The Washington Capitals secured a Big Apple sweep after dispatching the New York Rangers in an entertaining 1-0 victory on Sunday night. After a relatively easy stroll through the New York Islanders on Saturday, the Rangers provided more of a test, one that the Caps just barely passed.
Not the best effort in the world, but you’ll take two points on the road against a division rival in the back half of a back-to-back every single time. Well in, lads.
- The Capitals were far too leaky defensively in this game, especially compared to their lockdown effort on Long Island. The second period, in particular, was sloppy, and they seemed to keep putting themselves in bad situations through poor passing and decision-making. After 40 minutes, the Rangers had created 10 five-on-five high-danger chances compared to the Capitals’ two, and the Caps recorded zero in the entire second period. The good guys responded better in the third, really shutting things down in front of their goaltender, which is hopefully more of what we see moving forward.
- Charlie Lindgren was absolutely phenomenal, stopping all 35 shots that he faced in the 10th shutout of his career. Per MoneyPuck, Lindgren stopped 3.34 more goals than expected, while Jonathan Quick also had a great game for New York, stopping 1.17 more goals than expected. In his career against the Rangers, Lindgren is now 4-1 with a 1.19 goals-against average, a .957 save percentage, and two shutouts.
- Anthony Beauvillier scored the lone goal in the game, deftly tipping home another great pass from Alex Ovechkin. The assist was Ovechkin’s 1,625th career point, leaving him 16 points shy of tying Joe Sakic (1,641) for the 10th most points in NHL history.
- The win featured a rare bad night from Pierre-Luc Dubois and his linemates, Aliaksei Protas and Tom Wilson. With the three on the ice at five-on-five, the Capitals recorded negative differentials in shot attempts (-10), shots (-8), scoring chances (-5), and high-danger chances (-5). Dubois also left the game injured in the third period, with head coach Spencer Carbery providing no status update postgame.
- If Dubois does need to come out of the lineup, I would really love to see Ryan Leonard given more ice time. I’m about to drop a hot take here – I think Leonard is already the most dynamic Capitals player at speed with the puck on his stick. He can change the game by himself with one rush up the ice. He had one particular zone entry in this game where he beat three Rangers by himself and made a pinpoint pass to start the Caps on an attack. He has yet to play more than 13:13 of ice time in a game this season. His highest amount of ice time last season was 16:35, which I’d like to see again.
- I have to give some love to the penalty kill after questioning them in Sunday morning’s post. The PK went 2-for-2 at a very pivotal moment in the game, basically killing off four straight minutes of the second period. Lindgren was again a big part of that, but so were guys like Rasmus Sandin, Matt Roy, Nic Dowd, and Brandon Duhaime.
Numbers thanks to Hockey-Reference, NaturalStatTrick, and HockeyStatCards.
