Caps Face Flyers in Philly Again

March 13 vs. Philadelphia Flyers at Wells Fargo Center
Time: 7 p.m.
TV:NBCSW
Radio:Capitals Radio 24/7, 106.7 FAN
Washington Capitals 16-6-4
Philadelphia Flyers 13-8-3

For the third time in as many road games this week, Washington faces the Flyers in Philadelphia on Saturday night. The Saturday game is the middle match of the Caps' current three-game road trip; they'll head home for most of the remainder of March after taking on the Sabres in Buffalo on Monday night in the finale of the trip.
In Saturday's game against the Flyers, the Caps are seeking a clean sweep of three games in The City of Brotherly Love this week. Washington claimed a 3-1 victory last Sunday night here, and after stopping him long enough to claim two more points in a 5-4 overtime win over the New Jersey Devils on Tuesday, the Caps took a 5-3 victory over the Flyers in Philly on Thursday.
After opening up a 4-1 lead after 40 minutes of play on Thursday, the Caps were able to fend off a late Philadelphia surge to ensure the Flyers weren't able to pick up a point by getting the game to overtime. Every other team in top half of the East Division won on Thursday night, making those two points taken from the Flyers even more crucial for the Caps.
"Like we've talked about this whole year, it's a shortened season with all divisional games every single game," says Caps right wing Garnet Hathaway. "It's just as important to get points as it is to keep points away from other teams. We don't know what it's going to look like down the road, but that could be a big difference right there."
Shortly before Thursday's game, the Caps learned they would be without the services of center Lars Eller, who returned to Washington earlier on Thursday to attend to a family matter. The Capitals dressed 11 forwards and double-shifted their three centers and T.J. Oshie in the middle of the ice. By game's end Oshie had garnered more ice time (22:32) than any other skater on the team, the first time season that someone aside from Alex Ovechkin or John Carlson led the Caps in ice time in a game.

"We're playing with 11 forwards," says Hathaway, "Obviously our [defense] corps been unbelievable, and [goaltender Ilya Samsonov] played on his head again. But I just can't stop thinking just how big of an asset Osh was, being able to take those shifts at center - being reliable there, and being the guy that can create offense on that first line. And then to come back and be the low guy in the zone on a completely different line, and sometimes on back-to-back shifts.
"It's not easy with three centers. And he took a lot of important shifts with different wingers and was steady and sturdy and make some great plays, so I thought that was a big reason why we came up with the two points."
In the two games against the Flyers earlier this week, the Caps surrendered a total of four goals, one of which was scored on the power play. Each of the other three came of the rush, as did some of the goals the Flyers scored against the Caps in Washington earlier in the season on Feb. 7, in a 7-4 Philadelphia victory. The Flyers are a strong rush team, and the Caps know they can be better at defending the rush against Philly.
"There are things internally that we're working through right now with regard to that," says Caps coach Peter Laviolette. "There are areas where we were a little bit looser, or we overplayed it or we overcommitted and we just need to be a little bit more patient, have a little bit more communication.
"There wasn't a lot of chances against [Thursday] night. But the ones that we gave up was somebody walking in from the top of the circle, without having anybody defend him. So that to me, those were defensive lapses where we could have done something different that would have prevented that. And so we show it, we teach it, we talk about it and try to get better and that's an area for me where we're working on it."

The Flyers had a complete day off on Friday to rest of for Saturday's rematch. Starting on Monday night at Madison Square Garden, Philadelphia opens a four-game road trip in which it plays two sets of two games each against the two New York City area teams. That Monday game against the Rangers also starts a stretch of six games in nine nights for the Flyers, and a stretch of eight straight games in which they will play exclusively against the Rangers, Islanders and New Jersey Devils.
Washington's transition game has been strong as of late, and the Caps took a 2-1 first-period lead on a pair of Philadelphia turnovers in Thursday's game, mistakes that led to goals from Alex Ovechkin and Conor Sheary, respectively. That's an area the Flyers will certainly seek to shore up going into Saturday's game.
"I think there were definitely a lot of turnovers - me being guilty of a few of those - just not making the right plays," says Flyers forward Travis Konecny, who scored Philly's first goal on a power play in the first period. "And that kind of kills momentum when you don't get it in and get pressure on their [defense] and freeze them up to create offense going back the other way. We had plenty of time to fix that and turn it around, but it wasn't our best effort tonight."