Hello All,
The Washington Capitals lost to the St. Louis Blues 5-2 on home ice last night. The narrative going into this game was pretty simple. The Caps are hot, the Blues are not. The Caps were 7-1-1 in the month of March, while the Blues were just 2-4-3 and riding a 3-game losing streak. During that span, the Caps have averaged exactly 4.00 goals/game which is good for 4th best in the league. The Blues on the other hand were giving up 3.44 goals/game which is ranked 21st in the league in the month of March. I thought for sure the sizzling Caps offense was going to go off but they ended up with flat game.
Stats From the Game:
Shots on Goal: WSH – 21 STL– 38
Shots on Goal (5v5): WSH – 19 STL – 27
Corsi For %: WSH – 40.91% STL – 59.09%
Corsi For % (5v5): WSH – 45.24% STL – 54.76%
Power Play: WSH – 1/2 STL – 1/4
Hits: WSH – 28 STL – 23
Blocks: WSH – 15 STL – 12
Scoring Chances For: WSH – 23 STL – 39
Scoring Chances For (5v5): WSH – 14 STL – 22
High Danger Chances For: WSH– 9 STL – 12
High Danger Chances For (5v5): WSH – 8 STL – 9
My Takeaways:
Vitek Vanecek - I try not to dive straight into goaltending on these takeaways but this was a pretty strange performance to say the least. Vanecek made and has been making some highlight reel saves lately. Last night he had some dandys. At the same time, he let in some tough goals and gave up tons of rebounds. Vanecek stopped 21/21 low danger shots, 8/8 medium danger shots, and saved only 4/8 high danger shots against. In addition, he allowed 5 rebound shots against (this is well above average). When the Blues got in close and got the puck on net, it usually resulted in a goal or a high danger chance. Three of Blues goals were direct rebounds goals. Vanecek really had trouble controlling them last night. Maybe it was just an off night for Vanecek, but it is certainly something to keep an eye on down the stretch.
Kuznetsov is Going Streaking - through the quad...into the gymnasium! lol. Kuzy kicked off the scoring in the first period with a PPG. The Blues shadow pressed Ovechkin in his office and it left Kuzy open on the right side. After a couple passes back and forth, he decided to rip it and the goalie Husso couldn't take the heat. It was a PPG for #92. Kuznetsov is now on a career high 10-game point streak and has 7G-6A-13P over the stretch. The Caps are 7-1-2 over that span as well. Kuznetsov is heating up at the right time. He is playing confidence and doing some pretty crazy stuff on the ice. He is giving up glimpses of when he led the Caps in points during the Stanley Cup run a few years ago. Could you imagine if Kuzy left the Caps let him go? I am getting anxiety just thinking about it.
Tom Wilson Ties Career High Point Total - Wilson had an assist last night and also scored a beautiful goal off a feed from Mantha. In addition, he had two hits and two takeaways. This was enough to earn Wilson the 3rd star of the game. Wilson now 19G-25A-44P on the season which ties a career high. Last time Wilson scored 44 points was in 2019-2020 and he did it in 68 GP. He has now tied that total while playing 7 less games. The Caps still have 17 games left in the regular season. Where does he finish?
Marcus Johansson - Just wanted to touch on Mojo real quick. He Skated 17:56 TOI which was 9th most of 18 eligible skaters. He registered one shot (a pretty decent one if I do say so), one hit, and one giveaway. He also skated a total of 0:36 seconds on the second power play unit. He did not register any scoring chances or shots while on the ice for the PP
Next up, the Capitals travel to Buffalo to face the Sabres on Friday night at 7pm. This is the first half of the next back-to-back for the Caps. They take on the Devils on Saturday at 7pm. Is it just me or do the Caps almost always play the Devils on the weekend? Well I checked the scheduled dating back to last year cause why not. This game against the Devils on Saturday will be the 6th game of the last nine head-to-head that is played on the weekend. Weird. Anyways, that is all for today! Thanks for reading and GO CAPS!
*********************** Stats/Facts/Video Clips Provided By:
nhl.com/stats hockey-reference.com naturalstattrick.com @CapitalsPR Twitter page @Capitals Twitter page @HerseyBears Twitter page >>>Follow me on Twitter @HB_Capitals<<<
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