The Capitals bounced back from a shutout loss to Edmonton with a blowout 6-1 victory on the road against the Columbus Blue Jackets Thursday in the latest EA Sports NHL 20 simulation.
Lines
With Campbell Oshie born and everyone healthy, T.J. Oshie got back into the lineup. With a back-to-back, and after the Caps got torched on defense Monday, I decided to put Radko Gudas back in the lineup and take Nick Jensen out.
Alex Ovechkin - Evgeny Kuznetsov - Tom Wilson
Jakub Vrana - Nicklas Backstrom - T.J. Oshie
Carl Hagelin - Lars Eller - Ilya Kovalchuk
Richard Panik - Nic Dowd - Garnet Hathaway
Jonas Siegenthaler - John Carlson
Dmitry Orlov - Brenden Dillon
Michal Kempny - Radko Gudas
Braden Holtby starts
The lineup for Columbus comes from Mark Scheig:
Alexandre Wennberg - Pierre-Luc Dubois - Cam Atkinson
Guatav Nyquist - Boone Jenner - Nick Foligno
Kevin Stenlund - Riley Nash - Emil Bemstrom
Stefan Matteau - Devin Shore - Eric Robinson
Zach Werenski - Ryan Murray
Vladislav Gavrikov - David Savard
Markus Nutivaara - Andrew Peeke
Elivs Merzlikins starts
Result: Caps 6, Blue Jackets 1
1st period
1-0 Caps goal: Nic Dowd from Richard Panik and Garnet Hathaway
2-0 Caps goal: Richard Panik from Nic Dowd and Jonas Siegenthaler
3-0 Caps goal (power play): John Carlson from Nicklas Backstrom and Alex Ovechkin
2nd period
4-0 Caps goal: Tom Wilson from Nic Dowd and Richard Panik
3rd period
4-1 Blue Jackets goal: Cam Atkinson from Pierre-Luc Dubois and Zach Werenski
5-1 Caps goal (power play): Nicklas Backstrom from Tom Wilson and John Carlson
6-1 Caps goal: Alex Ovechkin from Tom Wilson and Brenden Dillon
How the Caps won
1. The fourth line
The fourth line had itself a game. Panik beat out an icing call and set up Nic Dowd for an early goal just 1:56 into the game. Panik was rewarded with his own goals soon after, wristing a mean shot to the top corner to beat Merzlikins glove-side. In the middle of a line change in the second period, Dowd and Panik teamed up to set up Wilson.
In total, the fourth line combined for two goals and five assists.
2. Tom Wilson's backbreaker
Washington obviously dominated the first period, but Columbus dominated the second. The Blue Jackets maintained possession of the puck for long offensive shifts and had a number of good opportunities, but could not get one past Holtby.
Columbus caught the Caps on a bad line change with the first line trying to get off the ice while the Blue Jackets carried the puck into the offensive zone. What could have been a serious blunder quickly turned into the Caps' favor as Wilson grabbed the puck and started the breakout. With Dowd and Panik coming on, Washington suddenly had a 3-on-2 opportunity with Wilson finishing off the play.
The Blue Jackets were digging deep to try to get back into the game, but one good rush opportunity for Washington saw a three-goal deficit turn into a four-goal deficit.
3. Special teams
There were not many games in which special teams favored the Caps over the past few weeks because they take too many penalties and the power play stinks. On Thursday, however, Washington took three penalties, killed off all three power plays and scored on both of their power play opportunities.
Other notes
A real-life lesson
I take almost nothing from the video game as analysis on real hockey. That would be pretty ridiculous if I began to consider myself an expert in hockey because I just won the Stanley Cup in a video game. Having said that, there is one lesson I took away from playing this game.
On a long offensive shift for Columbus, the Blue Jackets began to cycle the puck. The defense was in good position, but as they continued to cycle, it became increasingly difficult for the defense to keep up. It's like in football when the secondary has all the receivers covered, but the defensive line can't get any pressure on the quarterback. The longer the play goes on, the harder it is to keep up. It's a good lesson in why the cycle is so effective. Over the course of a long shift in which the defense has to keep reacting to what the offense is doing, the offense is going to be able to find a hole sooner or later.
50 goals for Ovechkin
Ovechkin scored in the third period, his second goal since I began simming the games, giving him 50 on the season. Wayne Gretzky and Mike Bossy are the only two players in the history of the game with nine 50-goal seasons. Ovechkin was two goals away from joining them when the season was put on pause. I was happy for digital Ovechkin, but it made me pause and think about how unfortunate this entire situation is.
Obviously the health of everyone out there is what is most important and I hope everyone out there is doing OK and staying safe. But my job is to talk hockey, specifically Caps hockey, and what a shame it would be if Ovechkin was robbed of history by all of this.
Digital Ovechkin, however, was pumped.
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