Capitals shred their playoff aspirations in shambolic defeat: numbers for the morning after

📸 : RMNB

The Washington Capitals needed a win in New York to keep pace in the Eastern Conference playoff race. They didn’t get that win, to say the least, falling in an embarrassing blowout, 8-1, to the Rangers.

Well, back to looking at mock drafts. Yikes.

• Yeah, that’s just a horrific loss. You can live with that one in like January, but in the context of what the Capitals needed to do there at this time of the year, that’s a whole other level of terrible. And, against the worst team in their conference. They just didn’t play from the first drop of the puck in the second period on. Not worth going through the five-on-five numbers because this game was over once it got to 4-1.
• One of the major reasons the game got so ugly is that Charlie Lindgren couldn’t stop a puck. Now, his defense certainly didn’t help him out, no doubt about that, but you need your goalie to take some goals off the board. He did the opposite and then some: eight goals allowed on 32  shots, and per MoneyPuck, he allowed 4.33 more goals than expected.
• Cole Hutson was a tough luck minus-4 as the coaching staff basically just sent a lot of the young guys out there to mop up the second half of regulation. I don’t think he was actually that bad, just the same as minus-3 Ryan Leonard and minus-2 Justin Sourdif.

Tom Wilson recorded the primary assist on McMichael’s game-tying goal, extending his point streak to four games (4g-2a–6p). Wilson has recorded eight points (4g, 4a) in his last five games against the Rangers dating back to last season.

— Capitals PR (@CapitalsPR) April 5, 2026

• Connor McMichael scored the team’s lone goal. He has nine points (2g, 7a) in his last nine games.
• Hendrix Lapierre got into his first career fight, doing pretty well for himself with an unorthodox style against Noah Laba. Jakob Chychrun and Brandon Duhaime also got into fights and lost.
• After increasing their playoff odds to around 20 percent, the Capitals, per MoneyPuck, are back down to 6.3 percent. They basically cannot lose another game and need help from other teams. I don’t think that happens.

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