{"id":386919,"date":"2026-01-04T07:26:16","date_gmt":"2026-01-04T07:26:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/386919\/"},"modified":"2026-01-04T07:26:16","modified_gmt":"2026-01-04T07:26:16","slug":"blackhawks-beat-caps-3-2-so-plus-tom-wilsons-hurt-so-that-double-sucked","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/386919\/","title":{"rendered":"Blackhawks beat Caps 3-2 (SO), plus Tom Wilson\u2019s hurt, so that double-sucked"},"content":{"rendered":"

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"WSH
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\ud83d\udcf8 kurly from #crashers<\/a>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

The Washington Capitals were already battered and bruised when they entered Saturday\u2019s date with the Chicago Blackhawks. They ended the night even more so.<\/p>\n

Ryan Donato scored a gimme goal just 70 seconds in. Dylan Strome restored the tie with a brisk rebound on Ethen Frank\u2019s shot.<\/p>\n

The Hawks pulled ahead again in the second period, with Teuvo Teravainen beating Thompson at the end of a long shift during a lonely power play.<\/p>\n

Ryan Leonard worked his ass off to tie the game with nine minute left in the third period.<\/p>\n

Overtime gave us nothing but dyspepsia.<\/p>\n

Shootout bullets!<\/p>\n

Leonard did NOT put the biscuit in the basket.
\nLardis put the biscuit in the basket. Never heard of him.
\nStrome put the biscuit in the basket. Beautiful lift.
\nDonato got nada with regards to biscuits, baskets, the putting of one into the other.
\nBeauvillier did NOT put the biscuit in the basket.
\nMoore did NOT put the biscuit in the basket.
\nMcMichael did NOT put the biscuit in the basket.
\nCrevier did NOT put the biscuit in the basket.
\nMilano put the biscuit in the basket.
\nBurakovsky put the biscuit in the basket.
\nChychrun did NOT put the biscuit in the basket.
\nFoligno put the biscuit in the basket.<\/p>\n

Caps lose.<\/p>\n

Get RMNB ad-free<\/p>\n

Support us on Patreon for $5 to hide all ads and get other perks<\/p>\n

More Info<\/a><\/p>\n

What a stinker. We should have known it would be so early on, when Ryan Donato was up close and personal with Logan Thompson to score the opening goal. A pattern was established there of poor defensive coverage. The Caps allowed six high-danger chances in the first period. They got better defensively as the game wore on, but they still struggled to finish chances on attack.
\nBut before we wallow in that muck, let\u2019s delight in the tepid pool of Dylan Strome scoring again. With his goal tonight, he\u2019s been above a point per game since December 20, or eight games ago. His return to form is badly needed, especially since:
\nAliaksei Protas missed the game due to the lower-body injury, presumably the one he suffered when he crashed into the boards feet-first earlier this weekend<\/a>. That\u2019s fine. That\u2019s okay. No big deal. We can manage as long as we\u2019ve got
\nTom Wilson, the team\u2019s top scorer and future Olympian, suffered a lower-body injury after running into Connor Murphy below the goal line in the first period.<\/p>\n

Tom Wilson is supposed to play for Team Canada next month.<\/p>\n

\u2014 Peter Hassett (@peterhassett.net)<\/a> 2026-01-04T00:47:59.067Z<\/a><\/p>\n

Wilson was labeled \u201cquestionable to return,\u201d but he did not<\/a>. Sam Bennett just sat up in his chair.
\nAlex Ovechkin got hurt four minutes into the third period, but it was just a high stick from Louis Crevier that didn\u2019t get called. Should have been a director\u2019s cut power play. He might have lost a tooth. Instead, Ovechkin baited his way into a make-up call a few minutes later.
\nAndre Burakovsky is still a nephew. Don\u2019t listen to Ian<\/a>. (He\u2019s having a good season. His ice time is up like 2.5 minutes per game.)<\/p>\n

With Pro and Wilson out, the Caps needed someone from their core to step up. The core was unavailable, so Ryan Leonard did it. His days of sub-15 minutes on ice need to be over for good. One standings point belongs to him, and I loved him leading the shootout.
\nIf you want some deep nerdery, popular expected goals models have been overweighting certain kinds of shots<\/a>, making every goalie look better than they were<\/a>. That community is cool; they talked it out and worked it out.
\nB-Hawks is what the Monumental site called them. I know that\u2019s not an unprecedented nickname, but I hate it. I hate the bad precedent. History will vindicate me on this.<\/p>\n

Two points or we riot #joebsuitofthenight<\/p>\n

\u2014 RMNB (@rmnb.bsky.social)<\/a> 2026-01-04T00:01:54.210Z<\/a><\/p>\n

I\u2019ll keep it brief, because it\u2019s not fun to read this routine. The Caps don\u2019t just look bad; they look smug in their badness. Indifferent in their own zone, inert in the other one. Carlson looked rough out there. McMichael too. Lapierre had a chance to make some noise with slightly increased ice time; he did not.<\/p>\n

I feel like Carbery could be animated in the post-game.<\/p>\n

But Ryan Leonard cares, and he\u2019s got the points to back it up. Ethen Frank cares, and he had wheels tonight. PLD is skating again<\/a>. There\u2019s some bright side.<\/p>\n

Ducks on Monday. Enjoy your Sunday scaries.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\ud83d\udcf8 kurly from #crashers The Washington Capitals were already battered and bruised when they entered Saturday\u2019s date with…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":386920,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[66],"tags":[385,99],"class_list":{"0":"post-386919","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nhl","8":"tag-nhl","9":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/386919","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=386919"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/386919\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/386920"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=386919"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=386919"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=386919"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}