Caps Down Isles, 5-1

With their dads and mentors looking on from a suite, the Caps went out and put together a virtually complete game, cooling off the Islanders by a 5-1 count on Saturday night at UBS Arena. Washington yielded the game's first goal and then poured five unanswered goals on the Isles from five different players in a victory that draws the Caps to within five points of the Islanders in the Eastern Conference standings.

As the players walked off the ice and into the locker room following the victory, the dads and mentors were lined up on either side of them for a boisterous celebration of back-slapping, high-fiving and hugs.
Washington eagerly welcomed defensemen Nick Jensen and Martin Fehervary back to its lineup after each missed the last three games with injury. The duo was a big part of the win as well, helping the penalty kill put forth a perfect night (5-for-5) and keeping Darcy Kuemper's workload manageable.
After facing a barrage of shots in each of his last three starts, Kuemper had the volume turned down in Saturday's win. Although he faced only 18 shots, he was tested on several of them and finished with 17 saves and his 20th victory of the season.
"It's all around a big game," says Caps winger T.J. Oshie, one of five Washington goal scorers in the game. "There were a lot of reasons for us to get up for this one. We've got the dads here, obviously, our mentors. We've got the standings, we've got some money on the board from a recent signing, and some other guys that have history here.
"So it was it's easy to get up for this one. Glad that we stuck with it after giving up another first goal, and excited to play with my line. They're really rolling right now, and they make it easy on me to find space to get some goals in there, and an all-around good team win."
After killing off an early New York power play, the Caps fell behind 1-0 when Pierre Engvall tallied at 5:18 of the first, scoring on a 2-on-1 rush during a delayed penalty. Washington looked a little scattered early, but it buttoned down quickly after the Engvall goal and went right to work.
The Caps needed just 83 seconds with which to pull even. The Dylan Strome line has been the team's most consistent offensive outfit in the last couple of weeks, and the trio struck for a pair of first-period goals, enabling the Caps to take a 2-1 lead to the room at first intermission. Following a puck exchange on the blueline, Rasmus Sandin fed Strome in the slot, and No. 17 cranked a one-timer home from there at 6:41, beating Semyon Varlamov for No. 16 on the season and knotting the score at 1-1.
Strome scored Washington's first goal of the game - and his second in as many games - with his dad Chris watching on, the first time Strome has had his father along on the mentors' trip.
"It was nice to get a goal and nice to get a goal for him," says Strome. "He was at the last game at home [on Thursday vs. New Jersey] and I got one then, too. So I may have to keep him around for the rest of the year."
Kuemper faced at least 40 shots in each of his three previous starts, and New York pumped four pucks on him in the first 5:18 of Saturday's game, too. But the Caps kept the Isles at bay for a lengthy stretch thereafter, holding them without a shot on net for more than 10 minutes, and limiting them to a single shot in the final 14-plus minutes of the frame. But the Caps needed Kuemper to come up big on that one shot, a Simon Holmstrom shot from the slot following a Sandin giveaway in front.
"I think we played pretty good defensively," says Sandin. "I tossed a pizza right up the middle there in the first period. I just wanted to keep [Kuemper] in the game a little bit."
For the second straight game, Washington struck in the final minute of the frame, and again it was the Strome line. This time, they put on a clinic in the offensive zone, snapping the puck round the perimeter with all five white sweatered skaters getting a touch on it, and culminating with an Oshie tap-in from the slot on a fine feed from Sandin at 19:13.
Sandin and partner Trevor van Riemsdyk - who inked a three-year contract extension earlier in the day - each picked up a pair of helpers in the first. With 21 points (seven goals, 14 assists), van Riemsdyk has eclipsed the 20-point plateau for the first time in his NHL career.
Washington had to kill off a pair of New York power plays in what was a scoreless second period, and it had to snuff out two more in the third. And seconds after the expiration of their own power play early in the third, the Caps struck for the first of three insurance tallies in the third.
Anthony Mantha netted his first goal since Dec. 31, chipping a shot over Varlamov on a rebound of an Alex Ovechkin shot at 4:15 of the third to give Kuemper and the Caps some breathing room at 3-1.
Eight minutes later, Nic Dowd rifled a shot past Varlamov from the high slot to make it 4-1 with his first goal since Jan. 3. Dowd's 11th goal of the season matches his single-season high, established in 2020-21.
A minute after Dowd's goal, Nick Backstrom deflected a Sandin left point shot home for his first goal since Feb. 16, accounting for the 5-1 final. Sandin finished the night with three primary assists for his third multi-point game in four games since joining the Caps. He is the first player in franchise history to record three multi-point outings in his first four games with the team. He has totaled a goal and seven assists in his four games with Washington.
"It was really good," says Caps coach Peter Laviolette. "It was nice to score that first goal after they got on the board first, and it was really quick afterwards so a great response. And it just seemed like having Marty and Jens back in the lineup settled things down on the back end quite a bit.
"Everybody was on point with their game. I thought the penalty kill did a really good job. Kuemps was really good, and he had to make some big saves, too. So a really good team effort with the with the dads here, so that was kind of neat."
It was neat, but it was also clean. The Caps limited the Isles to just 18 shots on net, only 11 of which came at even strength. It's the lowest shot total the Caps have permitted in a single game this season, and they improve to 17-7-0 all-time in mentors' game outings in the process.