A fitting bookend to a two-year Nats-Caps drunken championship bromance, a wild one in Florida – but do wins and beers consumed equal a hit? Find out!
This week’s games:
HITS
Evgeny Kuznetsov finding his goal-scoring gear, with three this week… Braden Holtby standing tall against Philly on a rare lack-of-offense night for his team… erasing a 3-0 deficit to squeeze a point out of the ‘Yotes game Monday night… running the point streak to 13 games despite a couple of somewhat lackluster efforts during the week… setting a new franchise record with nine consecutive multigoal games… beating Vegas again, because that always brings back fond memories… this literal hit:
MISSES
Ilya Samsonov picking up his first loss of the season in a game he started (guess it was bound to happen at some point)… the third and fourth lines all but disappearing, with just three points combined for all of them this week… two shootouts in three games, blech… video review, because even the technically correct call isn’t necessarily the right call… Matt Niskanen in orange and black… just one power-play goal on 12 chances, including a combined zero-for-six against two of the worst PK teams in the League right now… T.J. Oshie not scoring in the shootout against the Coyotes.
THREE STARS
3) John Carlson. Just another four points in three games for the Caps’ blueliner. Ho hum.
2) The second line. The trio of Jakub Vrana, Evgeny Kuznetsov and Tom Wilson has been en fuego of late, silenced only once in the low-scoring game against the Flyers.
1) Braden Holtby. The Caps’ once-beleaguered starter turned away 60 of the 63 shots he faced this week for a stellar .952 save percentage (and stopped two of three in the shootout in Philly Wednesday night).
Week in Review: Hit.
…for the most part. The Caps played an excellent game against the Golden Knights but were less than stellar – at least for stretches of each game – against both the Flyers and the Coyotes. Still, points are good and wins are better and they got plenty of each this week. There are (and will seemingly always be) questions about lineup configurations and goalie effectiveness, but for now the Caps are comfortably atop the League standings and piling up key points whenever they can. And that’s a hit for sure.