Oct. 27 vs. Minnesota Wild at Capital One Arena
Time: 7:00 p.m.
TV: MNMT
Radio: 106.7 The Fan, Capitals Radio 24/7
Minnesota Wild (3-3-1)
Washington Capitals (2-3-1)
In the wake of an uplifting 6-4 victory over the Devils in New Jersey on Wednesday night, the Caps return home to host the Minnesota Wild on Friday night at Capital One Arena. Friday’s game opens a season high five-game homestand for the Capitals, who will play nine of their next 11 games in the District. Washington also plays five straight at home in early January.
Making his NHL debut a couple weeks shy of his 28th birthday, Caps’ goalie Hunter Shepard helped the team halt a three-game slide (0-2-1) in New Jersey, stopping 18 of 22 shots to earn his first NHL win, with a host of family members and friends on hand to witness the occasion.
“To have 13 or 14 people make it here on a day’s notice from Minnesota, it’s quite the support system,” says Shepard. “My phone’s been going nuts the last couple of days, just people that I grew up with and play softball with in summer, all that kind of stuff. I’m sure they were watching the game.
“It’s crazy. It’s ten years I’ve been out of high school now, so it’s special, especially having my family and friends here.”
“That’s a cool moment,” says Caps’ coach Spencer Carbery. “He’ll never forget that for the rest of his life. And I’m sure family and friends, and people in the building, his first NHL start, to get a win, I’m happy for him. He’s had a long road.”
The Caps got off to their best start of the season in New Jersey, limiting the Devils to two shots on goal and taking a 3-0 lead in the opening period. But it all melted away like chocolate in the desert in the second; the Devils erased Washington’s first lead of the season with four goals in less than six minutes.
Later in the second, the Devils’ top-ranked power play took the ice for what would turn out to be its only opportunity of the night, a chance to pad their lead ahead of the final stanza. The Caps killed it off without incident, and they seemed to draw some momentum from the successful task.
Less than two minutes of playing time later, Dylan Strome netted his second of the night to knot the game at 4-4. Connor McMichael notched the game-winner less than two minutes after the Strome goal, and Alex Ovechkin scored career goal No. 824 into an empty net to give Washington its first regulation win of the season.
“Special teams tonight, for the first time this year,” says Carbery. “And there’s been great moments on both sides. The penalty kill in the Calgary game, those two kills late, phenomenal. But that penalty kill [against the Devils], we did a really, really good job on that, and then the power play steps up and scores a huge goal to get that thing knotted right away at the start of the third period.”
Credit to the Caps as well for staying disciplined against the Devils and their lethal power play. Washington went shorthanded just once on the night.
All four Washington lines contributed to the attack in support of Shepard as the Caps scored a six-pack of goals, matching their combined total from the season’s first five games. Ovechkin, Strome, Anthony Mantha and Evgeny Kuznetsov each had two-point games. Mantha and Sonny Milano each scored their first goal of the season, and Milano had a second one nullified by a coach’s challenge in the third period. Aliaksei Protas, T.J. Oshie and Nicklas Backstrom each notched their first points of the season as the Caps’ attack awakened.
“I think it’s important,” says Oshie of the varied offensive contributions. “We’ve been missing some big opportunities early in games, and maybe getting a little discouraged and just – for whatever reason – grabbing our sticks a little too tight.
“For Mo to get that first one, not only for him and his game, his confidence and his line’s confidence, but for our team’s confidence, that we can start putting pucks in the net again. It maybe got rid of a little bit of tension that’s been building up from the first five [games of the season], and not having the success we want to have offensively.”
With their first road win of the season now in the books, the Caps turn their attention to the home front, where they’ll play the next five games to kick off their home-heaviest stretch of the season. Minnesota presents the first challenge on Friday night.
The Wild started off a three-game weekend trip to the Eastern Seaboard on Thursday with a 6-2 loss to the Flyers in Philadelphia, the fifth time in seven games this season it has yielded four or more goals against. Minnesota finishes its journey in New Jersey on Sunday, its third road game in four nights.
