The Washington Capitals slapped the Pittsburgh Penguins silly on Saturday afternoon, securing an 8-3 blowout win over their rivals in both teams’ first game back from the 4 Nations Face-Off.
Washington got goals from seven different skaters, and none of them were named Alex Ovechkin. Unbelievable.
- The five-on-five stats in blowouts always get a little weird, so I don’t put too much stock into how this game looks. However, I wasn’t too big a fan of how the Capitals played before their second-period goal explosion. Pittsburgh closed out the first period up 13-5 in five-on-five scoring chances. The Penguins are truly horrible, so just hoping the Caps used this as a warm-up game for the final 26 on the schedule.
- Jakob Chychrun had an absolutely monster game. The 26-year-old rearguard scored two goals, fired a team-high six shots on goal, recorded 11 individual shot attempts, and blocked two shots. With Chychrun on the ice at five-on-five, the Capitals also saw positive differentials in shot attempts (+12), scoring chances (+7), and high-danger chances (+3).
- Pierre-Luc Dubois provided the primary assist on both of Chychrun’s goals and then added a third assist in the third period. The three-assist performance was the ninth of his career and gives him 47 points (13g, 34a) in 56 games this season. Dubois is on pace for a career-best 68 points (18g, 50a).
- Tom Wilson potted his 25th goal of the season, a new single-season career-high. He is on pace for 37 goals this season. Let’s hope he’s alright after leaving the game early, likely with some sort of rib/side injury.
- Aliaksei Protas scored his 23rd goal of the season, which was also his 100th career NHL point. Per the Capitals, Protas, drafted by Washington in the third round (91st overall) of the 2019 NHL Draft, is the 13th player from his draft class to reach the 100-point mark. Only one player ahead of him, Utah’s Matias Maccelli (130), was drafted after him.
- Not Logan Thompson’s best game of the season but he was still great. The 27-year-old stop won his 25th game for Washington, stopping 29 of the 32 shots he faced. Per MoneyPuck, he saved 1.34 more goals than expected, which is a lot more than I expected when I started writing this bullet a few seconds ago.
