The Washington Capitals collected two points in Anaheim to kick off their three-game west-coast swing on Tuesday night. The Caps got contributions from all of their big names and pulled away from the Ducks in the third period for a 7-4 victory.
Great game to watch. I will take more hockey like that.
- Overall, this game probably had more offense from Anaheim than Spencer Carbery and his staff would like but the Capitals still put together a pretty great five-on-five performance. They recorded more shot attempts (80-50), scoring chances (37-28), and high-danger chances (21-13) than the Ducks in all three periods. Five Caps had multi-point games and only five Caps did not record at least one point.
- Aliaksei Protas was the big star of the show, recording his first career hat trick. Protas now has 28 goals this season and is now on pace for 73 points (35g, 38a) this year. He has leaped over Jack Hughes among all under-25 players in goal-scoring and now trails just Cole Caufield (32). Aliaksei’s younger brother, Ilya Protas, also had a big night. The 18-year-old forward had four points (1g, 3a) for the OHL’s Windsor Spitfires, giving him 112 points (46g, 66a) in 58 games this season.
- Alex Ovechkin (3a) and Pierre-Luc Dubois (1g, 2a) also had three-point games. Ovechkin posted three assists in a game for the 18th time in his career to give him 53 points (33g, 20a) in 49 games this season. PLD reached the 40-assist mark in a season for the first time and now has 57 points (17g, 40a) in 65 games.
- The Capitals pulled out some extra offense to help Logan Thompson secure a win when he didn’t have his best. Thompson made 25 stops on 29 shots faced and was due for the Caps to somewhat bail him out rather than the reverse which has happened far more this year. Per MoneyPuck, Thompson allowed 0.42 more goals than expected.
- Connor McMichael didn’t score but I thought he was all over the puck again. He finished the game with one assist, four shots on goal, 11 individual shot attempts, eight individual scoring chances, four individual high-danger chances, and one shot block.
- Really nice to see that burst of speed and the finish from Anthony Beauvillier to net his first with the Caps. He has now scored goals for six different NHL teams in the last three years.
