The Washington Capitals beat the New Jersey Devils by a 4-1 score on Thursday night, pushing the Caps’ record to 3-0-1 to begin the season. Anthony Mantha scored for the 2nd game in a row, Evgeny Kuznetsov scored again and added an assist for his 3rd multi-point game in the first 4 games of the season, Alex Ovechkin racked up 2 assists for his 3rd multi-point game in the first 4 games of the season, Daniel Sprong scored a beauty on a breakaway and added an assist, and Dmitry Orlov again scored against the Devils. Vitek Vanecek stopped 25 of 26 shots.
It was yet another dominating performance for the Capitals, which has become a theme in this young season. It’s still early, but the results so far have been so convincing, it’s hard not to get a little excited.
Through 4 games, the Capitals:
- Are scoring 4 goals-per-game (6th in NHL), while only allowing 1.75 goals-against-per-game (3rd in NHL).
- And when you look at even-strength play, the numbers for the Caps are even more impressive: They are outscoring opponents 12-2 at even-strength this season.
- Have only given up 2 even-strength goals against – TOTAL – through the first 4 games. They are the only team in the NHL to do this.
- Have only given up 6 goals against total.
- Are suppressing opposition shots at the 2nd-best rate in the NHL (25.3 shots-against-per-game).
- Have outshot every team they’ve played so far.
And what’s been really impressive about this start for the Capitals is that these aren’t bottom-feeder teams they’re running over; the opponents they’ve played so far are very good teams, and the Caps are skating circles around them. I think it’s fair to say that all four of the Capitals’ opponents so far (New York Rangers, Tampa Bay Lightning, Colorado Avalanche, New Jersey Devils) are routinely referred to by analysts as some of the fastest teams in the NHL. And yet the Caps have made all four of them look extremely slow. With the exception of maybe the up-and-coming Devils (who in their own right, hadn’t lost a game yet this season until the Caps beat them Thursday night), all of these teams were projected to be playoff teams this season. Two of them (Lightning, Avalanche) are popular picks for the Stanley Cup. And yet the Caps have really dominated all four games so far. Even the one game that they lost (albeit in overtime), they outshot the Lightning 33-24, had the puck in Tampa’s zone basically all game long, and definitely deserved to win/would have won easily if not for a heroic night by the guy who’s probably the best goalie in the world in Andrei Vasilevskiy (seriously — that 2-1 OT loss easily could’ve been an 8-1 win with the scoring chances the Caps generated).
The point is… The Caps look very good, so it’s hard not to start getting a tad excited for what could potentially be this season. And it’s even harder not to get excited when you realize that they look this good/are doing all of this even as their leading scorer from last season – Nicklas Backstrom – starts the season on injured reserve due to a hip injury. Offense, defense, power play, penalty kill, transitions, puck possession, faceoffs — Nicklas Backstrom makes everything better. So the fact that the Caps are absolutely killing it even without him, is certainly a very exciting prospect.
A few other things to close it out:
- We are straight-up witnessing the Evgeny Kuznetsov Revenge Tour and I am loving it. Dude’s literally gonna win us another Stanley Cup just to spite people and I am totally here for it. The rest of the NHL was not prepared for this Kuznetsov to return — you can see that clearly every time he breaks someone’s ankles with a deke or skates straight through all 5 defenders. Kuz has 8 points (3 goals, 5 assists) through the first 4 games… The last time he had 8 points through the first 4 games of a season? Glad you asked; it was the 2017-2018 season. What else happened that season? I feel like something else happened…
- Speaking of 8 points through the first 4 games, never-aging cyborg Alex Ovechkin (4 goals, 4 assists) has equaled that as well. Ovi has points in all 4 games so far this season. He & Kuznetsov are tied for the NHL scoring lead, with some guy named Connor McDavid. I believe in human years, Ovi would be about 36 years old now? Hmmm. Science is wild.
- I think most Caps fans have been ready to say Vitek Vanecek is the No. 1 goalie for quite some time now. It seems as though Peter Laviolette finally agrees. Vanecek got the start in the Caps’ 1st game of the season – their home opener – and he’s showing no signs of giving up the net. He has started 3 of the Caps’ 4 games so far, with Laviolette admitting that the lone start given to Ilya Samsonov was just to “get him a game” to “keep him fresh” because there’s simply been absolutely no reason to take Vitek Vanecek out. Vanecek is 2-0-1, with a 1.30 GAA (3rd in NHL among goalies who have played more than 1 game) and a .946 save percentage (7th in NHL among goalies who have played more than 1 game). Diving deeper, Vanecek ranks 1st in the NHL in inner slot save percentage (the highest of high-danger scoring chances) and 5th in the NHL in slot save percentage. So yeah. You could say he’s been pretty clutch.
- The Caps’ rookies have been insanely good. Like seriously, they’ve been flat-out dominating some of the best players in the NHL. Martin Fehervary is putting on an absolute clinic on defense. He’s been skating on the top pairing alongside of John Carlson, defending against the absolute best forwards that the opposition can throw at you, and guess what — not only has he not looked out of place at all, but he’s actually excelled. And it cannot be overstated how absolutely huge it would be for this team (for any team, for that matter) to have a young guy come in and be a bonafide top pairing defenseman right away. That just doesn’t happen very often in the NHL, because the forwards are too good. But Marty has a chance to be the exception to the rule. His skating is SO strong, it allows him to get up in the play and then still be able to get back in plenty of time to defend. And he’s a great defender. He’s smart, he’s always in the right position, he knows what he’s doing with his stick. He just doesn’t make any mistakes out there, and on the rare occasion that he does, he’s fast enough to recover from it. Add all of that to the fact that he bulked up with quite a bit of muscle during the offseason (somehow without sacrificing any of his speed), and you’ve got a pretty damn complete all-around defenseman. He’s always been strong in front of his own net, but he’s added another level of physicality to his game this season… He’s absolutely drilling people out there. You love to see it. And now, he’s on the top pairing of one of the stingiest defenses in the NHL, and he’s not a passenger out there. This team is better for having him on it. And the same can be said for Connor McMichael and Hendrix Lapierre, both of whom have been awesome to start the season as well. Really, if you dive into advanced statistics – puck possession and things of that nature – then you’ll see just how crazy good these 3 young players have really been. They’ve been dominant. The Caps have the puck all of the time and get all of the scoring chances when any of them is on the ice. They’ve been beasts, and it’s fun to watch. Both the present, and future, are very bright.
The Caps’ next game is Saturday, at the ungodly hour of 1pm EST/10am PST, against the Calgary Flames. As I am on the west coast I will be watching in my pajamas as I suck back Baileys liqueur with a hint of coffee. See you all there!
