| Los Angeles Kings vs Washington Capitals | ||||
| Team | P1 | P2 | P3 | Total |
 Los Angeles Kings | 1 | 0 | 0 | 1 |
 Washington Capitals | 1 | 1 | 0 | 2 |
| Current Status: Final | ||||
Plus: Any time Anthony Mantha (1G, 1A) produces it’s a good time. He and Connor McMichael (1G, 1A) have been dominant together whenever they are put together, so hopefully Spencer Carbery keeps them together. It’s only a bonus that Swiss army knife Aliaksei Protas (2A) was on that line with two important secondary assists that led to the two goals.
Minus: The top six had a really rough game, especially the top line. It’s always hard to watch Alexander Ovechkin and Evgeny Kuznetsov on the ice at the same time. Carbery should really look to putting Dylan Strome back up there instead, as the numbers show Ovechkin is much more impactful with Strome than Kuznetsov.
Key Moment: It took basically the quarter of the season but the Capitals finally won a coaching challenge! Half way through the third the Kings thought they tied it up, which would have given them even more momentum, but alas they were offsides. Should a goal be called back 64 seconds after a player was barely offsides? Absolutely not, but the Caps have been royally screwed this season on reviews so it was nice to finally get one.
Caps Player of the Game: As he has been a lot lately, Charlie Lindgren was the best player on the ice. He made amazing save after amazing save, holding the best offensive team in the league (the Kings average four goals a game) to just one on 38 shots. He was stellar.
Final Thoughts: It was a game you expected coming into tonight. The LA Kings were the better team on paper and in the standings and they played like it. They were dominant, but like a lot of Caps wins recently, their penalty kill and goaltending stepped up in a huge way. It’s not something you want to rely on but if you want to keep a season alive it’s those games you need.
The third line was the only consistently good line and they should stay together going forward but that top six needs some sort of mix up. It’s a travesty that those three players were three of the four lowest ice times in the game. Carbery needs to recognize when a line is playing well and up their minutes. The Capitals ended up winning so it’s hard to complain but you want to reward you players playing better with more ice time.
The Caps finally won a challenge. It will be interesting to see if this will be the turn of their luck going forward. So many called back goals and a lost challenge so far this season has been deflating. Maybe it will even affect less post hits and more goals! The Caps desperately need a shift in that part of the game.
The Capitals lost to the worst team in the league last game in San Jose, then beat one of the best teams in LA the very next game. Next up? Back to one of the worst teams tomorrow (today) in Anaheim. How do you think they’ll do? This team continues to be an enigma that’s hard to solve.