Capitals escape Edmonton with two points despite poor five-on-five effort

The Washington Capitals didn’t do much good in Edmonton on Tuesday night, but they did enough. The good guys escaped Alberta with two points against a McDavid-less Oilers squad.

Another game that they win because they have a near-untouchable goaltender right now.

• There was a lot of talk postgame about how this was a good performance from the Capitals. In the sense that they stole two road points against probably the top team in the Western Conference? Sure. In the sense that it was a good sign for their future? Oh, hell no. Washington was out-attempted 60-28, out-scoring chanced 34-15, and out-high danger chanced 18-8 at five-on-five. The Caps haven’t given up more five-on-five high-danger chances in another game this season. This was their worst defensive effort, statistically, since last year. They just have Logan Thompson.
• Thompson gave up two goals on 32 shots, his “worst” game among this run of five straight starts. Per MoneyPuck, he stopped an absurd 3.05 more goals than expected. He is THE reason the Capitals won. Don’t get that twisted.
• Alex Ovechkin played the fourth fewest five-on-five minutes (10:58) of any Capitals skater, and that’s probably because the team was getting killed with his line on the ice. During Ovi’s minutes, Washington saw negative differentials in shot attempts (-12), scoring chances (-6), and high-danger chances (-4). They also only recorded one shot on goal.

• To prove I’m not just a negative Nancy, I do need to give props to the penalty kill. They killed off all three of Edmonton’s power-play opportunities and only allowed one shot on goal while up a man. So, maybe giving Thompson all the credit for the win wasn’t entirely accurate but instead just mostly accurate.
• Pierre-Luc Dubois had another multi-point game (1g, 1a). He has 10 points (4g, 6a) in 10 games this month and 38 points (9g, 29a) in 47 games this season. He is on pace for a career-high 66 points (16g, 50a).
• Per the Capitals, the team’s current 11-game point streak is tied for the eighth longest in franchise history and marks the team’s first point streak of 11 or more games since the 2019-20 season. They’ve done that while playing their worst hockey of the season. So, despite my being worried about the current state of their five-on-five play, you can always just point to the actual results.