The Washington Capitals have had two main performance issues this season and those are the inability to get even league average goaltending and special teams that consistently lose them games.
That was on display again in a 5-4 loss to the Columbus Blue Jackets.
- The Capitals didn’t exactly blow the Blue Jackets out of the water at five-on-five but they did enough to where the talent discrepancy between the two teams should have tilted the game in their favor. They out-chanced Columbus 14 to 5 in the third period but yet were still outscored 2-1 including the very later Boone Jenner winning strike.
- That goal was one of a few really soft ones let in by a Capitals goaltender on the night. That was Ilya Samsonov‘s lone goal allowed on seven shots after he came into the game in relief but man was that rebound all sorts of terrible. Pheonix Copley didn’t exactly have the toughest workload in the world but still let in four goals on 19 shots and probably showed why he has been in the AHL for the past few seasons.
- The one move made pregame by the Caps coaching brass to try and bring life to the power play was taking Evgeny Kuznetsov off the top unit for Lars Eller. They soon realized that Kuznetsov is the sole reason they’re ever able to get the puck into the zone so they put him back in his regular spot and he scored. That doesn’t exactly instill any more confidence in me that the staff knows what to do at all to fix that thing. The penalty kill also allowed two goals on only three Columbus tries and since January 1 is the 29th best penalty kill in the league. That’s bad.
Alex Ovechkin recorded the primary assist on Kuznetsov's goal. With that assist, Ovechkin has passed Sergei Zubov (619) for the third most assists by a Russian player in NHL history.
— CapitalsPR (@CapitalsPR) February 9, 2022
- Really nice night again from Martin Fehervary who continues to be a light in the darkness a lot of nights. With him on the ice five-on-five (16:37, second only to Orlov) the Caps out-attempted Columbus 29 to 14, outshot them 14 to 6, outscored them 2 to 0, out-scoring chanced them 16 to 5, and out-high danger chanced them 6 to 2.
- John Carlson recorded an assist on the Kuznetsov goal to give him 557 career points, passing Dale Hunter for sixth most points in franchise history.
- Another strong night from the fourth line as they chipped in two early goals. Carl Hagelin scored that goal in spirit if not in reality.
Numbers thanks to Hockey-reference.com and NaturalStatTrick.com.
