Tuesday night the Caps faced off against our bitter rival the New York Rangers and might have played the best on the ice we’ve seen in this young season. Also, I’d like to mention I know it’s early but something just seems different with this team this season “so far” in a good way. Best 7 game start since the 15-16 season (6-1-0).
Before the game got some flow we saw some fireworks from our bruiser Dylan McIlrath and the AHL tall guy who got called up just for this game (rent free much). The heavyweight bout involved two buckets gone and knucks flying and ended with a McIlrath takedown and a bloodied Ranger shrub.
Early in the 1st our GOAT gets us on the board with a nice give and go from Protas to Strome and back to a crashing Ovi who whipped a wicked wrister into the back of the net 1-0 good guys!
This goal marked his 3rd of the season and 856th of his career.
The Rangers answered back quickly off a misplay by Sandin causing a short 2v1 with a backhand pass to a snap one-timer to beat Logan Thompson. 1-1 ballgame
Then shortly after that the boys took back the lead off a nice takeway from Strome who dished to Protas who found again a crashing Ovi who beats a sprawling Igor 2-1 Caps!
Ovechkin’s 2nd goal of the game 857 all-time and was his 174th multi goal game of his career which only Gretzky has more with 189.
If he keeps this up he would be on pace for a 41 goal season which would match Gretzky’s 894 goal record #TheGr8Chase.
When they come they come in bunches next came via Connor McMichael who was left alone behind Igor with a nice deflection goal from a shot by Raddysh.
This was McMichael’s 4th of the season to give the Caps a 3-1 lead.
The Rangers went on an early 2nd period powerplay and capitalized on the opportunity with a wrister from Zibanejad to a deflection off the skate of Kreider to shorten the lead to 3-2 in favor of the home team.
Then on a 4v4 period a hustling Protas who found an open Sandin who put the puck on net to a crashing Protas with the nice deflection goal 4-2 Caps.
This was Sandin’s 3rd apple of the season and now has an assist in his last 3 games against the Rangers dating back to last season.
While still on the 4v4 the Rangers answer almost instantly with a deflection goal from Filip Chytil shortening the Caps lead to 1.
Nic Dowd finished the scoring with an empty netter to seal the 5-3 victory for the boys in Red.
The Rangers who I’d say are the favorite to win the division this year the Caps controlled most of the game and outshot the Blueshirts.
Jakob Chychrun played only two shifts until he left with an upper-body injury which has me worried because he has been injury prone his whole career so far, when he’s on the ice he is a big factor but he has to stay healthy.
Aside from Ovi’s two goals Protas would be my player of the game the guy was flying and hitting all night making plays which he was involved in the majority of the goals last night.
Also shoutout the Caps equipment manager for this heads up play getting Protas his stick on this rush just heads up play you can’t teach right here!
Even though we took the win Igor clearly outplayed Thompson last night so I’d say we stole one only because of how physical we played and grinded out some goals which you have to do in this league to be successful.
If we keep playing like this I like our chances to make some noise this season. The boys are back in action on Halloween against the Canadiens lets get a winning streak going what do you say.
The Morning Skate 