October 23 vs. Philadelphia Flyers at Capital One Arena
Time: 7:30 p.m.
TV: TNT, truTV, MAX
Radio: 106.7 The Fan, Caps Radio 24/7
Washington Capitals (4-1-0)
Philadelphia Flyers (1-4-1)
A night after they met for the first time this season in Philadelphia, the Caps and Flyers will battle again in Washington on Wednesday night. The Capitals will be seeking their fifth straight victory, and the Flyers will be aiming to avoid a sixth straight setback (0-4-1).
Washington’s 4-1-0 start to the season is its best since 2015-16 when it also opened the campaign with the same mark after five games. The ’15-16 Caps went on to go 6-1-0 before suffering a second loss, and they finished the season with a 56-18-8 mark, and the second of three Presidents’ Trophies in franchise history.
Shorthanded goals by Nic Dowd and Andrew Mangiapane – the first time in franchise history Washington opened the scoring of a game with a pair of shorthanded goals – sparked the Caps in the first period of Tuesday’s game, and they nurtured that 2-0 lead into the third period. It was the first time Washington scored a pair of shorthanded goals in the same game since Alex Ovechkin’s rookie season; the Caps – with shorthanded goals from Ivan Majesky and Matt Pettinger – last turned the trick against Pittsburgh on March 8, 2006.
In the first minute of the final frame on Tuesday, Philly defenseman Travis Sanheim scored a 4-on-4 goal to give his team – and the building – some life. But before the Flyers could capitalize on that momentum, John Carlson answered back for the Capitals just 64 seconds later, restoring their two-goal lead. Late in the third, boyhood chums Brandon Duhaime and Jakob Chychrun combined for the game’s final goal – the former feeding the latter – to close out the game’s scoring.
Charlie Lindgren made 17 saves to pick up his second victory of the season for Washington as the Caps closed out their first road trip of the season with a perfect four-point haul.
“The power play has got to be better than that,” says Carlson of the Caps’ extra-man unit, 0-for-5 in Tuesday’s game. “But when your PK steps up, you forget about it – for tonight, anyways. They gave us a lot of early momentum.”
With a two-goal first period and a two-goal third, the Caps have now put a crooked number on the scoreboard in six of their last 11 periods. With an average of four goals per game at this early juncture of the season, the Caps are a top five offensive team in the League. But they also performed well defensively in the opening game of the home-and-home set with the Flyers, limiting Philly to just 18 shots on net – only eight of them across the game’s final 40 minutes – and just the one goal.
In the second period, the Flyers managed three shots on net – two at even strength and one shorthanded – while they missed the net on four tries and had seven attempts blocked, by six different Capitals.
In the third, Sanheim scored on Philly’s first shot, and Scott Laughton had a shot on goal seconds before Carlson restored the Caps’ two-goal advantage. Philly went more than 13 minutes without getting a shot on Lindgren in the middle of the third period. By night’s end, his teammates combined for nearly as many blocks (16) as he had saves (17).
Washington defenders flashed excellent sticks all night long, breaking up plays and disrupting entries as the Flyers tried in vain to dig out of an early two-goal hole.
“I think we’ve got a high IQ hockey team,” says Lindgren. “I think we’ve got guys that know where to get to the right spot, and they’re willing to go the extra mile for the guy next to you. You look at a couple of [Philadelphia’s] rushes tonight, and they’re making passes through seams, and then they’re trying to make the extra pass, and we’re fine; our fourth backchecker is breaking the puck up. That says a lot about our group. And again, I have a lot of respect for our group, I have a lot of respect for our guys on this team and just the way they play the game. It’s a joy to be in the crease with these guys.”
While Tom Wilson’s franchise-record tying four-game goal streak was snapped on Tuesday, Carlson and Dylan Strome kept early season hot streaks alive. Although Carlson’s four-game season opening assist streak – which also matched a franchise mark – was broken, he scored his second goal of the season to extend his point streak to five (two goals, four assists).
Strome, the team’s leading scorer with eight points (three goals, five assists), extended his point streak to five with an assist on Carlson’s goal.
For the Flyers, Sanheim’s third-period goal was all the offense they could manage in a season-opening two-game homestand; the Vancouver Canucks blanked Philadelphia by a 3-0 count on Saturday night in the Flyers’ first home game of the season.
“Our second unit on the power play hurt us,” laments Flyers’ coach John Tortorella. “They score on two breakaways – we don’t. In the first period, it’s 2-0.
“I don’t think we played bad the first couple of periods; the chances were basically even. We just don’t finish. We crawl back in it, and the third [Washington goal], you could just feel the bench [sag]. We’ve just got to get up in the morning and start again.”
