Eight different Capitals had multi-point games, Connor McMichael and Alex Ovechkin scored twice each, all four lines registered even strength goals and Logan Thompson won his seventh straight decision to set a Washington franchise record. All this happened on Saturday night in St. Louis as the Capitals rolled to an 8-1 victory over the Blues at Enterprise Center.
For the fourth time in this young season, the Caps followed a loss with a victory, ensuring that the losses wouldn’t start stacking up on them. Saturday’s game was tight in the early going, and Washington broke it open with a five-goal third period that included a pair of power-play markers in as many attempts.
It all added up to a very happy birthday for Caps’ coach Spencer Carbery.
“That was pretty impressive,” says Carbery. “I felt like we weathered the storm a little bit; it was tight early. We had to find our footing a little bit, and LT made some big saves. And then we settled in in the second period, and we were able to take over the game and sustain it.”
The two sides traded 5-on-5 tallies in the first, and the Caps’ penalty killing outfit handled both of its first period assignments with aplomb.
McMichael staked Washington to an early lead, scoring his ninth goal of the season just 59 seconds into the opening period. McMichael took a handoff from Jakob Chychrun at the Washington line, and he galloped through the neutral zone in the middle of the ice. After gaining the St. Louis line, McMichael ripped a wrist shot past St. Louis goaltender Jordan Binnington on the stick side, from just above the tops of the circles.
The Washington lead lasted just over six minutes. After he Caps were guilty of icing the puck, St. Louis won the ensuing left dot draw, and Jordan Kyrou sent the puck to the right point for Matt Kessel. As he did so, Scott Perunovich dove down from the left point and into the slot, and Kessel put it on his tape. Perunovich, playing in his 79th career NHL game, beat Washington’s Logan Thompson for the first goal of his NHL career at 7:07, a mere six seconds after the face-off.
Washington managed only four shots on the St. Louis net in the second period. The first of those resulted in a desperate stick blade save by Binnington on Taylor Raddysh; the second time in as many nights the Washington winger was robbed by an opposing goaltender.
The Caps’ other three shots were clustered in the middle of the period, and two of them went in to give the visitors a two-goal cushion.
First, the Caps struck in transition on a play that developed from their own line. Dylan Strome carried into St. Louis ice, sliding a feed to Aliaksei Protas on his right. Protas zipped it all the way across to Alex Ovechkin, who whipped a shot past Binnington for his ninth of the season at 7:42.
“That was a great play by Pro,” recounts Strome. “Great play by [Rasmus Sandin] too, to get it started. They had two guys forechecking our [defense], and he just passed up the right to the middle. I had a little bit of space and was able to get around [Blues’ captain Brayden] Schenn, and then I kicked it out to Pro, and he made a great one touch pass, and then [Ovechkin] did the rest.”
That goal proved to be the game-winner, the 131st of Ovechkin’s career. He now trails all-time leader Jaromir Jagr (135) by four.
Just over three minutes later, Tom Wilson interrupted a Blues breakout at the St. Louis line, and P-L Dubois alertly spotted and fed Chychrun on the left side of the ice. From the inside of the left circle, Chychrun fired it home for a 3-1 Washington lead at 10:53.
The Caps weren’t able to muster another shot on net for the remainder of the frame, and they needed Thompson to come up with a number of big stops in the middle period, the first of which came about a minute before the Ovechkin goal, when it was still a 1-1 game. Thompson made a sliding glove save on Brandon Saad’s shot on a 2-on-1.
Just over a minute after the Ovechkin goal, Thompson preserved the one-goal lead with a denial of Zack Bolduc’s breakaway bid.
With St. Louis on its third power play of the night late in the second, Thompson made two successive stops on Schenn at the right post, enabling the Capitals to carry a two-goal cushion into the game’s final 20 minutes.
Early in the third, Washington’s beleaguered power play unit came through to salt the game away on its first opportunity of the evening. Strome set up Ovechkin for an empty-net look from down low in the left circle, and the captain netted his second of the night at 2:09.
“I thought that that fourth goal was huge on the power play,” says Carbery. “And what I appreciated about that the most was we have a couple looks, it gets cleared, and sometimes it deflates the top unit, and then it's just a ragtag. But they stayed on it.
“And then we score the fourth goal, and that's what the power play can do. In tight games, it obviously can help you in a 1-1 game; you get a power play, score, win the game, you go up 2-1. But also in a game like this, where 3-1 is still a hockey game in this league. The fourth goal is big, and the power play stepped up and scored that.”
Less than two minutes later, Mike Sgarbossa got inside a Blues defender and went to the net on a short ice breakaway. He was hooked from behind by Kasperi Kapanen and his shot was blunted, but Sgarbossa had the presence of mind to dish a backhand feed to the trailing Rasmus Sandin, who promptly scored at 3:51. Sandin’s second goal in as many nights negated the delayed penalty and extended the Caps’ lead to 5-1.
The onslaught continued unabated thereafter. McMichael scored on the power play at 10:20. Sgarbossa notched his first of the season on a nice setup from Andre Mangiapane at 15:27, and Brandon Duhaime finished the snowman at 16:45 with his third of the season.
Thompson’s seventh consecutive victory from the start of his Caps career knocks Tomas Vokoun (six straight in 2011) from the franchise record books.
“I had no idea,” shrugs Thompson. “Like I said – and I’ve said it many times – I’m just really happy to be a part of this organization. I’m happy they took a chance on me, and I’m just really happy to be here.”
That’s a two-way street.
“We got those huge saves at the beginning of the game when they had their legs and we were still finding ours,” says Strome. LT made some great saves early, and then we just took over offensively. I thought we were patient with the puck and made the right play when it was there, and we didn’t panic. That was a good one all around.”
