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Capitals vs. Flyers Recap: Caps Withstand Blitz, Grind Down Flyers, 4-1

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The Caps faced a barrage of Philadelphia Flyer shots, but the Flyers could not solve Braden Holtby in the Caps’ 4-1 win.

Here’s Saturday night’s Plus/Minus:

  • Plus: Power Play. Two power play chances, two shots, two goals, 1:16 of power play time spent. Can’t be much more efficient than that.
  • Minus: Too many shots. Attempts, actually, but shots, too. Until the Flyers seemed to run out of steam late, they held a commanding lead in shots and shot attempts.

Ten more notes on the game:

  • The Flyers launched more shots at the Caps net in the first period than a bar does at happy hour. The shot attempts were 32-15 in the first period, Flyers, 19-5 in shots on goal. Of that total, the Flyers managed to put 19 on goal to five for the Caps.
  • The Caps took advantage of a double screen (T.J. Oshie, Marcus Johansson) on the game’s first goal. But John Carlson also benefitted from Steve Mason’s “wrong-handed” style as a right-handed catcher. Mason could not get the blocker out to deflect Carlson’s shot away on his left.
  • Braden Holtby stopped 41 of 42 shots. It was the sixth time in Holtby’s postseason career that he recorded 40 or more saves. His high in a game settled in regulation is 44 in a 2-1 win over the Boston Bruins on April 19, 2012. In an overtime game, his high is 47, recorded in a 2-1 triple-overtime loss to the New York Rangers on May 2, 2012.
  • The Caps were 2-for-2 on the power play and 4-for-4 on the penalty kill. For the series, the Caps’ power play is 3-for-8, while the penalty killers are a perfect 8-for-8. That’s a special teams index of 137.5. That’s pretty good.
  • Marcus Johansson is certainly having an odd series. In two games he has 29:55 in ice time, and he has one shot attempt (a missed shot attempt in Game 1). But he has four assists, two of them in this game.
  • If Nicklas Backstrom has to step up in this postseason for the Caps to make a deep run, he is off to a good start. A goal and two assists in this game, he is now 1-3-4 in the first two games of this series. He led the team with ten shot attempts (three on goal). But his most “Backstrom-y” moment might have come on a power play, when he threaded a pass from the corner, through T.J. Oshie’s legs across the ice, and right onto Alex Ovechkin’s stick for a one-timer that made it 3-1 late in the second period.
  • Five-on-five shot attempts favored the Flyers, 60-37. It was an advantage the Flyers enjoyed over the three periods: 22-13, 17-11, 21-13 (numbers from war-on-ice.com). But the high-danger scoring chances were 13-13 for the game.
  • Every Capital was credited with a hit except Marcus Johansson. Even Evgeny Kuznetsov had one. It wasn’t the volume so much as the concussive nature of some of them. There was the Ovechkin making a night deposit of Brayden Schenn into the Flyers bench, John Carlson levelling Schenn when the latter tried to hit Carlson, and Mike Richards planting Nick Cousins at center ice. They were hits of the sort the folks at the Caltech Seismological Laboratory might have picked up.
  • John Carlson had a playoff player’s playoff game. A goal, an assist, and seven blocked shots to lead both teams.
  • Folks might remember the Ivan Majesky chip shot from the Caps’ bench against the Pittsburgh Penguins some years back, or the Jeff Schultz clear down the ice against the Atlanta Thrashers a few years later. But that Jason Chimera goal might be the strangest goal the Caps have ever had in the postseason. Feel welcome to add your own.

Now it’s off to Philly, and it’s not to sample cheesesteaks and hot pretzels.

And now, this…

Game highlights:

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