Caps Erupt For Four in 3rd to Win

It's not a situation the Caps want to find themselves in on a regular basis, but for the second time in as many home games, Washington rallied from a two-goal third-period deficit to win in regulation on Saturday night against the Los Angeles Kings. Down 2-0 heading to the final frame, the Caps erupted for a quartet of goals in the third, claiming a 4-3 victory over the Kings.

Four different Caps supplied the third-period goals, starting with Nic Dowd at 3:10 and culminating with Marcus Johansson's wraparound game-winner at 15:35. Washington defensemen had a hand in the manufacture of all four goals, totaling six points in the third period, Dmitry Orlov leading the way with three assists.
"As soon as Dowder scored, it felt like, 'Okay, here we go,'" says Johansson. "We had some good looks before that; [T.J. Oshie] hit a couple of crossbars and [Dylan Strome] had a breakaway. We had some good looks, and we didn't play bad before. We just kept working hard, and we executed a little bit better, maybe. But we stuck with it, and when that first one came, we felt like, 'Okay,' and it worked out."
"The first two periods were kind of tight," says Caps coach Peter Laviolette. "Unlucky at that point; the chances were low for both teams. We were down 2-0, we had power play opportunities and some looks, and a couple of looks at 5-on-5 [but] couldn't get them to go. It was nice in the third period that we were able to push, find more attempts, more looks. Just getting that [first] one, it kind of broke it open a little bit for us."
Both teams were seeking to rebound from Thursday night road losses, and the first 40 minutes were rather dreary in terms of offense and scoring chances.
The Caps quickly got right defensively on Saturday. Two nights after the Sens poured 42 shots on the Washington nets in Ottawa, the Caps came out and limited Los Angeles to just five shots in the first frame of Saturday's game. Only one of those five came from inside of 30 feet away, and Washington held the Kings without a shot on net for two separate stretches of more than eight minutes in the first.
But the Kings got on the board first, doing so early in the second period. From behind the Washington net, Kings winger Viktor Arvidsson made a perfect feed to the front for defenseman Sean Durzi, who had crept from the point to the slot. Durzi ripped a shot home from there at 1:26 of the second period to stake the Kings to a 1-0 lead.
Washington had a pair of second period power plays, but it wasn't able to light the lamp despite some good looks and chances. Late in the second, the Kings added to their advantage after winning a draw in Washington ice. Following a quick neutral-zone regroup, the Kings re-entered and again it was Arvidsson with a precision feed, this one to Phillip Danault at the top of the paint on the left side. Danault redirected the pass to the back of the net at 15:23 to double the Los Angeles lead.
Dowd got the Caps started, pulling the puck out of a pile and firing past Los Angeles goaltender Jonathan Quick to cut the lead to 2-1 at 3:11. Just under a minute later, the Caps pulled even.

"It's kind of a funny thing, how hockey works," muses Dowd. "Stuff that happens seconds before the play ends up creating that goal. You can look back on it, and if this guy hadn't done that - and given that extra effort - then that would have never happened. And that was [Garnet Hathaway] and [Joe Snively] on that face-off; I lose it and Hath and Snives do a good job of pushing it to the corner, and then they just keep battling out.
"[Nick Jensen] did a good job of taking it to the net, and it actually took a funny bounce over Snives' stick. It just landed on mine, and I was able to put it towards the net."
In the early minutes of the third, Caps defenseman John Carlson fired a trio of long-distance shots on the Kings' net, all of them from neutral ice. On the same shift as the third of those shots, Carlson took a feed from Evgeny Kuznetsov and ripped a shot from above the left circle. The puck glanced off Quick's glove and went in, making it a 2-2 game at 4:10.
Less than four minutes later, the Caps grabbed their first lead of the night on the forecheck. Lars Eller's line was beastly in the first period, dominating play and driving possession. In the third, they got rewarded. Orlov moved up from the left point and found huge seam, using it to find Eller on the weak side. The lefty-shooting center ripped a wrist shot past Quick to lift the Caps to a 3-2 lead at 8:58.

The lead was short-lived. Los Angeles broke out on a 2-on-1 rush after Trevor Moore blocked a shot high in the Kings' zone. Moore carried into Caps territory and patiently waited, feeding Arvidsson for the goal at the back door at 10:31.
That set the stage for Johansson's almost accidental wraparound game-winner minutes later. Johansson carried into the zone and left the puck high on the left side for Orlov, who quickly returned it. But it hopped over Johansson's stick, and lacking options, he tried the wrap and got a fortuitous bounce off the skate of Kings defender Brandt Clarke.
"Not much," answers Johansson, when asked what he saw on his goal. "I was a little bit tired and my first thought was to go to Osh, but the puck kind of jumped my blade or something. Then, I just wanted to get it to the net and it snuck in."

After starting a five-game early season road trip with three straight one-goal victories, the Kings were forced to settle for a 3-2-0 trip, dropping the last two games in Pittsburgh and Washington, respectively.
"I'm not sure that we were that good in the first 40 [minutes] either," says Kings coach Todd McLellan. "There were some chances, but they were fewer. It was a dead game, not a lot going on either way. We got fortunate, we scored a couple of goals, got the lead.
"[In the] third, they got rolling and they obviously got some momentum. I thought when we eventually scored to tie the game again, you could kind of feel it going our way a bit, and it didn't work."