s not that bad: Martin Erat scored twice as many goals in his time in Washington than Forsberg did on this single Saturday night in January 2025. If you want to have a good time, browse every tweet Ian has ever made about Forsberg. When you get back, appreciate this factoid from him: before the Frank goal, both goals were scored by Caps 2012 first-round draft picks.
- Ethen Frank dusted Brady Skjei along the Nashville blue line, receiving that beautiful pass from Matt Roy, then he went five-hole on Juuse Saros as if hadn’t been in the NHL for only 26 hours.
- Just realized that Nashville’s goalies are named Juuse Saros and Justus Annunen. Those are two beautiful names. I know “Peter is entertained by hockey player names” is not the best running bit on RMNB, but it is the most wholesome. Juuse and Justus. Saros and Annunen. Stunning.
- Saros not gonna be feeling good about this one. Four goals on sixteen shots.
- Ovi. Bailey reported that Bridgestone Arena was cheering for Ovi before and after his goal. We’re going to be seeing a lot more of that in coming months. It’s going to be a weird time.
It's not the same but we're gonna stay posi. #joebsuitofthenight pic.twitter.com/clOF18JSKj
— RMNB (@rmnb) January 12, 2025
The Nashville Predators are by far the most underperforming team in the NHL. They were on pace for 66 points before this game; preseason predictions averaged around 96. I say that so that I can say this: the Capitals had to win this game. They’ve been collecting a lot of undeserved points for a few weeks – four of their previous five games couldn’t be decided in regulation. They really needed a statement game against a weaker opponent.
This wasn’t much of a statement, but it counts for something. Wilson is carrying, Frank is an NHLer, the fourth line worked hard, Ovi ENG, and obviously LT was great in net. You can build on that. Take it and use it to beat an even weaker opponent, the Anaheim Ducks, on Tuesday.
