Caps Break Out in 5-0 Win in Dallas

Vitek Vanecek stopped all 29 shots he faced and the Caps supported him with a five-goal outburst against former Washington goalie Braden Holtby on Friday night in Dallas. With a 5-0 victory over the Stars, Washington was able to close out a difficult month of January on a winning note.

Washington's beleaguered power play staked the team to an early 2-0 lead, and the Caps kept their collective feet on the gas for the rest of the night, adding to their lead intermittently while stifling the Stars' attack and halting the Dallas winning streak at four.
"First, I liked the way we played defense," says Caps coach Peter Laviolette. "I thought we were really tight for the most part, and we limited their chances. But offensively it was nice to get some results, both on the power play and playing at 5-on-5, by putting some pucks in the back of the net."
The game took a seemingly inauspicious turn for the Caps in the first minute when Joe Pavelski scored on Dallas's first shot on net of the night. Washington elected to challenge the call, alleging the Stars were offside on the play, and that challenge was successful. With Pavelski's goal wiped away, the contest quickly took a sharp turn in the Caps' direction.
Just 36 seconds later, Roope Hintz took an unwise tripping penalty in the offensive zone, giving the Caps an early power play opportunity. Ten seconds later, they had a 1-0 lead when Nicklas Backstrom teed up Tom Wilson for a one-timer from the slot, a shot that beat Holtby to give Washington a 1-0 lead at 1:29 of the first.

About six minutes later, the Caps went on the power play again. With Evgeny Kuznetsov supplying the tee-up feed this time, Washington doubled its lead when John Carlson hammered a shot home from center point at 7:54 of the first.
The Caps continued their offensive onslaught in the back half of the frame, this time at even strength. Thirteen seconds after Lars Eller won a draw in Dallas ice, Joe Snively and Connor McMichael combined to push the puck to the right point for Trevor van Riemsdyk. van Riemsdyk walked it a couple steps toward the middle and put a wrist shot through traffic and behind Holtby for a 3-0 Washington advantage at 13:08 of the first.
Two minutes later, the Caps survived a Dallas power play in which the Stars put six shots on Vanecek, missed the net on a couple of good looks and had two more bids blocked.
The two teams combined for 33 shots in the first frame, and the second was quieter until Carlson was boxed for a double-minor for hi-sticking at the first television timeout. The Caps killed off the entire four minutes without incident, and then they went back to work offensively.
From his own end of the ice, Eller took a feed from Justin Schultz and wove his way through the neutral zone as the Stars executed a line change. Carrying down the left side into Dallas territory, Eller patiently lured Holtby out of his crease before throwing a feed to the front for McMichael, who was in ahead of the coverage and fired into the empty net for a 4-0 lead at 12:03.

"I didn't see much," recounts McMichael. "I just saw Lars take it wide and make an unreal pass to me in front, and all I had to do was put it in an empty net."
Late in the period, Dmitry Orlov hustled to the Dallas line to keep a puck from exiting the zone, jamming it to Backstrom. From the inside of the left circle, Backstrom went bar down to make it 5-0 at 16:50.
Friday's game started later than usual, and the two teams attempted to give some of that time back to the sellout crowd in the third period. Between a Dallas icing in the first minute of the third and a Washington icing after the midpoint of the frame, the two sides played more than 11 minutes between whistles.
The only drama remaining in the third centered on whether Vanecek would be able to complete the shutout, his second of the month and the season, and the fourth of his career. The Caps kept up their stellar defensive effort long enough to ensure that it happened. The Caps supported their sophomore goaltender at both ends of the ice to finish January at 4-6-2.
"I think everyone was a part of this win," says Backstrom. "To start off with two power-play goals was also big. It was just a great night for us, and hopefully we can build on this."
Limited to just one goal in their previous two games, the Caps used their power play to jump out to an early lead and then poured it on at 5-on-5.
"It's been a while since we've had an offensive outbreak like that, and it felt good to be playing our style of hockey again, and to create that many chances and capitalize on them," says McMichael.

In addition to spoiling Holtby's first game against his former mates, the Caps put a damper on a special night for Dallas hockey. The Stars retired the No. 56 sweater of Hockey Hall of Fame defenseman Sergei Zubov in a stirring pregame ceremony that turned out to be the high point of the evening for the local fans.
"Well, the score tells you," says Dallas coach Rick Bowness. "We had nothing going tonight. Nothing. We played a very experienced, hungry hockey club that had lost two in a row, and they came in and took control of the game and didn't let up. We just had nothing going tonight."