In defiance of a healthy sleep schedule, the Washington Capitals played a road game with the Anaheim Ducks on Tuesday night and Wednesday morning. If you had a normal bedtime, I promise you didn’t miss much.
Early in the first period, Anaheim’s Cam Fowler got one past Vitek Vanecek that perhaps should have been stopped. After a quiet second period, Garret Pilon deflected Martin Fehervary’s point shot to record his first NHL goal and tie the game. Trevor Zegras restored Anaheim’s lead with a rush goal, but Tom Wilson re-tied it with a deflection on John Carlson’s blue-line shot.
In overtime, Zegras won it for the Ducks.
Caps lose.
- The Ducks and Caps both entered this game with win streaks. Both now have active point streaks, I guess. The Ducks remain red hot.
- Anaheim controlled play for the first two periods, but the Caps came alive late in the third, mustering up that super-late-night comeback for a stolen standings point.
- Washington was without Lars Eller (COVID protocol) in addition to a zillion other players, most of them centers, so the Caps used a ton of youths in this weird road game. Those youths showed up big when it counted.
- But it came at the cost of faceoffs, which I don’t think matter much at scale. If I did, I’d rag on Kuznetsov for losing more than a dozen of them, but it’s fine. Really.
- Nick Jensen (or Alex Jonsson-Fjallby) scored a good goal in the first period, but it was correctly canceled for the Caps being brazenly offside a million years earlier in the play.
- Fowler’s goal in the first period shouldn’t have happened. That was certainly a soft one to give Ryan Getzlaf his 1000th career point for the primary assist. Would have been nice if Vitek Vanecek had that one.
- Then again, Vanecek stood strong in a two-on-none rush late in the second period, followed by a long shift without his stick. We can’t put this one solely on the goalie.
Vanecek denies the 2-on-0! pic.twitter.com/xg1a1QSZzy
— NHL GIFs (@NHLGIFs) November 17, 2021
- Garrett Pilon became Washington’s fifth rookie to score his first career goal, following Fehervary, McMichael, Lapierre, and Leason. I thought Protas was about to get his late in this one. A very fun trend to follow for an otherwise geriatric team.
- At the other end of the lineup, Evgeny Kuznetsov got hard-countered by the Getzlaf line, basically halting Washington’s top-end offense. Aside from the faceoff stats, which were hilarious, this was a snoozer for the Caps’ stars.
Ol’ @JoeBpXp looking good, will be ready even at last call#joebsuitofthenight#RMNBafterdark pic.twitter.com/A8DSjSQys0
— good tweet pete taco emoji (@peterhassett) November 17, 2021
Thanks to everyone who shared photos of your sleeping pets. You can scan the pics here. Makes my night, every time. Another late night tonight/tomorrow. See you then. Sweet dreams.
