The Caps conclude a set of back-to-back games on the road when they visit the Blue Jackets in Columbus on Friday night. Washington's two-game trip got started on the good foot in Detroit on Thursday evening when Zach Fucale backstopped the Caps to a 2-0 win over the Red Wings.
Making his NHL debut in the midst of his seventh pro season, Fucale made eight of his 21 saves in the first eight minutes of the contest while his teammates found their footing. Once they did so, the Caps scored a pair of quick goals to forge that 2-0 lead. For the rest of the night following the Dmitry Orlov and Lars Eller goals 10 seconds apart in the first period, the Caps and Fucale combined to stymie the Wings, limiting them to just 10 shots on net in the game's final 40 minutes and no shots over the final 9:55 of the third.
"It was a great day," says Fucale. "But there were some key moments in the game, like on the [Red Wings'] 5-on-3 some blocked shots. Everybody's congratulating me, but this was a really good defensive game. It really was. It was a good team game."
Washington played Thursday's game without a quartet of its regular forwards, and with four rookies scattered across three of its four lines, none of them with more than a dozen games worth of experience in the NHL. Taking a 2-0 lead in the first meant the Caps didn't have to chase the Wings or the game, and they got some strong minutes from their young players in ushering that lead to the final horn, experience that should bode well for Friday's game in Columbus.
"This is exactly the recipe for winning on the road," says Eller. "We didn't shut [the Wings] down completely. They had looks, but we didn't have fallouts, we didn't have big breakdowns. We kept it together pretty much through 60 minutes, and I'm very encouraged by that."
The Caps are carrying three goaltenders on their current trip, and all three were healthy enough to practice on Wednesday before the team departed the District, and they were all on the ice for Thursday's morning skate in Detroit. There is no word yet on which netminder will start Friday's game in Columbus as the Caps complete their first set of back-to-backs this season.
Friday's contest in Columbus is the first of consecutive games against Metropolitan Division opponents for the Capitals. Washington will take Saturday off before it hosts Pittsburgh on Sunday.
Friday's game in Columbus marks the Caps' first visit to Ohio's capital city in nearly two years, since they dropped a 3-0 decision to the Jackets there on Dec. 16, 2019 during the team's Mentors' Trip for the 2019-20 season.
While the Caps were in action on Thursday night in Detroit - and on Monday against Buffalo for that matter - Columbus has been sitting idle since Saturday when it won its third straight game, a 4-2 home ice decision over Colorado. The Jackets are 5-1-0 on home ice this season, with their only loss at Nationwide Arena coming in a 5-1 defeat at the hands of Carolina on Oct. 23.
Like the Caps, the Blue Jackets played eight games in October. But while Washington will be playing its sixth game this month on Friday, Columbus has played only two November games to date, both wins over the Avalanche. And while Friday's game concludes a set of back-to-backs for the Caps, it's the front end of games on consecutive nights for Columbus, which will host the New York Rangers in Columbus on Saturday night.
The Blue Jackets' current homestand is four games in length, and those four games are scattered over a two-week span between road games for Columbus. The Jackets will visit Washington for the first time this season on Dec. 4, in the finale of a four-game road trip.
