Winning the battle of the Ilyas: Caps beat Islanders 6-3 – Russian Machine Never Breaks

Winning the battle of the Ilyas: Caps beat Islanders 6-3 – Russian Machine Never Breaks
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An Alex Ovechkin-less Washington Capitals did battle with the Barry Trotz-led New York Islanders for the second time in only a few days. Could the Caps get the job done without their captain? Could they also win the battle of goaltenders named Ilya?

Garnet Hathway opened the scoring with a soft wrister that fooled Ilya Sorokin to give the Caps a goal against the Isles for the first time in forever. TJ Oshie finished off a pretty passing play to extend that lead before Anthony Beauvillier cut it back in half with a power-play backhand.

An Adam Pelech shorthanded blast beat what seemed like a surprised Ilya Samsonov. Nic Dowd took it to the roof to restore a Caps lead and Daniel Sprong popped home another right after. Things wouldn’t stay fully rosy in the second period though as Jean-Gabriel Pageau pounced on a rough bounce to bring the Isles a goal closer once more.

Evgeny Kuznetsov went coast-to-coast and found the back of the net with a slick wrister. Sprong hit the roof right off of a faceoff.

Caps beat Islanders 6-3!

  • I thought that was a great first period for the Caps at five-on-five. Natural Stat Trick had the Isles with seven high danger chances in the frame to the Caps three but I really don’t buy that math. The Caps controlled that frame and were only beat by a bogus penalty call because a home team was down two goals early in a game. I can’t get in trouble for saying that because thank you Tim Peel.
  • It took two and a half minutes for this game to beat the last Isles-Caps matchup in total goals. There were exactly zero in 65 minutes during that one a couple of days ago. Garnet Hathaway broke the Isles 148 minute and 32-second long shutout streak against the Caps with a weird wrister that beat Ilya Sorokin short side.
  • The last time Alex Ovechkin missed a game with injury was on March 5, 2015 against the Minnesota Wild which the Wild won 2-1. The Caps only goal in that game was scored by Curtis Glencross.
  • I thought the Caps had the better of the second period as well and…I was again a bit suspect of the officiating. It just felt like the refs were gonna give the Isles a power play before that period ended and they did. And the Isles scored on it.
  • The Caps have been frustratingly, unacceptably lazy on their power play at times this season and that laziness has led to giving up the most shorthanded goals against in the league. We saw more of that in this game but Ilya Samsonov also needs to be stopping that shot.
  • The guy replacing the Great Eight on the top line tonight was Daniel Sprong and Spronger got on the board with his eighth goal of the season and then his ninth right off a draw a la Ovechkin. Fitting.
  • Big congrats to Zdeno Chara as the big man played in the 1,600th game of his career. That is good for 13th all-time in NHL history.
  • Another great third period. Pretty simple.
  • So, this has nothing to do with this game but you all need to know this. The Dallas Stars outshot the Detroit Red Wings 41 to 6 through two periods tonight. The score of that game after those two periods, you ask? 1-0, Detroit. What in the actual baloney is that?
  • I…used “I” on the RMNB Twitter account tonight. This is your free pass to shame me in the comments of this recap.

The Caps and Isles will finish off this mini-series against one another as well as their total season set on Tuesday in DC. Hopefully, Ovi is ready to go for that one!

Full RMNB Coverage of Caps at Islanders

Screenshot courtesy of NBC Sports Washington

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