Washington Capitals/Rangers Game Thoughts

I expected after the abysmal Florida road trip for the Rangers to try and come out and tighten things up. The posts are to be thanked initially, but they got timely goaltending, and fantastic pace of play. But enough of this intro stuff, let’s get to the thoughts shall we?!

• Thank God for those 3 posts in the first, a quarter inch for each one and it’s 3-0 Caps in that first. Lundqvist was also making unreal saves and looked to elevate his game after interviewing with the Post and saying he needed to be better. We got that tonight.
• I was curious to see how the team would play in front of Hank tonight as far as getting into passing/shooting lanes, and transitioning to the offensive side of the puck. I thought all in all, it was a solid game for both sides of the puck.
• Artemiy Panarin continues to just solidify that he is not only a superstar in this league with his career best 12 game point streak, but worth EVERY cent of that contract signed July 1. There’s talks to be had about if we didn’t have him, are we in a better position to draft Lafreniere or Byfield, but I don’t care. This guy is legit. Fox to Kakko to Panarin to back of the net is quite the sequence.
• Is it wrong to just not enjoy anything about Tom Wilson’s game? Guy might possess some skill for sure, but he’s just a clown.
• Tim Gettinger had a decent game, the 4th line with McKegg centering it is not by all means a bad 4th line, but it was hard to truly notice anything about Gettinger. With his size alone, you want to watch him do power forward moves to the net and become a solid bottom 6 forward that can score for you. Hope he can continue to develop into that.
• The Ovechkin/Hank “Rivalry” is so fun to be apart of when they’re laughing in between whistles, real recognizing real is always awesome in this sport.
• Adam Fox continues to impress night in and night out for this team. He might honestly be a number one defenseman when his development is all set and done…
• Tony DeAngelo is going to get the BAG this offseason. The man oozes scoring chances for (and against as well). I can put up with it with how he’s noticeable in the offensive zone pretty much every shift.
• The Kreider-Chytil-Buchnevich line is just super fun to watch, what a goal by Buchnevich and what a pass by our 2C of the next decade+ Filip Chytil.
• Good for Howden, beautiful shot to beat Holtby. I have my doubts about him being a part of the solution, but that shot was really good and put the game out of reach.
• Fighting is dumb…but it’s Wilson so….*shrugs*
• Game, set, match. Beautiful effort tonight. It’s nice to see vintage Lundqvist like this from time to time. He is now tied 5th in wins with Curtis Joseph which is just insane. What a career.

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