The Washington Capitals picked up a win in their first road game of the season, downing the New Jersey Devils 6-5 in overtime. New Jersey erased two separate Washington two-goal leads but could not escape the early season wrath of Tom Wilson. After ending two opposition win streaks this past week, the Capitals now have a three-game streak of their own.
Despite the final score and game state, the Capitals put together another nice game at five-on-five. Let’s hope this is the new normal. Well, not the whole giving up leads thing. That can stay not normal.
- What a fun one this was, eh? The Capitals came out super strong in the first period, entering the first intermission up 3-1 and having already fired 17 shots on goal. I checked and they had three total games with 17 or fewer shots last season. The start of the second frame was a disaster, giving up two goals in just 10 seconds, but the Caps responded well and managed to edge out the Devils in five-on-five attempts (18-17) and scoring chances (12-10). Washington then completely ran out of gas in the third but still managed to protect their net well, allowing just one high-danger chance.
- The big story of the night was that Tom Wilson just will not stop scoring. The big winger potted two goals, including the overtime winner, to give him five goals in four games to start the season. He sits third in the NHL in goals behind just Nikita Kucherov (7) and Artemi Panarin (6). For reference sake, Wilson scored his fifth goal last season in Washington’s 20th game. Thanksgiving had already happened.
- Alex Ovechkin also opened his 2024-25 account with a weird deflection goal that caromed off his stick blade and then the chest of a Devils defender. I’ll take an Ovi goal any way that I can get it, though. The count to pass Wayne Gretzky for the all-time lead in goals is now down to 41. Ovi had a very busy night overall, leading the Capitals in shots (5), individual shot attempts (10), individual scoring chances (6), and individual high-danger chances (3). He also threw three hits.
- I thought this was Hendrix Lapierre’s strongest game of the young season and the stats back that up. With him on the ice at five-on-five, the Capitals held positive differentials in shot attempts (+7), scoring chances (+5), and high-danger chances (+1). They did not give up a high-danger chance in those minutes nor did they get scored on. Andrew Mangiapane, Lapierre’s linemate, also scored his first goal with the Capitals.
- The numbers don’t love Trevor van Riemsdyk’s performance, but I thought he was superb outside of the turnover at the start of the second period. TVR picked up the beautiful outlet pass assist on Mangiapane’s goal and then fed Dylan Strome a slap pass for another marker. He was the only Capitals skater outside of Jakob Chychrun (27:27) and John Carlson (28:13) to skate over 20 minutes of ice time (22:10).
- Dylan McIlrath played just 7:00 in the game. You have to wonder if Spencer Carbery is thinking about getting Alex Alexeyev his season debut in one of these upcoming games against the Philadelphia Flyers.
