Caps Take Down Preds, 4-1

Alex Ovechkin scored a pair of third-period goals to hit the 30-goal plateau for the 16th time in his 17 NHL seasons on Tuesday night in Nashville, helping the Caps to a 4-1 victory over the Predators. The win was the 700th triumph in the regular season coaching career of Caps coach Peter Laviolette, who spent five-plus seasons as the Preds' bench boss before coming to Washington.

"For me, the win was really good for our team," says Laviolette. "It's been a bit of a roller coaster, and you leave the Ottawa game [a 4-1 loss on Sunday] and you don't feel good about it. You lose a game at home and you want to get back and win a hockey game. And so it ends up being Nashville, and that's just the way it was dealt out. But it was a good win for our team."
The Caps grabbed an early lead when Dmitry Orlov blocked a Luke Kunin shot in Washington ice, then took off as the middle man in a 3-on-1 rush with Conor Sheary on his right and Joe Snively on his left. Orlov fed Sheary in neutral ice, and Sheary gained the Nashville zone on the right side. He patiently carried to the bottom of the right circle before threading a feed across for Snively, who tapped it into the yawning cage for a 1-0 Washington lead.
Later in the first, Nashville netminder Juuse Saros made strong stop on Sheary from in tight to keep the Preds' deficit at one.
Washington lost defenseman Justin Schultz to an upper body injury late in the first period. He retired for the night after taking seven shifts totaling 4:50.
The two sides played penalty-free hockey in the first, but both sides had unproductive power play opportunities in the second. In the back half of the middle frame and the early portion of the third, the Preds thrice rang iron behind Caps goalie Ilya Samsonov, who made 33 saves on the night to improve to 16-7-3 on the season.
With just over four minutes left in the second, Filip Forsberg clanged the far post with a backhander. Not much more than a minute later, Nashville's Luke Kunin hit the crossbar on a breakaway, but he "sold" the goal to the crowd, the Predators' game operations crew and the officials on the ice. Caps center Evgeny Kuznetsov tried to play through, but the officials blew the play dead and after a cursory video review, they quickly saw that there was no goal.
Early in the third, Nashville's Roman Josi wired a shot that caught the post as well. Despite all those near misses, the Preds persisted and manufactured the tying goal soon after Josi caught the pipe early in the third.
Samsonov stopped Josi's shot from the left side, but a prone Michael McCarron was able to swat the rebound home to knot the score at 1-1 at 2:43 of the third period.
Washington came out and got that goal right back on the next shift. Both Orlov and Nick Jensen made resourceful plays up high in Nashville ice to keep the puck in the zone, and from there it was a ballet of movement and precision passing for the Caps. Jensen started the scoring play by giving it to Carl Hagelin just above the left circle. Hagelin went to Garnet Hathaway down low on the left side, and Hathaway quickly bumped it back to Jensen, who buried it from the slot at 3:27, putting the Caps back on top 2-1.
"That was a really good response and we needed it," says Jensen. "I know there's been a series of games where we've had the lead and we've let off the gas pedal - whether it be in the second or the third - and it looked a little bit like we were going to do that. But that was a big shift we had there; we put the pressure on them. Even if we didn't get that goal, it was a great shift just to get the momentum back in our favor. But the goal was obviously really huge, and we responded well."
Less than half a minute after Jensen's goal, Nashville's Yakov Trenin was sent to the box for kneeing John Carlson in the offensive zone, giving the Washington power play an opportunity to make its mark on the game. The Caps did exactly that, tacking on a big insurance strike when Ovechkin netted his 30th goal of the season, a patented one-timer from the left dot office that came off a tee-up from Carlson. A rather quiet first forty minutes was followed by an eventful first five minutes of the third, and Washington led 3-1 at 4:33.
From there, the Caps played some road hockey and whittled the clock down to just under four minutes. That's when Jensen was boxed for delay of game, putting the Preds on a late power play and giving them a chance to cut into the Caps' cushion. But Washington's penalty kill held firm, even after Saros departed for an extra attacker, giving Nashville a 6-on-4 advantage.

With 1:23 remaining, Ovechkin displayed his long distance empty net acumen once again, firing from 146 feet into an empty net to seal the 4-1 win, Washington's fourth consecutive road victory.