The Washington Capitals returned from 12 days off to wallop the Pittsburgh Penguins on Saturday afternoon. No Four Nations Faceoff hangover here.
Young pup (he’s 27) Ethen Frank scored first, off his skate and surviving a kicking-motion review. On the power play, Kris Letang tied it up with a one-timer high to the far side of Logan Thompson.
In the second period, Marty Fehervary scored on the rush after a lovely saucer pass from Brandon Duhaime. Sidney Crosby saw that Marty scored and could not deal, so he beat LT on the rush with a backhander. That’s when things got wacky. Jakob Chychrun humiliated Vincent Desharnais to put the Caps back up, then he did it again with a long bomb screened by Wilson, then Aliaksei Protas scored eight seconds later, then Tom Wilson tipped a shot to make it 6-2 after just two periods.
Dylan Strome scored a power-play goal to make it 7-2 deep into the third. Danton Heinen (a very poor hockey name) cleaned up a tasty rebound to make it 7-3, but let’s be real: it was already over. Brandon Duhaime made sure of that, making it 8-3 on a breakaway in the final minutes.
Caps win!
Esta noche. Bailamos.
- Alex Nedeljkovic got chased from the net after allowing five goals on 14 shots. That’s the game right there. That could be the whole recap, but then everyone would get mad at me for not writing enough. The Penguins were fifth from the bottom at goaltending before this game started. After it they’re going to win the mirror universe William Jennings Trophy.
- This was a national broadcast, and so we had a late start as the Minnesota-Detroit game went long. I tuned in time to watch Minnesota’s whole comeback, and it was thrilling. But it also meant we missed the first few minutes of our first game in nearly 300 hours unless we streamed it.
- I feel like the broader hockey world doesn’t know about the Sidney Crosby / Martin Fehervary hate. It hasn’t broken containment yet. One day it will, and that will be a good day. In the meantime we’ll have to look somewhere elsewhere to see supremely powerful people made irrationally angry by and lashing out at everyday folks.
Goal baby pic.twitter.com/4IJenjFPIC
— Jennifer Bimson (@Jencapsfan74) February 22, 2025
- Jakob Chychrun had a busy afternoon. Ian remarked he could have been whistled for a penalty on each of his first three shifts. Then he scored back-to-back goals, becoming a sort of emcee for the blowout. He’s got 16 goals on the season. Not quite Mike Green levels, but boy he’s thriving.
- I was bemoaning Aliaksei Protas‘s on-ice shot-attempt differential – one for Washington, ten for Pittsburgh – until just before the moment he scored. It’s his 23rd goal of the season. Even on a bad day, he’s a star.
- Alex Ovechkin has never scored on relief goalie Joel Blomqvist, and that Spencer Carbery simply could not abide. Ovi played a nearly five-minute shift in the third period. Blomqvist escapes unpunished.
- Tom Wilson, who scored his 25th goal of the season, absorbed a puck off the stick of Ryan Graves and retreated to the locker room late in the third period.
- We gotta get Sidney Crosby out of Pittsburgh at some point. This is depressing. I can’t remember the last time I saw him play with good teammates. Oh, Thursday. I saw that on Thursday.
— RMNB (@rmnb) February 22, 2025
Maybe I’m just petty, but I’m glad the Washington Capitals had no players at the Four Nations Faceoff. (And I’m glad it was just four nations too.) The Caps needed that break as much as any team. I was hoping when they came back today we would see them back to the play-driving dominance we saw in the first couple months of the season. Instead they merely dominated on the scoreboard. It was kind of messy below the water line, but this is my first Caps game in two weeks and I’m not going to complain. I got to see lots of goals and I got to see Pens and Pens fans look grumpy, and in this barren joyless world that’s enough.
Don’t have to wait long for more hockey. Oilers at home tomorrow at one PM. See you here.
