Jan. 3 vs. New Jersey Devils at Capital One Arena
Time: 7:30 p.m.
TV: TNT, MAX
Radio: 106.7 The Fan, Capitals Radio 24/7
New Jersey Devils (19-14-2)
Washington Capitals (18-11-6)
Washington finishes up its fifth set of back-to-back games in 26 nights and kicks off a five-game homestand on Wednesday night when it hosts the New Jersey Devils at Capital One Arena. Wednesday’s contest is the middle match of three straight games against Metropolitan Division opponents; the Caps downed the Penguins 4-3 in Pittsburgh on Tuesday, and they will host the Carolina Hurricanes here on Friday night.
Tuesday’s triumph halted the Caps’ season high four-game slide (0-2-2), and it vaulted them into sole possession of both fifth place in the Metropolitan Division and the second wild card slot in the Eastern Conference.
Wednesday’s game back in Washington is the 12th straight game the Caps have had to travel to play, and it represents the end of that rugged patch of scheduling. Washington is a respectable 5-3-3 over that span, which started with a 4-2 win over the Blackhawks in Chicago on Dec. 10.
Until they erupted for four goals in the first period of Tuesday’s game in Pittsburgh, the Caps had not scored as many as four goals in a game since the aforementioned victory in Chicago last month. Tom Wilson scored in the first minute of the period, and Alex Ovechkin scored on a Washington power play in the final minute of the first. Those two goals were sandwiched around markers from Beck Malenstyn and Martin Fehervary, enabling Washington to open up an early 4-0 lead over the Penguins.
The Caps’ offensive outburst included a fortuitous bounce, some net front presence and persistence from Matthew Phillips and Aliaksei Protas, and four points – Fehervary’s goal and three assists – from the team’s defensemen. Rasmus Sandin and Ethan Bear combined to set up Wilson’s goal, a 200-foot journey that showed the “connectedness” the team continues to seek offensively. Fehervary’s goal featured some creative and chaotic movement in the offensive zone, and ultimately, a well-placed shot from the middle of the ice with a diligent screen in front from Phillips.
Malenstyn and Ovechkin both have scored in consecutive games, and Ovechkin’s 126th career game-winning goal inched him to within single digits of Jaromir Jagr (135) for the all-time NHL record in that category.
“We came out, we were playing really well, maybe one of our best periods of the year,” says Wilson. “And we made it a little bit harder on ourselves than we probably needed to.”
Washington was well aware that the Pens would push, and push they did. Rickard Rakell scored with four seconds left in the first period, and Sidney Crosby and Jake Guentzel both struck in the second to make it a one-goal contest heading into the final frame. The Caps weren’t at all pleased with their second-period performance in Pittsburgh, but they got right in the third, blocking nine Pittsburgh shots and killing off a pair of power plays to help Darcy Kuemper earn his team-leading ninth win of the season.
“It’s a classic with Pittsburgh, you’ve got to control the moments a little bit better there,” says Wilson. “They’re a momentum-driven team. So we’ve got to do a better job of managing those big moments, but some really good things to look back on.”
It was an odd night for Kuemper, who needed to make but one save in the game’s first 15 minutes, a span in which his team roared out to a 3-0 lead and his counterpart in the Pittsburgh nets – Tristan Jarry – was pulled in favor of Alex Nedeljkovic. But from the time of the Pens’ goalie switch to the end of the game, Pittsburgh outshot Washington by 34-13. Kuemper was sharp when he needed to be.
“They’re going to push; they’ve been rolling for a reason,” says Kuemper of the Penguins, 7-1-1 in their previous nine games entering Tuesday’s contest. “You take a 4-0 lead any day, but we expected they were going to push, and they did. They clawed back to within one, but we were able to hold it from there, so it was a big one.”
Now the Caps come home for the next five. Since early November, they’ve been able to pull at least a point from 10 of their last 11 games at Capital One Arena (6-1-4).
“We’re right back at it,” says Wilson of Wednesday’s date with the Devils. “Another big one. We’re getting used to these, and we’ve got to make the most of it, show up and start the same way we did [Tuesday], starting plays, working hard for each other, and we’ll be all right.”
The Devils have been idle since New Year’s Eve when they fell 5-2 to the Bruins in Boston in the second of three straight road games. New Jersey concludes that road stretch on Wednesday in Washington; the Devils drubbed the Senators in Ottawa by a 6-2 count in the opener on Dec. 30.
Four times this season, the Devils have won three straight games, but they haven’t yet been able to string together as many as a four in succession. New Jersey has dropped three straight games on three occasions; two of those skids were comprised entirely of regulation losses. Their New Year’s Eve setback in Boston is the latest instance of a Devils’ winning streak dying at three.
Wednesday’s meeting in Washington is the third between the two Metropolitan Division rivals this season. The Caps prevailed in each of the first two, taking a 6-4 victory in New Jersey on Oct. 25 in Hunter Shepard’s NHL debut in the Washington nets. The Caps dropped the Devils in Newark by a 4-2 count on Nov. 10; Evgeny Kuznetsov scored a pair of goals in that game to support a 24-save effort by Charlie Lindgren in the Washington nets.
With Lindgren currently nursing an upper body injury and Kuemper having played last night, Shepard is the expected starter in goal for the Caps against the Devils. After leading the AHL Hershey Bears to a Calder Cup championship last June, Shepard has helped the Capitals to at least a point in each of his first three NHL starts (2-0-1).
