Caps Open up Six-Pack in 6-1 Win vs. Flyers

A little more than 24 hours after he learned he had been traded from the Detroit Red Wings to the Capitals, Anthony Mantha made his Washington debut on Tuesday night at Capital One Arena in a game against the Philadelphia Flyers. Mantha's first game in a Caps sweater was a smashing success as the Caps trounced the Flyers 6-1 and Mantha collected his first points with his new team, a goal and an assist.

"I thought he was in the mix of the play all night," says Caps coach Peter Laviolette of Mantha. "I thought that he did a great job along the walls at getting pucks out, I thought he had good chemistry with his linemates. He generated five or six shots on net; their line generated a lot - a lot of chances, a lot of shots, a lot of opportunities.
"For coming in here the way he did and meeting everybody for the first time, it's always a bit challenging and you never know what's going to happen. I thought he played a pretty good game."
Two nights after they put an 8-1 beating on the Bruins in Boston, the Caps picked up where they left off. Washington's bottom two lines turned in strong offensive zone shifts early in the first period, and that buzzing in the Flyers' zone led to a 1-0 Caps lead at 7:07.

Conor Sheary scored a pair of goals in Sunday's win in Boston, and he started the scoring in Tuesday's game. After prolonging the shift with a keep at center point, Sheary took a feed from Daniel Sprong and buried it into a yawning cage to put the Caps on top. It would be the first of three points for Sheary on the night.
Philly's Sean Couturier tied it less than two minutes later. Caps goalie Ilya Samsonov turned it over; his intended exit feed went directly to the Flyers' James van Riemsdyk on the right half wall. Van Riemsdyk threw it right back at the net and Couturier tipped it home at 8:45, seconds after Samsonov made a strong stop to deny Scott Laughton on a breakaway.
Washington's power play stepped in and stepped up to restore the lead and extend it. First, Tom Wilson took a feed from Sheary and scored off the rush at 11:32 to make it a 2-1 game. Mantha notched his first point with his new team - and the 100th assist of his NHL career - with the secondary helper on the play.
Just over four minutes later, Alex Ovechkin set up Nicklas Backstrom for a tough angle shot from the bottom of the right circle for another power-play marker, extending the Washington advantage to 3-1 at 16:25.
Washington's fourth line joined the party late in the frame, making it 4-1 on a Carl Hagelin goal at 18:21. Playing in his 800th NHL game, Carlson recorded his 400th career helper by patiently surveying and then hitting Hagelin in the high slot.
The four-goal first gave the Caps a dozen goals in their last four periods at that point and marked the fourth straight period in which Washington put a crooked number on the scoreboard.
Midway through the middle period, Mantha made his debut a memorable one, taking a feed from T.J. Oshie and firing a frozen rope of a shot past beleaguered Flyers goaltender Brian Elliott to make it a 5-1 game at 9:22 of the frame.

"A quick up in the neutral zone," recounts Mantha. "I knew we had an odd-man rush, so when the puck got dropped, I faked a shot and just took it wide and just tried shooting it as hard as I could."
In the third period, the Caps made it a perfect 3-for-3 night on the power play. This time it was Ovechkin lighting the lamp with his 22nd goal of the season and the 728th of his NHL career. Wilson fed him neatly with a cross-ice pass off the rush, and the Caps' captain beat Elliott with a wrist shot from just above the left circle.
Samsonov earned his 10th victory of the season and his fourth over the Flyers with a 29-save night in the Washington nets. Fifteen of those stops came in the third period, including some acrobatic dazzlers in the back half of the final frame.
For Philadelphia, Tuesday's loss was its fourth straight to the Capitals. The Flyers have been outscored by a combined count of 19-9 in those four games.
"Obviously I didn't like at all the way we came out," says Flyers coach Alain Vigneault. "It's not the way you give yourself a chance against such a strong opponent. It wasn't good enough. We put ourselves in a hole and we let our goalie try and stand in by himself. Obviously that wasn't good enough."