by The Washington Capitals made the trip to Minnesota to face another NHL Central Division team in the wild. The Caps were hoping for a better result than they did against the Blues at home on Friday.
Matt Boldy scored with less than a minute to open the scoring. Boldy struck again soon after to double Minnesota’s lead. Alex Ovechkin from his office with a blast in front of eternal foe Marc-André Fleury cut the lead in half. Ryan Reaves regained the two-goal advantage with a deflection.
Brandon Duhaime made four. Ovi potted another one. Boldy scored his hat trick. Dylan Strome added one more.
Wildbeat Caps 5-3.
- Well, at least it wasn’t the first move of the game this time? It only took three shots for the Wild to take the lead in first, which I guess is an improvement over the last three games. All in all, I thought the Caps were completely anonymous in the first twenty minutes. So not great.
- Random Stream of Consciousness Summary Bullet. More teams need green in their uniforms. Or, at least, something other than more red, white and blue. The Kraken did it well.
- Marcus Johansson scored a point every time the Capitals traded him. I’m kidding, I’m kidding. It was definitely the right decision and it’s nice to see Mojo having fun. The Wild are a fun team to watch.
Hoping for some of that energy today.@rmnb
Let’s go Caps! @Capitals #CapsWild #ALL CAPS pic.twitter.com/lrBU2yT8R6
—Charlie McManus (@CharlieMcManus9) March 19, 2023
- Other than the constant march to the box in both teams’ second, it certainly felt more like the same at five-on-five. The Caps were barely involved and only played passengers.
- Alex Ovechkin notched two power-play goals to give him 39 goals this season. He has now set fire to Marc-André Fleury 27 times. This is the most goals Ovi has against any individual goalkeeper in his career.
- Lease Ryan Reaves scoring a goal should be accompanied by a reduction in points in the standings.
- matt irvin “fought” at the end of the second period. He was quickly thrown onto the ice by Mason Shaw. Irwin is probably a great guy and Laviolette likes him, but it would be nice to see someone like Bobby Nardella, Lucas Johansen or Vincent Iorio given his ice time down the stretch. That would force the Caps to accept that they’re out of playoff contention and they don’t seem to want to do that.
I am planning an Oshie goal based on warm ups. Bro was doing impressive stickhandling and scoring all the goals. #ALL CAPS pic.twitter.com/JsRedzuDU4
— Emily Longtin (@Emily_Longtin) March 19, 2023
- Another game full of individual blunders leading directly to high risk goals or chances for the Wild. Irwin and Dylan Strome with the mistakes most obvious to me.
- Yevgeny Kuznetsov left the game after being hit on the ice by Matt Dumba. TJ Oshie fought Dumba and got the only extra penalty on the game. I thought Dumba could have easily been called to be charged.
- Charlie Lindgren took the start while Darcy Kuemper is injured. I thought he was decent. The team is simply not playing any kind of defense at the moment, so it’s hard to judge the goalkeepers.
Joe B and Locker look super sharp up north #joebsuitofthenight pic.twitter.com/En55Px8ahR
— RMNB (@rmnb) March 19, 2023
The Caps were on the road for this one and will return to DC to face the Columbus Blue Jackets on Tuesday. The Blooj were recently mathematically eliminated from the playoffs this season.
Title photo courtesy of @Emily_Longtin/Twitter
