Washington Capitals Report Card: Grading offense against Penguins

The Washington Capitals fell to the Pittsburgh Penguins by a final of 4-3 in a shootout. Let’s break down the game by grading the offense. The offense of the Caps showed up and showed out from the first line to the fourth line.

The fourth line got the Caps on the board early with Nic Dowd‘s first goal of the season. There was a scrum in front of the net but he was there to backhand the puck in. The goal came at 12:04 to tie the game at one.

Alex Ovechkin would later net his first goal at 14:24 with the helpers coming from Evgeny Kuznetsov and Tom Wilson. Ovechkin would backhand it on a great look in front of the net for the 707th goal of his career.

In the second period the Caps would come through with a power play goal from Nicklas Backstrom. The goal came on assists from Kuznetsov and Ovechkin on a bang bang play in front of the net. The goal came at 10:09 of the second period.

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Backstrom had this to say on the game which Ovechkin admitted would’ve gone better if the team played a full 60 minutes. Via Tarik El-Bashir of The Athletic:

“Some periods are better than others. Even today, I think maybe the first was pretty good, second was really bad and third was alright.”

Three goals is pretty good. It’s not as good as the six scored on opening night but still better than the two that they scored in Buffalo. That game saw the offense play pretty sloppy but they got bailed out by Vitek Vanecek in his first NHL start.

The Caps couldn’t score in the third as a shot from Ovechkin hit the post. They also failed to score in overtime and the shootout as they were outshot 27-23. The Caps also only managed three shots on goal the entire second period.

https://twitter.com/Capitals/status/1350859979339702272

Dowd’s goal was a backhanded shot that barely crossed the goal line going just beyond it. Ovechkin’s goal came when he was in the right place at the right time, rebounding in a shot from Kuznetsov. Backstrom’s goal was a backdoor tap in on the power play.

Grade B: The offense was slightly above average but if they had a better second period they would have just been above the curve. Still the offense hasn’t looked too bad in the first three games of the 2021 season.