The Washington Capitals dropped Game Six in DC to the Florida Panthers and the overtime loss meant that their season is now over. A first-round fate that we all have grown far too accustomed to since the wonderful, fantastic summer of 2018.
Last morning numbers post until October. Y’all rock.
- I’ll use this first bullet just to say thanks for reading these after every game. I’m sure not all of you agree with every word I say about the team and yet you still read and I appreciate that. Thanks to Ian and Peter for giving me the opportunity to do these posts every season. Thanks to KP for the cool headline image. We’ll fire this thing back up in October. I’m not sure how “numbersy” we’ll get here but now onto the actual game.
- The Caps should have won five of the games in this series which is why this series is the most frustrating for me post-Cup victory. They looked like an actual good team and did it without the guy who was analytically their best forward the entire season. Just an insane bummer. This wasn’t just another elimination game collapse where they looked clueless, they really put out an effort that should have been good enough to win it. fourteen high danger chances at five-on-five to the Panthers’ eight.
- Ilya Samsonov really deserves quite a nod for his efforts in this series. That Giroux goal was a tough one to see go in for sure but he was absolutely elite in all of the games he played in. I don’t know what the offseason holds for the current Caps goaltenders as both of them are restricted free agents. Can the organization ignore the months of play before Samsonov stepped in for this series? I have no idea.
T.J. Oshie scores his sixth goal of the series to tie the game 3-3. Oshie has scored a goal in four-straight games (5g).
— CapitalsPR (@CapitalsPR) May 14, 2022
- I think people can go overboard on John Carlson sometimes because I think he is objectively a “good-to-great” defenseman. It’s just that his gaffes have historically been just the most costly at the absolute worst times as evidenced by multiple occasions in this series. When he’s bad, he’s very bad. I don’t think he’s going anywhere so the hootin’ and hollerin’ about him is probably going to stay just that, in my opinion at least.
- Connor McMichael played 3:19 total of ice time in that game. I know some of you hate that I’m even talking about him right now. Would he have been the difference? Nah. Do I hope he has a far bigger role next season? Uh-huh.
- Here’s the list of guys we may have seen the last of in a Capitals sweater as they’re unrestricted free agents this summer. Marcus Johansson, John Larsson, Justin Schultz, Michal Kempny, Matt Irwin, Pheonix Copley, Shane Gersich, and Brian Pinho. Out of that group, I think only Larsson should be contacted to bring back. I really loved that fourth line with him on it.
Numbers thanks to Hockey-reference.com and NaturalStatTrick.com.
