The Washington Capitals handed the Florida Panthers only their third loss in regulation this season. It was also goaltender Sergei Bobrovsky’s first regulation loss. That’s fun.
Oh, and the dude did the dude stuff again. And I’m not talking Lebowski.
- I really liked the overall effort from the Capitals. It’s not easy playing the Panthers no matter who is in their lineup with the level of hockey they’ve played system-wise the past few years. The Caps are now tied with the Panthers, Leafs, and Hurricanes at 31 points for the most in the league.
- Alex Ovechkin put three past Florida for his 28th career hat trick and now has 18 goals and 36 points in 21 games this season. Ovi also became the oldest player to score a hat trick for the Caps, topping Peter Bondra who did so at age 35 during the 2003-04 season. His second goal was his 1,355th career point which put him past Brendan Shanahan for the 26th most points in NHL history.
- Ovi’s two linemates also had great nights on the scoresheet. Evgeny Kuznetsov tallied another three assists and is now only behind Ovi, Connor McDavid, and Leon Draisaitl in terms of scoring in the entire league. Aliaksei Protas had his first career multi-point game and sure looks like he could eventually become a Viktor Kozlov type force offensively one day. I love Viktor Kozlov’s time with the Caps so that’s a major compliment.
Evgeny Kuznetsov led Capitals skaters with 25:03 time on ice, marking his third highest single-game total during the regular season in his career. Additionally, Kuznetsov's 2:31 shorthanded time on ice against Florida marked the second highest single-game total in his career.
— CapitalsPR (@CapitalsPR) November 27, 2021
- That all-AHL line featuring Brett Leason, Michael Sgarbossa, and Beck Malenstyn have done nothing but just put pressure on opposing defensemen in their short time together in the NHL. They were the only line not to see a Panthers high danger chance against while also creating a couple of their own.
- Bit of an off night for Connor McMichael and his ice time reflected that. He played only seconds more than seven minutes total, the lowest on the team. I thought his line just really couldn’t get much going and I wouldn’t be surprised to see a similar ice time total for him against the Canes and then Panthers again. It feels like to me Lavi is going to lean on his big vet lines against those two teams.
- Martin Fehervary took his first penalty of the season in his 21st game and it was a rather weak call at that. That’s incredibly impressive when you consider how much he has played and the situations he has played in. His pairing with John Carlson has been fantastic recently and with him on the ice at five-on-five in this game the Capitals saw a plus-ten shot attempt differential, a plus-nine scoring chance differential, and a plus-two high danger chance differential.
- Ilya Samsonov was good when he needed to be and has still yet to lose in regulation. He stopped 19 pucks in this one and is now 8-0-1 on the season with a 2.22 goals-against average and a .915-save percentage.
Numbers thanks to Hockey-reference.com and NaturalStatTrick.com.
