The Washington Capitals rolled over the New York Rangers at Capital One Arena on Friday night. After going down 1-0 in the first period, the Caps scored three unanswered goals to take the two points in regulation.
Never not fun to beat the Rangers. I will take three more like that this regular season.
- The Capitals dominated the first two periods at five-on-five, ending 40 minutes up 34-19 in shot attempts, 17-8 in shots, 16-9 in scoring chances, and 8-4 in high-danger chances. However, they turtled in the third and really had to lean on their goaltender to maintain their slim, one-goal advantage. In the final regulation frame, the Rangers flipped the script and dominated: 13-4 in shots, 7-2 in shots on goal, 7-1 in scoring chances, and 4-1 in high-danger chances. Need to clean up the closing of games.
- As I already stated, Logan Thompson was phenomenal, but it’s honestly becoming rare that he isn’t at this point. Thompson made 21 stops on the 22 shots he faced and, per MoneyPuck, saved 1.89 more goals than expected. Before he left due to injury, Igor Shesterkin saved 0.86 more goals than expected, and Dylan Garand saved 0.36 more goals than expected in relief.
- The two goals the Capitals scored against a Rangers goaltender in the victory were both firsts with the team, from Timothy Liljegren and Boone Jenner. Both of those guys have been incredibly solid to start the season, so it’s good to see them rewarded on the scoresheet. Liljegren has been so solid with Jakob Chychrun that it makes me wonder whether the coaching staff will consider moving Matt Roy to another pairing to spread out the defensive depth.
- I have to say that I didn’t love how the power play looked. They managed to create just one high-danger chance on their three opportunities. Not enough pucks were getting to the interior.
- Tom Wilson scored into an empty net, making him the team’s new scoring leader with five points (2g, 3a) through four games. His line with Alex Tuch and Pierre-Luc Dubois was excellent again, aside from a few third-period shifts I didn’t love.
- Dylan McIlrath had a pretty brutal first period, taking a bad penalty that led to New York’s lone goal and getting burned a few other times. Caps head coach Spencer Carbery clearly saw that, and McIlrath didn’t leave the bench for most of the rest of the game. He finished with just 4:58 of total ice time.
Numbers thanks to Hockey-Reference, NaturalStatTrick, and HockeyStatCards.
