Caps Renew Acquaintances with Isles
Seeking a sixth straight win, the Caps face old friends and new foes in Brooklyn on Monday night
The Caps finish up a two-game, New York City road trip on Monday night when they meet the New York Islanders for the first of four meetings in 2018-19. Washington will be going up against former head coach Barry Trotz for the first time since he departed the District to take the vacant Islanders post shortly after helping the Caps to their first ever Stanley Cup championship last spring.
Sunday was a richly deserved off day for the Caps, who earned their fifth straight victory in a span of eight days on Saturday afternoon at Madison Square Garden, a 5-3 triumph over the New York Rangers. Each of those wins has been achieved without the services of top six forwards Evgeny Kuznetsov and T.J. Oshie - both sidelined with upper body injuries since Nov. 14 - and neither of them will suit up for Monday's game.
The Caps got goals from five different scorers and John Carlson dealt a trio of primary assists in Saturday's win over the Rangers. Goalie Pheonix Copley made 27 saves to earn his fifth win of the season; he has now authored four of Washington's six road victories on the season.
Washington rebounded from a two-goal deficit in the second period to earn Saturday's win over the Rangers, the fifth time this season it has come back to win or earn a point in a game it trailed by two or more goals.
"If we're down by one after one [period] - on the road, too, especially for our group - we know we only need a couple of chances to get back into the game," says Caps winger Brett Connolly, who supplied the game-winner late in the third period of Saturday's game. "We picked it up after the first; we played a lot better in the second and the third and had better legs a little bit."
After dropping their first two games of November, the Caps are 8-3-0 in 11 games since, and Saturday's win put them atop the Metropolitan Division standings. Washington has developed a habit of getting hot around this time of the season. Including 2018-19, the Caps are 22-8-1 in the second half of November over the last five seasons. They have two games remaining on the slate this month.
Since the start of the 2014-15 season, the Caps lead the NHL with an overall points percentage of .674 over that span. During the same time period, the Caps' overall points percentage in the latter half of November is a lofty .726.
"We're starting to get that feeling again through our room," Connolly. "We're starting to get there, like we had towards the end of last year, that's what we're working towards. I think we feel it coming a little better. It was a good team win. We've been playing really well as of late, and it's a lot better when you're winning."
With Trotz behind the bench and Lou Lamoriello in his first season as the Islanders' general manager, the Islanders got off to a solid start this season, and they enjoyed a five-game winning streak of their own from Oct. 27-Nov. 3.
Last season's Islanders were an explosive outfit; they averaged 3.18 goals per game, the seventh best rate in the league. But they also averaged 3.57 goals against per contest to rank dead last in the league in that category. With Trotz now at the helm, defense has come to the fore and the Isles' goals against rate per game has been pared to 2.86, second best among Metropolitan Division teams and 12th in the league.
Like the Capitals, the Islanders are coming into Monday's contest having swept a set of weekend back-to-backs. The Isles prevailed over the Devils in New Jersey on Friday, taking a 4-3 overtime victory on Mathew Barzal's goal in the extra session. At home a night later, New York took down the visiting Carolina Hurricanes by a 4-1 score.
Goaltender Thomas Greiss started and won both weekend games for the Isles, and Greiss has started five of New York's last six games. New York's other netminder is Robin Lehner, who came over from Buffalo over the summer. Lehner played more frequently earlier in the season, but Greiss has posted better overall numbers and has earned the lion's share of the starts of late.
Ex-Caps goaltender coach Mitch Korn and ex-Caps assistant coach Lane Lambert are now with the Islanders alongside Trotz. Both men worked in Washington for the previous four seasons and played a part in the first Cup championship in franchise history last spring. Korn and Lambert also worked with Trotz in Nashville.
