Capitals finally falter on the road in a really tough building

   

The Washington Capitals finally lost on the road. Their 3-1 defeat at the hands of the Dallas Stars on Monday night was their first loss on the road since November 3 against the Carolina Hurricanes.

Dallas Stars vs. Washington Capitals score recap | December 16, 2024 |  wfaa.com

The Capitals got goalie’d by Jake Oettinger. There’s not much you can do about that.

  • Spencer Carbery was happy with his team’s five-on-five process in the game and, per usual, he was on the money. The Capitals were the clearly better team at five-on-five, out-attempting Dallas 52-36 and out-chancing them 28-17. A lot of bounces have gone Washington’s way up until this point of the season. They got none of them in this game.
  • I mentioned Jake Oettinger in the intro because he was one of the primary drivers of the Stars’ win. Oettinger made 30 stops and, per MoneyPuck, saved 1.42 goals above expected.
  • The other main contributing factor in the loss was the Capitals losing the special teams battle. They went 0-for-4 on their power play and allowed a Dallas power-play goal on two attempts.
  • Dylan Strome scored the club’s lone goal. Strome is riding a four-game point streak, recording four points (3g, 1a) in those games.
  • Since 2000, Dallas is 25-9-1 against Washington. The Capitals have not won three games in a row against the Stars since 1990 when Dallas was Minnesota and the Stars were the North Stars.
  • Spencer Carbery is not loving Hendrix Lapierre right now. Lapierre played just 7:02 of ice time in the game, giving him a combined 14:32 of ice time in his last two games.