The Washington Capitals grabbed a much-needed win on Saturday, beating the New York Islanders 4-3 via a shootout.
This victory gives the Capitals 83 standings points with four games remaining on their schedule, ending a five-game losing streak in the process.
It’s not all positive numbers for a Capitals team that might benefit from so much attention being heaped on Alex Ovechkin’s plus/minus rating, which rests at -35 after an even rating on Saturday.
For one thing, the playoff-desperate Capitals saw the Islanders carry shot advantages in every period until overtime. The Isles ultimately out-shot the Capitals 38-29 on Saturday, but Braden Holtby managed to keep the Caps in the game and grab a big win.
It’s also interesting to see how often Washington has entered the “skills competition” this season. The Caps are now 10-10 in shootouts in 2013-14; as of this writing, the San Jose Sharks are the only team who’ve entered a comparable amount of shootouts with 17 (10-7).
Washington was on the right end of it today, anyway, as Evgeny Kuznetsov scored the shootout-winner:
The Capitals travel to St. Louis on Tuesday and Carolina on Thursday before finishing their schedule with home games against Chicago (April 11) and Tampa Bay (April 13).