Columbus Blue Jackets @ Washington Capitals: 11/4/23 Game Recap

The period one, back-and-forth stalemate, would end with a medical goal by Tom Wilson at 12:31 for the Capitals. The bitter sting of a former Blue Jacket scoring would then be felt at 17:21 after a goal from Sonny Milano. Even with some hard-fought effort from the Blue Jackets, the Capitals would have a 2-goal lead going into the second twenty-minute period of play at home.

Period two could have been better for the Blue Jackets. That said, they did manage to find the net at 1:38, thanks to the second goal this season by Dmitri Voronkov. Kirill Marchenko would take the primary assist, giving him a grand total of four this season. The secondary assist would be the second this season for David Jiricek. Best of all, the Blue Jackets would keep the Capitals out of their net (primarily thanks to the efforts and focus of Elvis Merzlikins in that net.) It was a 2-1 hockey game, with the Capitals holding a one-goal edge into the final regulation period. 

The final period would be summed up by back-and-forth with penalties galore. Elvis Merzlikins would guard the goal with every bit of energy he had. The offense would push till the final seconds, but nothing would come from it. We would prevent the Capitals from scoring again in this period, too. Unfortunately, though, this game would conclude with a 2-1 win for the home team. 

Merzlikins would end this game with a confident .926% Save Percentage. He kept 25 Capital shots out of the net after 27 got through to him. Again, this was a good game; they couldn't find that tying goal while keeping the Capitals out of the visitor net for the last forty minutes. It's frustrating, but by far not their worst performance this season by far.    

Our next game will be Monday evening at the Florida Panthers. The puck will drop at 7:00 p.m., and this game will be interesting. The Panthers went to the Stanely Cup Final last season, but this season, they've struggled to be consistent. Currently, they are down 4-0 against the Chicago Blackhawks. So, we'll see what happens in the Sunshine State on November 6.       

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