The Washington Capitals are losers of three in a row after falling in Detroit to the Red Wings by a 3-1 final score. The Caps controlled the majority of the game but could not find the offense needed to put Detroit away.
That’s a rough one to take.
- I was pretty happy with the overall five-on-five effort yet again. That’s great and all but the Caps have just two points from their last three games to show for it. It’s pretty clear there is a limit on how many key injuries you can suffer before it starts hurting your offense. Feels like they’ve hit that limit. They out-chanced Detroit 20 to 13 at five-on-five overall but really needed more from their power play which was 0-for on the evening.
- Anthony Mantha doesn’t have a goal in seven games. That’s unacceptable for someone who really needed to have a good year and whose team really needs him right now. That trade isn’t looking too hot even with Jakub Vrana currently out of Detroit’s lineup.
- Alex Ovechkin scored career goal number 786. He tied Gordie Howe for the most goals with one franchise in NHL history. It was also his 400th career road goal and the first time he has scored against Ville Husso, making Husso the 161st goaltender Ovechkin has scored on in his career.
Congratulations to Dmitry Orlov on becoming 5th all time in games played by a Washington Capitals defenseman! ? pic.twitter.com/MxLQb3Kvvp
— Washington Capitals (@Capitals) November 3, 2022
- Darcy Kuemper made 23 stops in the loss. He is doing his job right now but really needs some run support.
- Without looking you could probably guess which three Caps forwards played the least in this game, right? If you guessed Connor McMichael (8:55), Aliaksei Protas (9:49), and Joe Snively (12:16), you’d be correct. I’m honestly okay with the first and the last as McMichael sees no special teams time and twelve minutes is plenty for Snively. Protas just needs to be playing more, full stop.
- I was really impressed with Erik Gustafsson‘s game until he kinda got beat for the game-winning goal. Still, it wasn’t his man that scored the goal and the team ended the night with positive differentials in shot attempts (plus-7), scoring chances (plus-5), and high-danger chances (plus-1) at five-on-five with him on the ice
Numbers thanks to Hockey-reference.com and NaturalStatTrick.com.
Read More: numbers for the morning after