The Washington Capitals are flying back to DC and I wouldn’t be surprised if they had Britney Spears’ “Oops!… I Did It Again” blasting in the plane cabin. After Friday night, I don’t believe many thought the Caps would be able to match the type of effort that they displayed in Game One, but man they sure did with a 6-2 win over the Tampa Bay Lightning in Game Two.
The Capitals out-shot the Lightning 37 to 35 and out-attempted them at five-on-five 45 to 43.
- Lets get the more negative stuff out of the way first. The two penalties that led to both Lightning goals were incredibly weak and the latter one was just plain wrong, nope, what, why, no, come on. Brad Meier called both. Being an official in the NHL is an incredibly hard job, but man those are absolutely killer at such an important stage of the season. No bueno.
- Last semi-negative, I promise. This one the Caps don’t really need to hear because they’ve been parroting it since the game ended, but they’re only half way there. Need to come out strong at home and wrap this bad boy up. They cannot let the Lightning feel any positive momentum.
- Now, lets talk about the utterly brilliant postseason that Lars Eller is having. Lars now has 11 points in 14 games and has been successful at the seemingly impossible task of making people forget that Nicklas Backstrom has been out of the lineup for three games now. His line, featuring TJ Oshie and Jakub Vrana, was tremendous once again and when Backstrom returns, I hope that head coach Barry Trotz still keeps the trio intact. Eller himself at five-on-five posted a 68.2 percent shot attempt percentage, 72.7 percent scoring chance for percentage, and was not on the ice for a single Lightning high danger chance.
- Alex Ovechkin‘s tenth goal of this playoffs now has him four shy of the single-season, franchise playoff scoring record currently held by John Druce (14). Ovechkin and Evgeny Kuznetsov both had multi-point nights and now have 19 points apiece in this postseason. That is currently good for the league lead among players still active in this years playoffs.
- Brett Connolly and Devante Smith-Pelly both scored their third goal of the playoffs in Sunday night’s victory. The Caps need the depth scoring that has come up so clutch so far to continue through the rest of this series and potentially onward.
- Another standout from tonight has to be Dmitry Orlov. For my money, he’s been the best defenseman on a very, very good team for two straight seasons now. Orlov led all defensemen in the game in five-on-five shot attempt percentage (67.7 percent) and his partner Matt Niskanen led all defensemen in five-on-five scoring chance for percentage (75 percent). More impressively, a ton of that success came against talented Lightning forwards like Brayden Point, Ondrej Palat, Steven Stamkos, and Nikita Kucherov.
- The Capitals are now 7-1 on the road in this postseason. Those seven road wins lead the league and tie a franchise record that was set in 1998, the club’s only past Stanley Cup Final run.
- John Carlson‘s assist on Smith-Pelly’s goal was his 13th point of the playoffs. That point and his later assist on Connolly’s goal moved him past Kevin Hatcher (12), Scott Stevens (12), and himself in 2016 (12) for sole possession of the franchise record for highest scoring blueliner in a single postseason.
- Finally, I’m including the below visual because yet again it’s so beautiful, let me know if you guys want it to regularly feature in these morning posts going forward.
Numbers thanks to Hockey-reference.com, Hockeystats.ca, NaturalStatTrick.com, and Corsica.hockey.
Full RMNB Coverage of Game Two
Headline Photo: Mark LoMoglio
