The Washington Capitals simply did not show up to Capital One Arena on Saturday night. In an ever-frustrating, hard-to-watch game, the Caps came out 7-1 losers to the Ottawa Senators.
Adding to my personal frustration was how inept the Caps seemed to be with getting pucks on Senators goaltender Linus Ullmark. The Senators blocked 24 shots, and the Capitals missed the net 16 more times.
You can see that displayed in this great visual from Benchrates, a stats outlet that I think is a new must-follow this season.
- Burn the tapes, burn the camera used to record the tapes, don’t burn the cameraperson, but maybe burn your television if you’re feeling it. Just as I remarked earlier this season that I thought the Capitals had played one of their best games in years against the Minnesota Wild, I think they just played one of their worst against the Senators. They ended the night with 13 shots on goal, and seven of those came in the third period, when the result was already long decided.
- The Capitals owned just 33.1 percent of the five-on-five expected goals, a mark worse than all but three games last year. And, the Capitals actually won all three of those games.
- Poor Charlie Lindgren was completely left out to dry. He made 25 saves on 32 shots faced, and per MoneyPuck, he only allowed 0.93 more goals than expected. That’s how bad the Capitals’ team defense was in front of him. Woof.
- The Capitals went 0-for-2 on the power play, and the Senators scored three power-play goals. In my opinion, both special teams units remain a problem despite recent success. I still don’t know what the team’s power-play identity is, and their penalty kill sinks way too far into their own zone for my liking. To put it bluntly, the Caps have way too hard a time getting set up while up a man, and opposing teams find it way, way, way too easy to get in the zone against their penalty kill.
- I think Jakob Chychrun had a really tough night fighting the puck, and I would not be surprised if that wasn’t due to some physical and mental fatigue. He played 25:19 of ice time against the Columbus Blue Jackets and then played 24:46 in this loss to the Senators. He was by no means the only Capitals player to have a bad night, and he was far from the worst. I’m just carrying on an observation from yesterday’s post.
- Ryan Leonard earned the primary assist on Trevor van Riemsdyk’s goal. Leonard is now on a four-game point streak, recording four points (2g, 2a) in those games.
Numbers thanks to Hockey-Reference, NaturalStatTrick, and Benchrates.
