Washington Capitals interrupted their streak of four straight losses with a win over Pittsburgh on Tuesday and now turned the tide completely and started a winning streak by defeating the Buffalo Sabers by a score of 3-1.
The Sabers outnumbered Caps 23 to 21, but were defeated by five to five by 42 to 40.
- The Caps dominated this game for several periods, but outdid themselves in an even bigger victory. Combine that with some incredibly sloppy defensive spells that were rescued by a beam or Vitek Vanecek and you will get a very good victory. I was not particularly happy with the last seven minutes or so in the second period, where they may have gotten a little arrogant and let Buffalo get back in the game with some defensive missions and offensive communication. Buffalo had eight chances of high danger in five against five in this game and five of them in the second period.
- Speaking of Vanecek, I really thought he looked a lot better in this game than on Tuesday against Pittsburgh. He tracked the record extremely well, making some sparkles in the Sabers’ deflection attempts. He stopped 48 of the 50 pitches sent in his last two wins to a 0.960 save percentage and is now tied at seven with Chicago’s Kevin Lankinen for the greatest number of victories among debutant goalkeepers this season.
- The best defensive pair of Caps John Carlson and Brenden Dillon certainly played as a top defensive pair. With the two on the ice in five against five, the Caps saw 62.9 percent of the attempts to shoot, a differential of plus-eight of goal and a differential of plus two for high danger. This is the best pair that I think Peter Laviolette should keep for the rest of this season.
Lars Eller won primary assistance in Sheary’s goal. This marks his 300th career point, the third highest point total among Danish-born players in NHL history. pic.twitter.com/Um2q3mCWjn
– CapitalsPR (@CapitalsPR) February 19, 2021
- Another night when the Caps’ best trio of attackers was their third line of Lars Eller, Conor Sheary, and Richard Panik. It would normally be a terrible thing when Conor Sheary is consistently his best ice skater, but the Caps are working, and Sheary is producing, as he now has goals in consecutive games and four in his last seven.
- It’s not a good night for Nick Schultz and Zdeno Chara pairing. Chara was specifically on the ice five against five for a minus six point chance spread and a minus four point chance spread. I would like to see Chara’s role reduced to what it was before the Caps injury / COVID disaster. Schultz was absolutely killing with almost every other partner and Chara at least saw average results close to Nick Jensen which apparently stepped up his game even more since then.
- Tom Wilson arrived on the board shorthand for sixth place in the season and now has 13 points from 13 games. Are the rest of the league ready for one point per game, Tom?
- Did you know that “Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo” is a grammatically correct phrase in English?
Numbers thanks to Hockey-reference.com and NaturalStatTrick.com.
RMNB cap coverage on penguins
Screenshot courtesy of NBC Sports Washington