Hello All

The Washington Capitals escaped with a 5-4 victory over the New York Rangers on Sunday. The Capitals played a pretty dominate game up until the third period where they let another 3+ goal evaporate into thin air. I thought of all five games that the Capitals have played against the Rangers this season so far, this game was their most dominating performance.

Here are my takeaways from the game:

Another Big Lead Almost Squandered –Kuznetsov scored with 14:50 left in the third period to make it a 4-0 lead for the Capitals. For most teams, this is a comfortable lead. For the Capitals this season…no lead is safe! The trend of blowing big leads in the third period is becoming problematic. Fortunately for the Capitals, it has not burned them significantly yet, but man are they playing with fire. The Rangers found life in the third period and scored four goals on nine shots on Samsonov. The Caps are lucky the Rangers did not tie it, they had a couple great looks as the third period was winding down.

Tom Wilson – The NBC broadcast crew was borderline hating on Tom Wilson early in the game. Whatever, fine. He has earned the reputation as most would say. Wilson quickly silenced the haters and scored two goals in the second period against the Rangers. One was a real nifty play where he batted the puck out of midair. Wilson was everywhere on the ice tonight for better and for worse. He had two minor penalties called against him and one directly led to the Ranger PPG that made it a 5-4 game with 3:52 left in the game

Ovechkin Stays Hot – Ovechkin is on a tear right now. His goal today was more luck than skill but sometimes players know when to just put the puck on net. Good things tend to happen when you are on fire. Ovechkin has scored nine goals in his last 11 games, and scored 11 goals in 13 games since March 1st, which ties him with Colorado’s Mikko Rantanen (11g, 10a) for the most goals among all players over that span. Ovechkin is now eight goals shy of surpassing Marcel Dionne (731g) for fifth place on the NHL's all-time list.

Capitals Limiting Shots – The Capitals did a great job of limiting really any and all New York Rangers attempts to generate offense. I do not have the exact time but there was a point in the third period where the Rangers still had only mustered 11 SOG. That very well could have been on pace for the lowest total of the season. They finished with 20. Credit the Capitals for making life difficult for the Rangers to get anything going for the first 45 minutes of the game.

Although the game did not finish how the Capitals were expecting, they did put forth a very strong effort against a New York Rangers team who really seems to be heating up as of late. The Capitals were fortunate to be catching the Rangers on the second half of a back-to-back. I have said it before and I will say it again, this Rangers team is pretty dang good when they are rolling. Since Rangers got back to full strength, they have been one playing some great hockey. Specifically since 03/01, the Rangers are 8-6-1 which is good for the 13th best record in the NHL over that span. The Capitals are 15-2-1 over their last 18 games.

The Capitals and Rangers play again tomorrow 03/30 at MSG at 7pm ET
Thanks for reading and Go Caps

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