The Washington Capitals didn’t show up on Saturday night in Winnipeg. In clear tribute to John Cena’s last match happening simultaneously back home at Capital One Arena, the Capitals were invisible the whole 5-1 loss.
Need a big bounce back against the Minnesota Wild.
- Yeah, there is nothing good to say about that performance from the Capitals. They were utterly dominated by the Jets all night, recording just three five-on-five high-danger chances and allowing 13. The late power plays made their overall results look a lot better than they deserved. Some of the recent play is a bit concerning. They need to get back to the form they had earlier in the season.
- Alex Ovechkin recorded an assist on Jakob Chychrun’s goal to break Connor Hellebuyck’s shutout bid. With the point, Ovechkin (611) passed Jaromir Jagr (610) for the 10th-most power-play points in NHL history. I thought Ovi and his regular center, Dylan Strome, really, really struggled overall during most of the game, though, and even got separated by Spencer Carbery toward the end of regulation.
- Not the most fun game to make your NHL debut, but one Bogdan Trineyev will always remember nonetheless. Trineyev was arguably the team’s best forward in the loss, skating 11:45 of ice time on the team’s fourth line with Nic Dowd and Brandon Duhaime. With him on the ice five-on-five, the Capitals were up 15-8 in shot attempts, 9-4 in shots on goal, 7-3 in scoring chances, and 2-0 in high-danger chances. You don’t need me to tell you that a stat line that positive was incredibly rare from a Caps player in that game.
- Jakob Chychrun’s goal was his 12th of the season, and he still leads all NHL defensemen in goals. Cale Makar is the only other rearguard in double digits, still sitting at 10 goals.
- The power play struck on their late 5-on-3 advantage, but it was completely miserable to watch outside of that. They haven’t scored a five-on-four goal since Ryan Leonard was injured in Anaheim.
- Logan Thompson allowed five goals on 35 shots faced, and, per MoneyPuck, saved 1.18 fewer goals than expected. He was the least of the team’s worries, and that number is probably more just the result of the team in front of him failing to do much of anything for 55 minutes of the 60-minute contest.
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