Needing a win of any kind and in any way, a depleted Capitals team went into Edmonton on Monday night and pulled a pair of points with a 3-2 triumph over an Oilers squad that entered the night with four wins in their previous five games.
Caps Overcome Adversity and Oilers, 3-2
Missing eight players from their lineup, Caps rally to tie twice and claim two points on Dowd's third-period goal
Nic Dowd's goal at 7:13 of the third snapped a 2-2 tie and got the Caps over the hump and pushed them to that elusive third goal that has mattered so much this season; Washington is now 11-1-1 when it scores three or more goals in a game and 0-11-3 when is scores fewer than three. Dowd's goal gave the Caps their first lead of the evening in a game they dominated for much of the night, finishing with a season high of 50 shots on net.
Minutes after Edmonton netminder Stuart Skinner stoned him on a breakaway bid, Caps forward Aliaskei Protas barreled into Oilers ice with another breakaway. But this time, he threw a curveball, turning and feeding a late-arriving Dowd for a shot from the slot, and Dowd - who initially sent Protas into Edmonton ice - beat Skinner high to the glove side.
"I knew [Dowd] and [Garnet Hathaway] would be skating, would be helping," says Protas of his play on the game-winner. "I knew it was a 3-on-2, because one defenseman was on me and I saw the other guy on Hath. So I knew Dowder was wide open, and I just checked and dropped it."
"[Protas] was on his backhand, and I think maybe he thought he got caught," says Dowd. "But it was an unbelievable play by him."
With just one win in their previous nine road games, Monday's victory lifts the Caps to 2-2-1 on their current trip, giving them a chance to go home above water for the journey if they can beat Philly in the trip finale on Wednesday.
"It's one of them, I thought it was," says Caps coach Peter Laviolette, asked whether the win was the Caps' best of the season. "Every guy in there played hard and came out then right way in the first period and did the right things. We had gotten away from that for a couple of games.
"The game was dictated by the opponent, and I thought we did a good job of trying to push it and trying to control the game. When you want to do that, you have to have everybody on board, and I thought tonight was really complete."
Desperate to create and generate some offense and particularly to do so at 5-on-5, the Caps came out with a lot of spark and offensive gumption in the first frame of Monday's game in Edmonton. They were able to generate zone time, chances and looks, and they poured 22 pucks on Skinner in the first, including eight of them on their first power play of the night.
But Skinner stopped them all, notably denying Lars Eller at the doorstep off the rush on the center's first shift of the night, and then making a nifty glove snag on Eller in the penultimate minute of the period. The game was scoreless after the first 20 minutes, and the Caps' shot total in the opening period matched their highest single-period total for the season.
Early in the second, the Oilers jumped out to a 1-0 lead when Brett Kulak scored on a shot through traffic from center point at 1:44 of middle period.
Ahead of the midpoint of the period, the Caps pulled even on a successful offensive zone shift. Anthony Mantha did some good work along the half wall to blunt an attempted zone exit, enabling Sonny Milano to collect the puck and dish it to Eller, who was lurking down low, behind both Edmonton blueliners. Eller whirled and deked, drawing a penalty on Oilers defenseman Cody Ceci in the process, but it didn't matter. Eller shoveled a backhander around a prone Stuart, tying the game at 1-1 at 7:35.
"It was nice," says Eller of finally getting one. "I think we were playing to our identity with long, good forechecks and forcing some turnovers and having some long time in the [offensive] zone cycling. Long attacks like that, that's the stuff we're doing when when we're playing our best, and you saw some of that today."
With its third power play opportunity of the game in the back half of the second, Washington had a chance to grab its first lead of the night. Instead, the Oilers regained the lead with a pretty shorthanded strike from captain Connor McDavid. Just inside the Edmonton line, McDavid showed has skills by flagging down a John Carlson saucer pass and tearing off on a breakaway. He beat Charlie Lindgren at 15:25 to make it a 2-1 contest.
The Caps still had 92 seconds worth of power play time with which to work, and they took full advantage, tying the game on a tic-tac-toe play down low with just two seconds left on the advantage. The scoring play was Evgeny Kuznetsov to Dylan Strome to T.J. Oshie, to the back of the net.
That goal showed Washington's resilience, coming back on the same power play to get the score tied up. In the third, Lindgren was solid in the net and the Caps found a way to get two points they really needed, thanks to a fine feed from Protas and an equally excellent finish from Dowd.
"I saw a team come out tonight and try and shoot to break another team down," says Oilers coach Jay Woodcroft. "Our goaltender was excellent. I saw a 2-2 hockey game going into the third period, and we made a critical error and it ended up in the back of our net. We lost the game, 3-2."
In a game in which they were missing eight players because of injury - tied for the most players missing from their lineup this season - the Caps found a way to overcome an opponent with some elite offensive talent. Given the start the Caps have had to this season, it's imperative for them to start stacking up some wins, or at the very least to not go long between collecting points.
"I think this was probably our most resilient game," says Oshie. "We had a small, little lull there at the start of the second I feel like, but our most resilient game for sure. And Vancouver might have been out most complete game. But the firepower they have on the other side of the rink there is extremely elite, and guys worked super hard to keep them as quiet as we could."
