Photo: @Capitals
In Monday afternoon’s round robin matinee action, the Capitals fell to the Tampa Bay Lightning 3-2 in the shootout. This game had its ebbs and flows on the ice, with the Lightning surging early, and the Caps pushing late. Let’s see how the matchup panned out using advanced analytics (statistics courtesy of Natural Stat Trick).
The key statistic for the Capitals that shows why the Capitals struggled to get on the scoreboard is high danger scoring chances. The Caps generated 10 high danger chances for and 18 scoring chances. The Caps only tallied one goal at even strength, and it was during a high danger opportunity.
Ultimately, this comes down to finishing the chances that had been generated, and the Caps just weren’t able to do that today. That’s also a result of Andrei Vasilevskiy performing admirably with a .960 save percentage at even strength.
Realistically, this game was certainly evenly matched as it came down the stretch. It’s certainly a good sign to see the Caps generating scoring chances at a high rate, even with John Carlson held out of the lineup.
The graphic above trends pretty similarly with the Caps’ head to head results with the Lightning in the regular season:
The Caps had routinely generated more high danger chances against the Lightning. The difference between then and now is the Caps had won all three of the regular season matchups with the Lightning.
By Justin Trudel
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