Pierre-Luc Dubois scores first five-on-five goal for Capitals against Avalanche: ‘It’s always nice scoring, but it’s even better when you win’

The Washington Capitals fell 2-1 to the Colorado Avalanche Thursday night, but the game wasn’t entirely a wash. Pierre-Luc Dubois scored late in the first period to give the Capitals a 1-0 lead. The tally marked just his second goal all year.

Though Dubois scored against the Philadelphia Flyers on October 23, that goal came on an empty net, making Thursday night’s tally the first time Dubois scored on a goaltender this season.

Shortly after a scoring chance for Colorado, Dubois’ line drove the puck into the offensive zone, where he deflected a Tom Wilson pass through Avalanche goaltender Alexandar Georgiev and into the net.

Dubois credited Tom Wilson and Connor McMichael for their help on the play, which managed to both stop Colorado’s opportunity and score on one of their own.

“Yeah, it’s a nice play by Tom,” he said. “I don’t know if Mikey gets an assist on that, but if he doesn’t forecheck, we don’t get that goal. So it’s little things like that that I think our line does really well. We compliment each other well in that sense where some nights it could be Mikey — a lot of nights it’s Mikey — but some nights it’s Tom. But we help each other out and we get goals at the end of the day. So it’s a nice pass by him, but a really nice play by Mikey too.”

Though Dubois hasn’t notched many goals himself, that doesn’t mean he hasn’t produced offensively. He has 13 points (2g, 11a) in 19 games, while his trio with McMichael and Wilson has scored 15 goals at five-on-five.

Carbery noted Thursday morning that he wasn’t concerned about Dubois’ lack of goals, though he hoped his offensive efforts eventually bore fruit.

“I do wish that some were going in for him,” he said then. “I think everybody wants to score and wants to produce. His setups and assists and his distribution and zone entries…he should be really proud of the way that he’s playing, regardless of whether pucks are going in the net for him.”

He also noted that Dubois’ underlying stats have remained strong. Per MoneyPuck, Dubois had 5.8 expected goals on the season as of Thursday morning, ranking fourth on the team behind Alex Ovechkin, McMichael, and Wilson. The Caps have outscored their opponents 18-10, out-chanced them 127-110, and have 55.8 percent of expected goals at five-on-five with Dubois on the ice, per Natural Stat Trick, and Dubois ranks third on the team in individual scoring chances (35).

“The great thing I think about where sports in general, but our sport is going — and this is how I feel like it helps ease Dubie’s mind — is everyone now has all the analytics and they know it and they understand it, for the most part,” Carbery said. “So his expected goal rate and all that stuff, everybody knows it. They’re like, ‘Damn. This guy is controlling play. He’s playing against the best competition every night. He’s doing this, this and this.’

“So I think that gives players a little bit more — you used to open the newspaper and every team’s stat lines were in there and you’d [go], “Oh, this guy’s good. This guy’s not doing well. This guy’s…’ It goes so much deeper than that. So I think it gives him a little bit of confidence and puts his mind at ease that just because he has one empty net goal this year, he’s had a phenomenal start to the year.”

Postgame, however, Carbery noted that Dubois’ line struggled to contain Colorado’s top players Thursday night, even despite them scoring the team’s lone goal.

“That [goal] was great. I mean, I was happy for him. But this was the first night that his line struggled. And you’ve got to tip your cap to [Nathan] MacKinnon and his line, and [Mikko] Rantanen, [Jared Bednar] was using Rantenen with him and [Jonathan] Drouin, but they ate that line up tonight. Which, we were thinking about changing the match up, maybe you get away from it. But they’ve been so good in those minutes and in those matchups. I just think [MacKinnon’s] line really elevated their game and gave us some issues.”

Here, too, the numbers back up Carbery’s point. With the second line on the ice at five-on-five, the Avalanche notched 11 scoring chances to the Capitals’ five, recording 54.47% of expected goals. At times, Carbery tried swapping Dubois out for Dylan Strome, though with that trio skating just 1:19 on ice at five-on-five, there’s not much of a sample size for comparison.

Dubois’ goal saw him finally get on the scoresheet after seeming snakebitten for much of the season. Still, he found it hard to fully enjoy the milestone.

“I mean, it’s always nice scoring, but it’s even better when you win.”