Banged-up Blackhawks still have enough to beat Capitals: numbers for the morning after

The Washington Capitals didn’t have enough to take out the shorthanded Chicago Blackhawks on Saturday night. The Caps dropped a 3-2 decision in a shootout, needing a third-period goal to earn the loser’s point.

This stretch has been really rough. They have to be beating a very bad Blackhawks team that was missing their two best forwards. Have to.

• No Connor Bedard, no Frank Nazar, and the Capitals still got dominated five-on-five by one of the worst teams in the league. The Blackhawks owned 57.5 percent of the shot attempts, 53 percent of the scoring chances, and 55.6 percent of the expected goals. I know the Capitals were also missing three of their top forwards, but they still have plenty enough to beat a team that will be all over the draft lottery again. This stretch of recent games has been really tough to watch. I guess they just keep going and try to see if things work themselves out…for another week.
• Good to see Ryan Leonard get on the board when the Caps really needed someone to step up in Tom Wilson’s absence. He has points in three straight games and 15 points (5g, 10a) in his last 16 games.
• Logan Thompson is still having all sorts of trouble in the shootout, but he was also probably the biggest reason why the Capitals were even able to get to that point in this game. He made 31 stops on 33 shots faced, and per MoneyPuck, saved 1.29 more goals than expected. Spencer Knight made 32 stops and saved 1.28 more goals than expected at the other end.

• With all the injuries, Connor McMichael played a whole bunch of the game, skating 22:07 of ice time. McMichael created the most individual expected goals (0.84) on the Capitals, but remains heavily snakebitten with any sort of finish.
• We’re still tracking this: Hendrix Lapierre, 6:52 of total ice time, and Sonny Milano, 7:25 of total ice time. Is this just going to continue until Pierre-Luc Dubois is back?
• The Capitals’ next game is against the Anaheim Ducks on January 5. I’m sure I don’t need to remind you what happened when the Caps played the Ducks out west.