The Washington Capitals picked up a huge win on Tuesday night, downing the Detroit Red Wings 4-3 in overtime. The victory kept the Capitals in a playoff spot and furthered the lead that they hold over Detroit in the race for the second wild card position in the Eastern Conference.
This team has found a groove.
- The Capitals played a pretty even game with the Red Wings for the majority of regulation in what really felt like a playoff-type atmosphere with the crowd really into the action and both teams going move for move in a chess-type fashion. In the end, the Capitals got goals from three of their four centers, and the other, Hendrix Lapierre, was the team’s best skater in overtime and used his speed to create Dylan Strome’s game-winner. For a team that started this season with a completely different idea of what their center depth chart would look like, that’s impressive stuff in what is likely the most important game of the season to this point.
- Dylan Strome was obviously the star of the show. He scored two goals in the victory, setting a new career-high of 25 goals and hitting the 60-point mark for the second straight year with the Capitals. Strome took back sole possession of the team’s lead in scoring with the two-point night as Alex Ovechkin was kept off the scoresheet.
- Charlie Lindgren was phenomenal yet again, especially in the second period where Detroit was clearly the better team. Lindgren came up with 30 saves in his 21st win of the season and stopped 0.65 more goals than expected according to MoneyPuck. Among all goaltenders with 30 or more starts this season, he is tied for the 10th-best save percentage (.912), holds the 13th-best goals-against average (2.68), and is tied for the second-most shutouts (5).
The Capitals are 18-2-9 in one-goal games this season. Washington's .621 win percentage in one-goal games is the sixth highest in the NHL.
— CapitalsPR (@CapitalsPR) March 27, 2024
- Connor McMichael scored his 17th goal of the season to open the third period. McMichael has scored three goals in his last four games and has eight points (5g, 3a) in his last eight games. The 17 goals are a new professional career-high for the young center after he potted 16 goals for the Hershey Bears last year.
- Ivan Miroshnichenko received the most ice time in a game of his young NHL career in the win (15:52). The 20-year-old rewarded that trust with another stellar performance. Although he was kept off of the scoresheet, the Capitals were at their best five-on-five with Miro on the ice. In his minutes they held positive differentials in shot attempts (+8), scoring chances (+4), and high-danger chances (+2). He also threw four hits in the game, topped on the team only by Martin Fehervary’s five.
- It’s quite clear that Nicolas Aube-Kubel went straight into Spencer Carbery’s doghouse after he allowed Alex DeBrincat to get inside position on him for an easy goal. NAK only played 4:19 in the entire game and did not receive a shift in the third period.
Numbers thanks to Hockey-reference.com and NaturalStatTrick.com.
