The Washington Capitals are still working their way through this bout of inconsistent play. They showed some better signs on Wednesday night in a 2-1 win against the Vancouver Canucks but still clearly aren’t all the way there.
Luckily, there are some individual players really stepping up right now to carry the team through this spell.
- Outside of only recording six shots on goal, the first period looked more like the Capitals of about a month or so ago. They completely nullified Vancouver at five-on-five, preventing the Canucks from creating a single high-danger chance with all 10 skaters on the ice. And, they created seven high-danger chances of their own. Unfortunately, they reversed course in the second period, getting out-attempted 26-18 and beat out in high-danger chances 9-4. The third period was played pretty even, but Washington only recorded two shots on goal in the final frame. That just cannot happen. They ended regulation with just 13 total shots on goal.
- Pierre-Luc Dubois got all of the headlines postgame and for good reason. He scored both goals in the contest, extending his point streak to five games. Washing was yet again phenomenal with him on the ice at five-on-five, seeing positive differentials in shot attempts (+11), scoring chances (+8), and high-danger chances (+4). PLD is absolutely cooking right now, folks. The only bad part is that it’s basically just been his line alone that’s doing enough over the past several weeks.
- The other primary contributor to the win was Logan Thompson. Thompson made 30 stops in his 17th win of the season. The 27-year-old backstop is 17-2-2 this year with a 2.39 goals-against average and a .919 save percentage. Per Dimitri Filipovic, the Capitals have gotten 36 of 42 possible standings points in Thompson’s starts.
- Spencer Carbery moved Aliaksei Protas back up to the top line to try and spark that connection with Alex Ovechkin and Dylan Strome again. Safe to say that it did not work. With those three on the ice five-on-five, the Capitals were outshot 10-0, out-attempted 15-3, out-chanced 8-1, and created zero high-danger chances. They gave up six high-danger chances to Vancouver.
- Protas was still able to leave his mark on the overtime period, providing the primary assist on PLD’s game-winning goal. The big Belorussian has four points (2g, 2a) in his last three games and 15 points (10g 5a) in his last 16 games. He is on pace for 72 points (36g, 36a) this season.
- The win and two standings points moved the Capitals into sole possession of first place in the Eastern Conference. They are two points (58) ahead of the Toronto Maple Leafs (56) with one game in hand. In the Metropolitan Division, they are five points ahead of the New Jersey Devils (53) with two games in hand.
