Caps Get Past Kraken, 4-1

Three is the magic number for the Capitals on this Friday night in the District. They downed the Seattle Kraken by a three-goal margin - a 4-1 count - at Capital One Arena on Friday night, booking their first three-game winning streak of the season in the process. Charlie Lindgren turned in a a third straight excellent start to record his third straight win, and the Caps improved to 13-1-1 this season when they score three or more goals in a game.

But don't let the score fool you; this was a one-goal hockey game late in the penultimate minute of the contest; the Caps got to three goals by virtue of Lars Eller's long distance empty-net goal with 1:06 left. As it turned out, that was merely a table-setter for Alex Ovechkin's own empty-net goal with 3.2 seconds left, Ovechkin's third consecutive empty-net tally in the last two games. He now has 796 career goals as the Caps get set to head back out on the road for a two-game trip after playing their lone home game in a span of 19 days.
"It's been a grind," says Caps coach Peter Laviolette of reaching that third straight win. "But I think for the most part, we've been playing pretty good lately. We've been doing better things with the puck and defending a little bit better.
"I was a little bit concerned coming off that road trip and coming home, and it was that one [home] game that snuck in there, but I thought the guys were on point tonight."
Eight nights ago in Seattle, the Caps scuffled to create offense and they had difficulty getting to the interior and in holding onto pucks in the offensive zone against the Kraken. In their first home game following a road trip of nearly two weeks in duration, the Caps came out strong.
The Caps brought pucks and traffic to the net, spent sustained time in Seattle ice and created chances and looks for themselves. But ex-Caps goalie Philipp Grubauer stopped each of the dozen shots sent his way, and golden looks from Matt Irwin and Sonny Milano missed the mark.
At the opposite end, the Caps laid out to block 11 shots only to have a seeing eye shot give Seattle a 1-0 lead late in the first frame. Four seconds after Morgan Geekie won a left dot draw in Washington ice, Adam Larsson's left point wrister found its way through a maze of bodies and into the net to stake the Kraken to a 1-0 lead at 17:51.
At the end of the first in last week's game against the Kraken, Washington had recorded just four shots but owned a 2-0 lead. Tonight, the Caps were down one after one despite a raft of good opportunities and a dozen shots on net.
"I really liked the first period," says Laviolette. "We were down 1-0, but you've got to be honest with what you see. But we did a good job. We generated chances, and they caught one; they caught a puck that had some eyes."
Washington got that goal back early in the second on a good offensive zone shift. Seconds after Irwin made a good play to keep the puck in at the right point and keep the shift alive, partner Alex Alexeyev sent Irwin a D-to-D pass. Irwin put a shot to the net where the Caps had some traffic in the form of Anthony Mantha and Lars Eller, and Washington caught a favorable bounce when it bounded into the net off of Mantha.
"I'm just trying to push it," says Mantha, who was due for a good bounce. "Matty threw it to the net, and there was a rebound. Trying to push it in and I didn't know if it tipped off Lar or if it went straight in, and on the replay you can see it's just their [defenseman's] skate that just hits the puck."
The big winger's seventh goal of the season came at 5:20 of the middle period, and it became the first NHL point of Alexeyev's career.
Unfortunately, Alexeyev's next shift was his last of the night. The rookie blueliner absorbed a high hit from mammoth Seattle blueliner Jamie Oleksiak (6-foot-7, 257 pounds), who was promptly and properly given a match penalty for an illegal check to the head at 9:48 of the middle period.
With a five-minute, all-you-can-eat power play, the Caps weren't effective at all, but they did manage to take their first lead of the night late in the advantage. Milano gained the Seattle zone with speed along the right-wing wall and put a feed to the front for Marcus Johansson, who bit the hand that once fed him, giving the Caps a 2-1 lead at 13:15 of the second.
"It was a great play by Sonny," recounts Johansson. "When we got into the zone, I think both him and me were a little bit surprised that there was just one guy left. And he made a great play, so it was good to see that one go in."
Johansson's goal put the Caps in the same spot they were in eight nights earlier in Seattle, leading the Kraken 2-1 after 40 minutes of play.
Things got a little wooly in the third for the Caps, who found themselves shorthanded - twice - for the first times in the game in the front half of the third. But Lindgren stood tall again, a hallmark of his three starts this week. Although the Caps have given up the game's first goal in all three of those starts, Lindgren has not permitted his team to go down by more than a goal at any point, and once they've taken the lead later on in these three games, he has not given up a goal that would erase that slim cushion.
Lindgren again made some of his biggest stops in the third, denying Daniel Sprong's weak-side one-timer on the Seattle power play and making an excellent stop on Alexander Wennberg few minutes later.
"There were some big saves, there's key saves that he's made in every game that you can look back on and know that those are difference makers," says Laviolette. "And they've been in the third period, too. We've had that lead, and it's not like you're going to keep a team from generating any offense or any chances. And there were chances to come, but he's made some big ones at the right time and have kept the score where it is, until we can push forward and knock the game out."
Grubauer was excellent in his own right, but the Caps eked this one out despite being denied on some strong chances from in tight.
"He was solid," says Seattle coach Dave Hakstol of his netminder. "He gave us a couple of big saves. Their opportunities in the first and third came on a couple of flurries. In the first period especially, there were two flurries where their shots on goal came from.
"In the third, he made either two or three saves on [another flurry], and then he did a nice job on the [Conor] Sheary break."