The Washington Capitals couldn’t get anything going in a loss to the red-hot St. Louis Blues on Tuesday night. The team fell 3-0 to the Blues to start their three-game road trip.
If you weren’t convinced that this season was done yet, I’m sure you are now. Yikes.
- I mean…there isn’t much good to talk about from any of the three periods in this game. They didn’t have a single period in which they led in five-on-five shot attempts, scoring chances, high-danger chances, or expected goals. You don’t win many of those games. I can’t even really come up with a takeaway for you because they were equally ineffective throughout the 60 minutes. I guess recording just one high-danger chance in the third period is hard to swallow, but some poor officiating also played a role.
- Heading into that third period, the Capitals had gotten help around the league, as the Boston Bruins, New York Islanders, Pittsburgh Penguins, and Philadelphia Flyers all lost in regulation. The Caps took that “help” and threw it in the garbage disposal. According to MoneyPuck, they have again halved their playoff odds, now at just 3.7 percent. Time to lose out for a better draft pick, folks.
- Joel Hofer didn’t have much to do, but when called upon, he was tremendous for the Blues. He stopped all 21 shots he faced, notching his sixth shutout of the season. That’s an incredible number of shutouts for a goalie on a team still outside of the playoff picture.
- Now that you’ve read the tweet above… they technically did what I asked, registering 7, but that’s not exactly the sort of improvement that I wanted to see. Exactly four Capitals players, Alex Ovechkin, Anthony Beauvillier, Cole Hutson, and Jakob Chychrun, fired more than one shot on goal at five-on-five, and all of them had just two.
- Rasmus Sandin has been one of the better Capitals lately, but, oh boy, did the team struggle with him on the ice in this loss. During his five-on-five minutes, the team ended the game down 26-7 in shot attempts, 12-5 in shots, 2-0 in goals, 12-3 in scoring chances, and 8-0 in high-danger chances. His partner, Martin Fehervary, certainly contributed to that.
- Ivan Miroshnichenko played 8:40 of ice time in his first game during this stint with the Capitals. He recorded three shot attempts, one of which rang the post, one individual scoring chance, and three hits.
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