The Washington Capitals destroyed the Boston Bruins in the game before the deadline and let the Philadelphia Flyers have some of that same medicine in the game right after the deadline. The Caps put another half dozen on the board in a 6-1 victory.
The Caps outshot the Flyers 32 to 30 but were out-attempted at five-on-five 48 to 37.
- The third period where the Flyers were just beating up on the Caps fourth line who I thought were poor overall in this game even though they scored, clouds statistically what this game really was. Another absolute beatdown from a Washington team that is definitely out of that mini funk they were going through pre-deadline. At five-on-five they controlled 65-percent of the expected goals in the first period and 57-percent of the expected goals in the second period.
- The Caps power play also stayed incredibly hot with a three-for-three effort after going three-for-six in Boston on Sunday. Those two games have the Caps sitting at 27.4-percent on the man advantage this season which is good for second in the NHL, behind only the Carolina Hurricanes at 28.2-percent.
- The new guy in town was impressive. Anthony Mantha picked up the secondary assist (100th of his career) on Tom Wilson‘s goal and sniped home a goal of his own in the second period. I thought that second line of Mantha, TJ Oshie, and Nicklas Backstrom looked fantastic, and the numbers back that up as with the trio on the ice at five-on-five the Caps out-attempted Philly 13 to 8, out-scoring chanced them 8 to 1, and out-high danger chanced them 3 to 1.
The Capitals’ 150 goals for this season are tied with Colorado for the most in the NHL.
— CapitalsPR (@CapitalsPR) April 14, 2021
- Conor Sheary casually picked up his first three-point game since late December of 2019. He has three goals and five points in his last two games. That third-line overall was very fun to watch as it seems like Lars Eller is finally, fully back and Daniel Sprong really had his skating legs. Sprong looks like someone who is going to score soon.
- Dmitry Orlov and John Carlson are always going to be quite the high-event pair and I’m honestly okay with that because they have offensive skill from the backend that not many pairings do in this league. Orlov was on the ice for all three of the Caps goals at even strength.
- Ilya Samsonov responded to Vitek Vanecek‘s stellar recent run with a 29-save, one goal against effort of his own. A few saves he made in the final five minutes of regulation were bonkers.
Numbers thanks to Hockey-reference.com and NaturalStatTrick.com.
RMNB Coverage of Caps vs Flyers
Headline photo: KP8 Design
