Caps Down Jackets, 7-2

Playing the front end of a set of back-to-backs in Columbus on Wednesday night, the Caps kept the train rolling with a 7-2 win over the Blue Jackets. Anthony Mantha fueled Washington's offensive outburst with a pair of first-period goals and Vitek Vanecek was again stellar in the Caps' crease. Vanecek stopped 39 shots to record his sixth straight win, a career high.

"They score a lot of goals," says Caps coach Peter Laviolette of the Jackets. "They're up there in 5-on-5 goals, and they throw a lot of volume at the net. I thought we did a good job of controlling the quality ones, but Vitek made some big saves and it seemed like he was busy the entire night. He had to make some big saves and he had to stay engaged in the game, and I thought he did a really good job of that."
The Caps made their share of mistakes in the first period, turning the puck over in dangerous areas of the ice and forcing Vanecek to make a handful of big stops early. But he made them all, denying Emil Bemstrom from in tight after a turnover deep in Washington ice, thwarting Gus Nyquist after a turnover at the Washington line, and stopping an Oliver Bjorkstrand backhander after a Caps turnover in neutral ice.
"There's three or four times where I was standing up on the bench and the bench was standing up and applauding the saves there in the first period," says Caps right wing Tom Wilson. "Those are big moments in the game that give us a chance to be able to take over, and it can be a different game if one of those goes in, so that's a huge job well done by him."
Woven in between those key stops were a pair of vastly different Mantha markers. Before the game was five minutes old, T.J. Oshie sent Mantha off on a breakaway, and the big winger scored the Caps' first goal of the game for the second straight contest, patiently sliding a backhander through the five-hole of Jackets goaltender Joonas Korpisalo for a 1-0 Washington lead at 4:29.

"It's just a quick play," recounts Mantha. "Obviously Osh just taps it up, and I knew I was on a breakaway. The goalie didn't really bite on that first initial fake of the shot, so I went to my backhand and just five-holed it; it just trickled [in]."
A couple minutes into the back half of the first, Mantha netted another, this one on a fortuitous bounce that followed some diligent forechecking. The Caps were buzzing the net in Columbus ice and after the Jackets cleared, the Caps went right back in. From the right circle, Mantha fired a shot wide on the near side. The puck bounded off the back wall and Korpisalo inadvertently kicked it in with his skate for a 2-0 Caps lead at 12:20 of the first.
Washington stretched its lead to three goals early in the second when John Carlson sent blueliner partner Martin Fehervary into Columbus ice on a 2-on-none rush. Fehervary scored to make it 3-0, chasing Korpisalo for the night. Elvis Merzlikins came on in relief, a night after facing 31 shots in a 4-1 Columbus win in Ottawa.
"Carly made a nice pass to [Daniel Sprong], and it just hopped over his stick," says Fehervary. "I ended up getting a breakaway and tried to make a play. It went through, so I'm happy for it."

A flurry of penalties on both sides followed, with each team striking once on the power play. First, the Jackets got on the board on a beauty of a power-play goal to make it 3-1 at 6:57 of the second. Following a quick regroup in neutral ice, Max Domi started a tic-tac-toe sequence that culminated with Oliver Bjorkstrand tucking a shot under the bar from the slot.
Just after the midpoint of the middle period, Caps captain Alex Ovechkin struck for his second goal in as many games, this one on the power play. From behind the Columbus net, Conor Sheary, fed Ovechkin in front. He settled, shot and scored at 10:44 to restore the Caps' three-goal cushion.
Early in the third, Columbus made it a 4-2 tilt when Patrik Laine got a stick on Zach Werenski's left point shot at 1:47.
Washington quickly answered, getting another gift goal to restore its three-goal lead. After Merzlikins stopped Connor McMichael's rush chance, Jackets defender Dean Kukan accidentally tucked the puck into his own net, resulting in McMichael's eighth goal of the season and a 5-2 Caps lead at 4:15 of the third. McMichael's goal deflated the Jackets, who had drawn some life from the Laine goal.
Ahead of the midpoint of the third, coincidental minors were assessed and the two teams started a stretch of 4-on-4 hockey. Soon after, Jackets coach Brad Larsen pulled Merzlikins for an extra attacker, and it backfired immediately. Nine seconds after Nicklas Backstrom won a defensive zone draw, Sheary skated in and deposited the puck in the empty net to make it 6-2 at 7:21.
Less than two minutes later, Evgeny Kuznetsov closed out the scoring with his 20th goal of the season on a Washington power play at 9:03.

"I thought we played hard tonight," says Werenski. "It was just a weird game. A couple of mistake early on, we get it to 4-2 and a couple more mistakes after that."
Wednesday's win was Washington's third in succession, and the Caps improved to 6-0-1 in the month of March. After four straight games in which they needed to rebound from a deficit in the third period to win or record a point, Wednesday's win was the first in a while in which the Caps were able to score first, pad the lead and not need to come back late.
"The first period wasn't the period we really wanted," says Mantha. "They were in our zone most of the period and we were just trying to defend. But we came back to the locker room with a 2-0 lead, and we built off that and we ended up putting the game away."