Grading Capitals offense against Kraken

The Washington Capitals won their third game in a row with a 4-1 win over the Seattle Kraken. It’s time to grade the offensive performance of the Caps.

Overall not too shabby. They did go one for four on the power play but that one power play goal came on a five minute major that knocked out Alex Alexeyev.

In the beginning the Caps couldn’t score but they outshot the Kraken. In the second period they broke through.

In the Caps first goal it was scrum in front of the net. Anthony Mantha pushed the puck in as it went off a couple Kraken players and trickled through the legs of former Capital Philipp Grubauer.

The second goal came on that long power play. We’ll talk more about the defense in our next article hopefully. On a two on two rush, Sonny Milano had a nice backhanded pass to Marcus Johansson. The Caps have scored a power play goal in eight of their last nine games.

The two goals in the third period came on empty netters from Lars Eller and Alex Ovechkin. Ovechkin scored his 52nd empty net goal of his career, putting him four behind Wayne Gretzky in that category.

It was also the second straight game Ovechkin scored an empty net goal after he had two the other night against the Philadelphia Flyers.

Lars Eller was asked about Ovechkin’s empty net goal streak: 

“We were all a little bit surprised he only had (52) in his career. Felt like he has more. But you know, goal scorers score goals in a lot of ways. You have to be a right spot at the right time.”

Grade A: The offense was good and they played a full 60 minute game. Now that they’ve won three in a row let’s hope they can keep it going.