Washington Capitals: Top 3 studs against the Penguins

#1 The third line

The number one stud of the game isn’t an individual player but the entire third line of Conor Sheary, Lars Eller and Richard Panik. The line was nearly perfect in both every regular and advanced statistical category you can think of.

Sheary would get the Caps on the board first after Nick Jensen made a nice play to give Panik a chance to set him up. Sheary was in the right face off circle and fired it in. For Panik, it was his 100th career assist.

The dominance wouldn’t stop there. In the third period, Panik added his second assist setting up Eller in front of the net.

Now is where it gets wild. From a possession metrics standpoint, the third line skated 9:37 while on the ice and had a Corsi-For percentage of 92.86 percent. Panik led the way with a 93.33 Corsi-For percentage while Sheary and Eller posted 82.35 and 80.95, respectively. That is pretty darn good.

Altogether the third line had 10 shots on goal while allowing zero which included three high danger chances for and none allowed. Oshie spoke about the third line after the game:

"“Those guys were horses tonight. Shears with his efforts and his strides. Richie over there is a thoroughbred and Lars is a horse and a moose coming through there in the middle.”"

The Caps will host the Buffalo Sabres on Thursday night, a team they haven’t seen since the beginning of the season.