Final Buzzer: Capped Out

WASHINGTON D.C. - Every time the Kraken has faced off against the Capitals, the home team has come away with the win, and that trend continued Friday in the nation's capital.
Despite scoring first, the Kraken couldn't find a way to get through Washington's stout neutral zone play and generated limited scoring chances as a result. Through two periods, Seattle was successful on 46.9-percent of their entries compared to the 54.8-percent success rate they had at home versus this same team just over a week ago. The third period was stronger and brought that success rate up to 57.4-percent thanks to 15 successful entries in the final 20 minutes of play.
The Capitals had the majority of the offensive attack, added a second goal after Jamie Oleksiak was called for a match penalty, and finished off the game with two empty-net scores.

"The biggest problem was in the second period," Dave Hakstol said. "We couldn't find our legs, we couldn't find any momentum in that period."
What stood out? Let's dig in.

Final Line of Defense Solid

Washington had the first four shots of the game and, in the initial period established an advantage in both shots (16) and shots on target (12). But on the Kraken side, goaltender Philipp Grubauer was having a strong start as well. He turned away all the pucks sent his way in the opening 20 minutes and turned away all but 2 of the 36 pucks that were on target. This included grade-A chances from Conor Sheary and T.J. Oshie in period one; big back-to-back saves against Erik Gustafsson and Dylan Strome in period three and all eight of the pucks that came off the stick off Alex Ovechkin when Grubauer was in net.
"He was solid," Hakstol said. "He gave us a couple big saves in the first and third that came on a couple of flurries."
In all situations, according to NaturalStatTrick.com, the netminder turned away 2.34 more goals than should have been scored. In total, Washington fired 62 pucks toward the Kraken net.

Strong Start

Grubauer's strong play gave his team time to find the back of the net. With 2:13 to play, off a Morgan Geekie faceoff, Karson Kuhlman made a key play to gain possession and direct the puck back toward Adam Larsson. The blueliner had the lane to get his shot through traffic and past Charlie Lindgren for the score. It marked the 18th time this season that the Capitals have allowed the first goal of the game. That's the third most in the league. But also, for the third straight time, the Capitals found a way to battle back.

"I thought the start was there today," Adam Larsson said. "We had a really good first period and they were better the second and the third was kind of even. It was a 2-1 game with a few minutes left. The game was right there for us."

Going Down a Skater

Dave Hakstol has placed a premium on special teams' play especially as teams get into the meat of the season. After a penalty-free first period, it was the Kraken that went down a skater first. A little over 4.5 minutes after Alexander Alexeyev scored his first NHL point (a secondary assist on the Anthony Mantha goal), he was checked in the corner by Jamie Oleksiak. Alexeyev headed to the Capitals' room and the officials revised their penalty call to be a match penalty for an illegal check to the head. The penalty not only removed the Kraken defender from the game but gave Washington a five-minute power play. The Kraken penalty kill fought valiantly including aggressive play by Yanni Gourde and Geekie who pushed play north, but with 1:33 left in the power play, Washington gained their first lead of the game. Sonny Milano passed a centering feed to Marcus Johansson net front who got the puck up and after initial contact by Grubauer, it popped over him and into the net. That pushed the score to 2-1 in favor of the Capitals.
On the game as a whole, the remaining five defenders were effective in the extra minutes they absorbed. Adam Larsson took on most of the shifts with Justin Schultz after his usual partner left the game. And the penalty kill was perfect on the two other instances of short-handed play.

By the Numbers

Here's a look at our data-driven Instant Analysis from Sportlogiq (Click
HERE
for how to read this graphic):