Blues at Capitals – Inside The Numbers: All Blues

Photo by Patrick McDermott/NHLI via Getty Images

The game seemed to start right for the Capitals with a power play goal from Alex Ovechkin, but it was all Blues after that. In fact, it was all Blues from start to finish, and the numbers show that clearly. The Capitals are back in action tomorrow night when they visit the Predators in Nashville. Puck drop is set for 8:00 PM.

GAME REFERENCES

GAME SUMMARY
The Capitals struck first with a power play goal from Alex Ovechkin for a 1-0 lead at the first intermission. The Blues would respond with three unanswered goals in the middle frame for a 3-1 lead for the Blues after 40 minutes, and add a goal in the final frame for the 4-1 win.

Lines
With Capitals playing the first game of a back-to-back set (at Nashville tomorrow), Coach Reirden decided to use the opportunity to get some work for the bench players against the Blues. (Burakovsky and Bowey).

Ovechkin-Kuznetsov-Wilson
Vrana-Backstrom-Oshie
Connolly-Eller-Burakovsky
Stephenson-Boyd-DSP

Kempny-Carlson
Orlov-Niskanen
Orpik-Bowey

Scratches: Jonas Siegenthaler, Nic Dowd and Dmitrij Jaskin.

SHOT ATTEMPTS (POSSESSION)
The Blues out-attempted the Caps 27-14 and led in shots on goal (SOG) 14-7 for the first 20 minutes. The Blues held a slight edge in attempts 17-14 and led 14-13 in SOG for the middle frame.The Capitals out-attempted the blues in the final frame 10-8, with SOG tied 9-9 in the final frame. For the game, the Blues out-attempted the Capitals 52-38, and led 37-29 in SOG.

SHOT ATTEMPTS (DIFFERENTIAL)

SHOT ATTEMPTS (LOCATION)

GOALTENDING
Pheonix Copley didn’t have his best game tonight. It wasn’t bad, but one of his less impressive efforts. Copley stopped 33 of 37 shots for a .892 game save percentage. Jake Allen was excellent for the Blues, stopping 28 of 29 for a .966 game save percentage.

SPECIAL TEAMS
The Capitals were 1 for 3 on the man advantage while the Blues went 1 for 2 on the power play.

FACEOFFS
The Blues dominated the dot tonight, 60-40%. Chandler Stephenson was 1 for 1, Nicklas Backstrom was 2 for 9, Lars Eller was 5 for 15, Devante Smith-Pelly was 0 for 1, Tom Wilson was 0 for 1, Travis Boyd was 4 for 9, T.J. Oshie was 2 for 6 and Evgeny Kuznetsov was 8 for 13.

PLAYER STATS

This was Brooks Orpik’s 1,000th career NHL game.
With that power play goal, Alex Ovechkin now has 238 power play goal in his career, passing Brendan Shanahan (237) for sixth place all-time. Ovechkin is now nine power play goals shy of passing Phil Esposito (246) for fifth place all-time.
With that goal, Ovechkin (640g, 533a) is now seven points away from passing Sergei Fedorov (483g, 696a in 1,248 games) to become the highest scoring Russian-born player all-time.

Game Stats