Logan Thompson shines in the Capitals' victory in his hometown.
After a disappointing outing in Vancouver, the Washington Capitals returned to Alberta to take on the Calgary Flames in another Caps After Dark tilt.
This one was an interesting contest, as Washington gritted out another win, this time 3-1 against the Flames, who are working to hold onto a wild card spot in the Western Conference.
Like Vancouver over the weekend, the Flames are no slouch in the West. After a middling season last year, Nazem Kadri, Jonathan Huberdeau and the rest of the Calgary lineup are playing hard to get back into the playoff dance in April.
Had it not been for Logan Thompson playing like the brick wall he has been all season, the Flames quite possibly could have gotten the best of Washington in the end.
Let's unpack this game.
Logan Thompson Is A Beast, But Are The Capitals Leaning Too Much On Goaltending?
Logan Thompson has arguably been Washington's best pickup from the offseason. In fact, I'm not even going to let anyone argue that. I'm just going to say it.
Nothing against Jakob Chychrun, Pierre-Luc Dubois or the rest of the first-year Capitals, but Tuesday's win showed just how important LT has been to a team where goaltending was a question mark not long ago.
Thompson made multiple key saves throughout the entire game to keep Washington in prime position.
Throughout the first period, Calgary utilized its speed and counterattack repeatedly to get several high-danger chances, with the Ryan Lomberg and Nazem Kadri breakout chances in the first standout leading to big saves from Thompson to keep the Capitals up 1-0.
The 27-year-old rightfully earned himself another big win last night, and in his hometown too.
But this brings me to an issue I've noticed recently, which is the Capitals relying on Thompson (and Charlie Lindgren) a bit too much.
Last night, the Flames played better than Washington for long periods. Calgary finished the night with a Corsi-for of 57.5 percent to the Capitals' 42.5 percent and also finished the first period with a whopping 68.42 percent Corsi-for.
Then there are the scoring chances, of which the Flames managed 30 through the night to Washington's 23, with high-danger chances favoring Calgary 13-11 as well.
Any team in the league would love to have a goaltending duo as reliable as Thompson and Lindgren have been all season, but the slow starts and lack of offensive zone time will likely catch up to the Capitals eventually. That, of course, won't bode well for a deep playoff run.
I hope that Washington is able to fine-tune its system and get into gear before mid-April rolls in. We all know what happened last time a team had an excellent season with a great goaltending tandem when it came playoff time.
Capitals Top Scorers Continue To Carry The Offense
Credit to Pierre-Luc Dubois, who continues to be red-hot for Washington, scoring his 11th of the season less than two minutes into regulation. He has points in three of his last four games and 24 in his last 25, the most on the team over that span.
Later on, Dylan Strome busted out of his own scoring slump to get his 13th of the season and first goal in 10 games.
Finally, Aliaksei Protas continues to evolve into the prolific goal scorer that Washington hoped he'd become, sealing the game in the third period for the Capitals while extending his point streak to five games.
Strome, Protas and Dubois respectively are the Capitals' top three point-getters this season, and each one continues to contribute to the team's success in big ways.
I do hope some of the depth scorers can get back to adding points, however; It is a bit jarring to see some of the scoring depth struggle after Washington was getting goals from just about everywhere in the lineup earlier in the season.
Bad Blood Makes For A Fun Third
There were chippy moments throughout the game, but tensions boiled over in the third period after Adam Klapka finished an otherwise clean hit to Tom Wilson with a nasty cross-check to the back. Klapka went to the box, but he and Wilson traded chirps beforehand.
Later, while waiting for a delayed penalty against Connor McMichael, Tom Wilson and Rasmus Andersson traded more trash talk after Andersson mocked Wilson's reaction to the earlier cross-check.
Wilson and Andersson ended up in the penalty box with unsportsmanlike penalties as a result, and the bad blood carried over there as they continued shouting between the scorekeeper.
[embed]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L6KHKp5jdD8[/embed]
Nothing really to unpack analytically here. Just a funny moment that made for some entertaining viewing.
Alex Ovechkin Held Off Scoresheet, But Playing A Smart Game
Ovechkin had his looks but did not find twine, meaning you have to pay full price for that Papa John's pizza on Wednesday.
However, one trend I've noticed recently has been Washington exploiting other team's expectations of Ovechkin's scoring goals. Watching some games play out recently, opposing players giving additional coverage to Ovechkin (deservedly so, he is the league's second-highest goal scorer ever after all), allowing the captain to feed passes to other players and make plays to get chances.
Even on the 5-on-3, so many Flames were deferring to Ovechkin that Dylan Strome was able to capitalize after being left alone in front.
Maybe I'm crazy and overthinking it. But everyone obviously knows about the record chase Ovechkin is engaged in currently, so I'm sure teams expect him to shoot more. And it seems like Ovechkin has been able to exploit this to generate scoring for linemates.
Onto The Next One
Thankfully, the late games for Washington fans will be over until March, so we can all get to bed earlier. The Capitals travel back east to Ottawa for a match against the surging Senators on Thursday.
These two teams previously met exactly two weeks from gameday for a 1-0 OT win for the Capitals, although it was a game that Ottawa dominated for long stretches.
The Senators are playing good hockey recently, and have surged into the third-place spot of the Atlantic Division as a result.
I expect the usual suspects of Brady Tkachuk, Tim Stützle and Claude Giroux to test Washington, so the Capitals will need to up their game for Thursday in order to take two more points from Canada's Capital before returning home from a lengthy trip up north.