Logan Thompson had a game to forget against the Tampa Bay Lightning on Saturday.
The Capitals’ starting netminder surrendered four goals on six shots and got pulled by head coach Spencer Carbery for the first time in his Capitals career, yielding the net to Charlie Lindgren with 1:41 remaining in the first period.
Two nights later, however, Thompson was back tending the twine for an important game against the Columbus Blue Jackets, a Metropolitan Division rival just one point above the Capitals in the standings. He responded with a sublime performance, stopping 22 of 23 shots in the Capitals’ dominant 5-1 victory.
After the positive night, reporters tried to gingerly approach the topic of Thompson’s poor outing over the weekend, but he was perfectly fine with calling a spade a spade.
“Does it mean any more to you to have a strong game tonight after a rare…” Capitals writer Mike Vogel began before trailing off.
“Crappy game?” Thompson suggested.
“Clunker, let’s call it,” Vogel replied.
“Yeah it’s nice,” Thompson responded. “As I said many times, that’s life of a goalie. Sometimes games go like that: four goals on six shots. Other games, you have a little more puck luck. So it was nice for Carbs to let me get right back in there, and I felt really good tonight. I thought overall it was a perfect team game from everyone from forwards to D. Just a really positive game.”
Thompson saved 1.9 goals above expected, per MoneyPuck. The only goal he allowed was a third-period strike by Blue Jackets defenseman Denton Mateychuk, who got a hold of a rebound from the right side and overpowered a shot past Thompson.
“I think maybe younger me would be dwelling or a little more emotional (about the Lightning game),” Thompson said. “Just being more experienced and having more games, it’s almost — you kinda read that Devin Cooley in Calgary and some of his quotes right? — it doesn’t matter what everyone else thinks, you’re just going to have some really weird games, and that was probably one of the weirdest games of my career, but the sun came up the next day and just right back to work. I’m happy with tonight’s result.”
Cooley has become famous across the league for his nihilistic goaltending philosophy that “Nothing matters, nobody cares, we’re all going to die.”
If Thompson can string together quality starts like he did at the beginning of the season and the Capitals can continue to score up and down the lineup, he may end up playing for something that matters by year’s end.