Caps Close Homestand vs. Detroit
Caps and Ovechkin face Gordie Howe's former team on Monday, with sons Mark and Marty expected to be in attendance
Washington's three-game homestand concludes on Monday night when the Detroit Red Wings visit Capital One Arena for the first of two times this season. Monday's game is the rubber match of the homestand for the Caps, who defeated Toronto by a 5-2 count on Saturday night after dropping the opener to Dallas on Thursday, 2-1.
After notching a hat trick in Chicago last Monday, Caps captain Alex Ovechkin was held without a lamplighter in each of the first two games of the homestand. He remains a single goal behind Gordie Howe (801) for second place on the NHL's all-time goals ledger, and Ovechkin's next crack at catching Mr. Hockey comes against Detroit, the team Howe played for from 1946-71, a total of 25 seasons.
Howe's sons - Mark and Marty - with whom he played for six seasons in the WHA and for one final NHL campaign with Hartford in 1979-80, are both expected to be in attendance on Monday night in Washington.
Saturday's win over the Maple Leafs has to rank as one of the biggest for the Caps this season. Washington played a strong game in the loss to Dallas, but still saw its five-game winning streak halted. Facing a Toronto team that was also coming in off a loss - its only regulation setback in 16 games (12-1-3) - Washington was missing a single-game season high of 10 players, and it lost right wing T.J. Oshie to an upper body ailment midway through the game.
Both teams were looking to get back on the beam, but the Capitals were in a much more desperate situation based on their lower standings position and the fact that they reside in the Metropolitan Division, the most competitive of the League's four divisions.
Erik Gustafsson's first three goals as a Capital - the first hat trick by a Caps defenseman in nearly 23 years - were the difference in the win over Toronto, and the middle goal of the hat trick was the game-winner. Trevor van Riemsdyk also scored against the Leafs, netting his third goal in four games to give the Caps a rare four-goal outburst from its blueline.
But the game's biggest goal came 10 seconds into the third period when Garnet Hathaway scored to push the Washington lead to 4-2, giving the Caps some breathing following a second period in which they were continually under siege in their own end of the ice. Hathaway's goal was also fueled by a defenseman, namely Nick Jensen, who made a boss read and play in the neutral zone to get the puck and carry it to the Toronto cage where Hathaway ripped it home.
"For me, right off the bat it set the tone of the third period," says Caps coach Peter Laviolette. "We chatted about it after the second [period]; it just wasn't good enough. That level of play in the second period is not what has had us climb up here [in the standings]. And so we can't accept that, we've got to be better than that.
"And I thought that first shift kind of set the tone for the third period. I don't think that [the Leafs] had much at 5-on-5; they had maybe a couple of chances on the power play and maybe one on the penalty kill. But at 5-on-5, I thought it was pretty good as a response to the 5-on-5 not being good in the second period."
In the homestand opener against Dallas, the Caps turned in one of their best second-period performances all season, only to fall 2-1 when the Stars struck for a pair of quick goals early in the third. Facing the red hot Leafs on Saturday, the Caps needed to get back into the win column and they did. They're still not where they want to be and avoiding lengthy stretches without picking up points is imperative for Washington.
"That was a huge game for us," says Caps center Evgeny Kuznetsov, who contributed stellar primary helpers on each of Gustafsson's last two goals on Saturday. "That was really important, we don't want to lose two in a row, especially playing against a really good team."
The news from Saturday wasn't all good. Center Nic Dowd (lower body) and goaltender Hunter Shepard (upper body) were both injured during morning skate, and neither suited up for Saturday's game. And Oshie left the game midway through the second and did not return.
Zach Fucale was summoned from AHL Hershey to serve as a backup to Charlie Lindgren, who stopped 34 shots to claim his sixth win in his last seven starts on Saturday. Neither Dowd nor Oshie took part in Sunday's highly optional practice at MedStar Capitals Iceplex, and both are currently listed as day-to-day.
Nicolas Aube-Kubel got a sweater for a third straight game and played against his former Toronto teammates, and Sonny Milano stepped back into the lineup after a one-game absence because of illness. Milano made his presence felt right away assisting on each of the Caps' first three goals of the game, his second three-point game in just over a month and his third multi-point game in 20 contests with Washington. Milano has now put up 14 points (three goals, 11 assists) since debuting with Washington on Nov. 5.
"Honestly, right away these guys made me feel super comfortable," says Milano. "I'm sticking with it."
Late last month, Detroit put together a four-game winning streak that pushed it into a playoff slot in the Eastern Conference standings. But the Wings have been wobbling since, winning just two of 10 (2-6-2) and they are lugging a five-game losing streak (0-4-1) as they come into the District.
The Wings have been outscored by a combined total of 19-7 in their last five games. When the two teams met early last month in Detroit, the Red Wings skated off with a 3-1 victory after Ovechkin staked the Caps to a 1-0 lead in the second period.
Like the Capitals, Detroit has been battling an injury bug. The Wings were missing six players when they last took the ice on Saturday in a 6-3 home ice setback at the hands of the Ottawa Senators. Among the most notable missing Wings are forwards Tyler Bertuzzi, Robby Fabbri, David Perron and Filip Zadina.
The Wings did get some good news last week when former Caps winger Jakub Vrana returned to practice with the team after spending nearly two months in the NHL/NHLPA's player assistance program. Vrana is now available to play and he has entered the follow-up care portion of the program. He is working himself into game shape and will hopefully be back on the ice very soon.
