The Washington Capitals couldn’t repeat their Friday night success in Raleigh when they took the ice against the Tampa Bay Lightning on Saturday. The Caps fell into a 2-0 hole after a poor first period and never recovered, ultimately losing 3-1 after allowing an empty-net marker late in regulation.
Playing back-to-back road games as your first two of the season should be illegal. Especially since the Caps don’t have a game in any of the next three days. What kinda scheduling is that?
- Yeah, this one was not a good look for the Capitals at five-on-five. We’ll give them some leeway given it was a back-to-back so early in the season, but that first period was bad. Tampa Bay were up 18-9 in shot attempts, 8-5 in scoring chances, 2-0 in high-danger chances, and 2-0 in goals after 20 minutes. The Caps sorta fought back from there, but still weren’t great. The game finished with the Lightning up 2.11-1.41 in five-on-five expected goals.
- Justin Sourdif scored the team’s lone goal, redirecting a sweet feed from Jakob Chychrun. Boone Jenner also recorded an assist on the marker, his first point tallied as a member of the Capitals. I felt like the club’s fourth line, completed by Anthony Beauvillier, was their best overall trio in the game, although that’s not saying much.
- Charlie Lindgren was pretty great in his first action of the season, stopping 27 of the 29 shots he faced in the loss. According to MoneyPuck, he saved 1.09 more goals than expected, 0.43 fewer than what Andrei Vasilevskiy put up in Tampa Bay’s cage.
- Matt Roy left the game after the second period with a lower-body injury, and the Capitals were chasing the game, so Chychrun played a ton of hockey. He finished with 27:10 of ice time, 6:07 more than the next top Caps skater, Cole Hutson (21:03). Chychrun finished with an assist, two shots on goal, eight shot attempts, three individual scoring chances, one individual high-danger chance, a drawn penalty, and one shot block.
- After a career-low 12:46 of ice time against the Hurricanes, Alex Ovechkin saw a little more of the ice against Tampa Bay, skating 13:34. However, he did not record a single shot on goal. It appeared he deflected that last-second attempt that hit the crossbar, unlucky not to score his first goal of the season.
- I thought Alex Tuch really came alive in the second half of the game, and he is clearly the team’s best player through their first two games. Tuch played 17:52 of ice time in the loss, recording one shot, four shot attempts, two individual scoring chances, one individual high-danger chance, and two hits. Really loving what we’re seeing from Tuch early on. Need more from Jordan Kyrou, though.
Numbers thanks to Hockey-Reference, NaturalStatTrick, and HockeyStatCards.
