Jan. 20 vs. St. Louis Blues at Enterprise Center
Time: 8:00 p.m.
TV: MNMT
Stream: MonSports.net/Stream
Radio: 106.7 The Fan, Capitals Radio 24/7
Washington Capitals (22-15-6)
St. Louis Blues (21-20-2)
For the second time in as many weekends, the Caps are finishing up a set of home-and-home contests. Last weekend, they split a pair of games with Metro Division rivals the New York Rangers. This weekend, they will finish up a pair of games with the St. Louis Blues. On Thursday night in Washington, behind the strength of a T.J. Oshie hat trick, the Caps downed the Blues 5-2 in the opener of the set.
Now, the Caps are set to face the Blues again in St. Louis on Saturday night, in the opener of a weeklong, four-game road trip that will bring Washington to its midseason break for its bye week and the NHL All-Star break.
Oshie, who was a first-round choice (24th overall in the 2005 NHL Draft) of the Blues and played the first seven seasons – 443 games – of his NHL career in St. Louis, scored a goal in each period; the first two came on the power play and the last went into a vacant Blues net in the final half minute of the game.
Since returning to the lineup from an 11-game injury absence a week ago, Oshie has five goals and six points in five games. He and linemates Dylan Strome and Max Pacioretty have been the Caps’ most consistently dangerous line since they were put together last weekend for the home-and-home set with the Rangers.
“It’s nice to get some goals here, and get some points,” says Oshie. “And it’s always fun to be the guy that’s putting the puck in the net, but there’s a lot of credit that’s got to go to Stromer and Patches. There’s been an instant chemistry there, and not just the goals, but there’s a lot of little plays that are making the game really easy on us, because we’re working for each other and we’re supporting each other. And we’re really just having a blast jumping over the boards together. That’s been the root of all of our offense.”
In recording a hat trick against his former team, Oshie joined Jocelyn Lemieux as the only other player in St. Louis franchise history to have a hat trick against the Blues after leaving their organization. Lemieux turned the trick on Feb. 20, 1990 with Chicago.
Another former Blue – Caps’ goaltender Charlie Lindgren – stopped 17 shots to earn his ninth win of the season, and the first of his career against his former team.
Thursday’s win gave the Caps consecutive triumphs for the first time in nearly a month, and Washington has won consecutive contests by multiple goals for the first time since Dec. 9-10.
“I feel like sometimes we get a lead – whether it’s in the first [period] – and we kind of let our foot off the gas a little bit,” says Caps’ center Dylan Strome. “I think [Thursday], they had some chances, but we had the majority of the play and we did a good job of not sitting back; we were just rolling the lines.
“[Nic Dowd’s] line had a couple great shifts in the third there, that they hemmed them in, and when you’re up a couple of goals, that’s really deflating for the team that’s down. A lot of good things tonight; obviously Chucky [Lindgren] kicking it back there when we had some chances against.
“We’ve got to keep it rolling. I think it’s the first time – maybe all season – that we had two really, really solid top six lines. When you add Osh and [Max Pacioretty] back in there – guys that have been hurt a little bit -- and [Alex Ovechkin] has been hurt. When you add that, we’re a really lethal team, and we can play with anyone.”
Special teams fueled Thursday’s victory, which marked the first time all season that the Caps had multiple power-play goals in a win on home ice. Strome’s third-period goal came four seconds after the expiration of a Washington power play as well.
Washington also snuffed out five St. Louis power plays, cooling an extra man unit that had pumped home five pucks in its previous three games. Each of the first four of those St. Louis power plays came less than three minutes after a Washington goal, giving the Blues an opportunity to seize the game’s momentum. But the Caps’ penalty killing outfit made sure it didn’t happen.
“They just do such a great job,” says Lindgren. “I have the utmost confidence in our penalty killers. I know [defenseman Nick Jensen] specifically, he ate that one by Justin Faulk in the second; and he made a sound right away. It’s just things like that; you know those guys will go the extra mile for the team.”
Washington has killed off 16 straight opposition power plays over its last five games.
“We gave them good looks on their power play, obviously, and didn’t generate enough on ours,” says Blues’ defenseman Justin Faulk. “A couple of the chances and the timing of them – the four-minute power play – it would have been nice to get one there in the first period, see if we could have momentum and play the game through it. It was a bad one; we scored right after, but we had plenty of chances to make this a tighter game.”
While the Caps were in the air on their way to St. Louis for Saturday night’s tilt with the Blues, they announced the signing of forward Aliaksei Protas to a five-year contract extension worth $16.875 million. Protas’ new deal will run through the 2028-29 season, and it carries a salary cap AAV of $3.375 million.
Ex-Caps winger Nathan Walker scored both St. Louis goals in Thursday’s game, the second multi-goal game of his NHL career. Both of Walker’s goals in Thursday’s game came on deflections of point shots; the first from Nick Leddy and the second from Faulk. Walker, the Caps’ third-round pick (89th overall) in the 2014 NHL Draft, recorded a hat trick for the Blues in a Dec. 9, 2021 game against Detroit.
Saturday’s game with Washington is just a quick stop at home for the Blues, who will take to the road for a three-game trip – in four nights – to Calgary, Vancouver and Seattle, respectively.
