The Caps headed down to Nashvegas Saturday for a tilt against the Predators. Lackluster is the perfect word to describe this game especially the scoreless 1st period.
On the second powerplay of the period on a hooking call the boys got on the board first. Strome snuck the puck to Wilson who was fading away from the puck but still had enough muscle to get it past the Preds tendy, 1-0 good guys.
This was Wilson’s 19th of the season. Wilson’s 9 powerplay goals ranks him tied for 3rd in the NHL trailing Brayden Point who has 12.
Dylan Strome tallied his team leading 34th apple of the season, and he has factored in on 19 of the Capital’s 30 powerplay goals. I know he is no Backstrom but man he is filling that hole tremendously.
Nashville anwsered back in the form of former Capital Filip Forsberg on the powerplay who just ripped a snipe past Logan Thompson.
Imagine we never traded him away those years ago for that bag off ass Martin Erat. Might be one of the worst trades in NHL history.
Onto the 3rd period where we got to see the speed and skill of callup Ethen Frank on full display to notch his first NHL goal off a nice stretch pass from Matt Roy.
Frank now has a point in each of his first two NHL games. Frank accumulated 80 goals and 45 assists in 161 AHL games in Hershey.
Then with 5 minutes left in the game Andrew Mangiapane got a pass from a battling Brandon Duhaime and took it off the backhand and roofed it past the Pred’s goalie to make it 3-1 in favor of the Capitals.
This was Mangiapane’s 10th of the season and is now the 8th Cap with at least 10 genos.
Then the empty net specialist closed the game out with a goal of his own.
This marks as the 20th goal of the season for Ovechkin and now has joined Gordie Howe as the second player in NHL history to score 20 or more goals in 20 consecutive seasons.
This was also goal 873 and is now 22 goals away from passing Gretzky!
Logan Thompson stopped 32 of 33 shots to improve to 18-2-3, and has allowed two or fewer goals in 14 of his 18 starts since Nov. 2nd.
A win is a win but the boys have struggled to control games in the last couple weeks but have still found ways to win. The boys need to lock in a little more and create more quality shot chances and that comes with puck control.
The Caps are back in action Tuesday when they welcome the Ducks to D.C. who has been playing better as of late but a team we need to beat and not mess around with.
The Morning Skate 