The Washington Capitals had nothing go right for them on Thursday night against the Los Angeles Kings. The Caps suffered just their second shutout loss of the season and it came at the hands of the goaltender they dealt to LA last June.
Not a horrible effort but probably a deserved result. Beat the Sharks and head home.
- The Kings are an absolutely smothering team to play against. When they’re on top of their game, it should be like looking into a mirror for the Capitals. That’s definitely what was on display Thursday night, as LA held the Caps to just 0.99 expected goals at five-on-five, which is the second-lowest single-game total for Washington this season.
- Darcy Kuemper, you maddening man, you. The former Caps backstop stopped all 21 shots he faced in his first start against his former team since the trade last summer. Per MoneyPuck, he stopped a brilliant 2.01 more goals than expected, especially locking down the Capitals while they were on the power play.
- Meanwhile, his counterpart, Charlie Lindgren, not so good. Lindgren made 24 saves on 27 shots faced and allowed 0.79 more goals than expected. If I’m being honest, I think Logan Thompson makes a couple more stops than him in this game even though Thompson hasn’t exactly been great lately. I do wonder if Spencer Carbery and co. will decide to stick with mainly Thompson at some point during this final stretch ahead of the playoffs.
- Alex Ovechkin played just 9:55 of five-on-five ice time, third-least on the team. However, he played 8:21 on the power play to make up for that. I do think this was probably his worst game overall since the 4 Nations break. His whole line was just anonymous. Ovi had just three total shot attempts and did not record a shot on goal for only the second time this season.
- Nada on the power play, 0-for-5. Some of that was poor luck but a lot of it was just really bad execution. Entries were an absolute mess. Aliaksei Protas is still on neither unit.
- The Capitals have always struggled on the road in LA. They are just 19-37-6 against the Kings on the road in franchise history.
- The Winnipeg Jets are now ahead of the Caps in the overall league standings based on regulation wins. The two teams have 94 standings points through 66 games but the Jets have one more regulation win (37) than the Capitals (36).
