When Lightning Starts – More often than not over the Capitals’ 50-year NHL history, they’ve played at home on the night before Thanksgiving more often than not. But this year on the eve of Turkey Day, they’re in sunny Florida for a Wednesday night tilt against the Tampa Bay Lightning.
With the dads, brothers, fathers-in-law and mentors enjoying the sun and the sights on this two-game tour of The Sunshine State, the Caps got off on the good foot with a 4-1 victory over the Panthers in South Florida on Monday. Tonight in Tampa, they’ll take aim on a sweep of the Mentors’ Trip, a feat they last achieved six years ago last night (Nov. 26, 2018) in Brooklyn with a win over the Islanders, two nights after taking down the Rangers at Madison Square Garden.
“It would be great to go home 2-0 on the dads’ trip, and everybody goes home happy tonight,” says Caps’ center P-L Dubois. “But it’s going to be a tough game.”
The Capitals enter tonight’s game with a five-game road winning streak; their last loss outside the District was a 4-2 setback at the hands of the Hurricanes in Carolina on Nov. 3. Washington is 7-2-0 on the road this season, and its only other loss came here in Tampa on Oct. 26. In that game, the Caps played well and outshot the Bolts, but were unable to solve veteran Vezina Trophy candidate Andrei Vasilevskiy, who blanked them on 32 shots.
“I think the key is going to be [Vasilevskiy] in their net and us doing a better job,” says Caps’ coach Spencer Carbery. “We had some good looks [on Oct. 26], so we want to continue with generating some transition chances and rush chances and some things in the offensive zone, but we need to make his life a lot more difficult if we expect to score. Whether it's secondary chances, shooting for rebounds, screens, tips, all that sort of stuff, that’s what we have to do against a goalie of his caliber.”
These two Florida teams are both at or near the pinnacle of success; one or the other has been in each of the last five Stanley Cup Final series, with Tampa winning two of its three visits and Florida splitting its two visits.
“I thought we played really well [on Oct. 26], but we lost,” says Dubois. “But in an 82-game season, you’re going to play good teams and maybe you think you played well enough to win, but their goalie or their power play or anything makes them win. So we did a lot of good things, we thought we could have won that game, but we didn’t. It just happens like that sometimes.
“Vasilevskiy played really well, so tonight, a lot of it is about doing the same good things – forechecking well, getting second pucks and chances, getting in his face and making it hard for him to see pucks and track them. But we don’t have to change too much; we just have to do what we do well.”
Goals have been harder to come by for the Caps of late; they’ve rolled up 28 tallies over the life of their five-game road winning streak, but they’ve managed just a single 5-on-5 goal in each of their last three games overall, winning just one of the three (1-2-0).
In the Caps’ Monday win in Florida, they traded 5-on-5 goals with the Panthers in the first period, and then played to a scoreless second. Late in the middle period, Tom Wilson drew a call to put them on the power play. Early in the third, Connor McMichael drew another penalty to give Washington a 5-on-3 manpower advantage, and Jakob Chychrun’s subsequent power-play goal provided the difference. A pair of late empty-net goals inflated the margin of victory in a game where each team scored once at 5-on-5.
“When you play a top team that’s won [a championship], they know how to win,” says Dubois. “the first period is tight, the second period is tight, and it basically comes down to who is going to crack first, and who is going to force something to make it 2-1? It’s a mistake and it’s in the back of your net, and now you’re trailing 2-1.
“I thought we just stayed patient. We didn’t do anything crazy, and then we got that second one. And after that, it’s just about keeping it in their end, and we did a really good job with that. Tonight, we are up against another team that’s won. It’s a team where it could be a 0-0 game going into the third, or it could be a 4-3 game or a 1-0 game. We are going to again have to have that maturity of not forcing anything, and I think doing that last game gives us a kind of recipe for success for tonight.”
In The Nets – Charlie Lindgren starts for Washington tonight. He has won two of his previous three starts and has surrendered three or fewer goals against in each of his last nine starts. Lindgren was in net when the Caps were here just over a month ago on Oct. 26; he stopped 18 of 21 shots in a 3-0 Washington loss.
Lifetime against the Lightning, Lindgren is 2-1-1 in five appearances (four starts) with a 2.08 GAA and a .924 save pct.
For the Lightning, Vasilevskiy is tonight’s starter. He has claimed 10 of Tampa Bay’s 11 victories on the season to date, and he has won four of his last five starts, yielding two or fewer goals against in each of the four victories. Vasilevskiy blanked the Capitals on 32 shots in the aforementioned Oct. 26 game here, notching his first career shutout against Washington.
Lifetime against the Caps, Vasilevksiy is dead even in 21 appearances (all starts); he is 10-10-1 with one shutout, a 3.12 GAA and a .905 save pct.
All Lined Up – Here’s how we believe the Capitals and the Lightning might look when they take the ice on Wednesday night in Tampa:
WASHINGTON
Forwards
21-Protas, 17-Strome, 43-Wilson
24-McMichael, 80-Dubois, 16-Raddysh
29-Lapierre, 20-Eller, 88-Mangiapane
22-Duhaime, 26-Dowd, 63-Miroshnichenko
Defensemen
42-Fehervary, 74-Carlson
38-Sandin, 3-Roy
6-Chychrun, 57-van Riemsdyk
Goaltenders
79-Lindgren
48-Thompson
Extras
13-Vrana
27-Alexeyev
52-McIlrath
Out/Injured
8-Ovechkin (lower body)
15-Milano (upper body)
19-Backstrom (hip)
77-Oshie (back)
TAMPA BAY
Forwards
59-Guentzel, 21-Point, 86-Kucherov
38-Hagel, 71-Cirelli
93-Goncalves, 14-Geekie, 13-Atkinson
28-Girgensons, 11-Glendening, 23-Eyssimont
Defensemen
77-Hedman, 90-Moser
27-McDonagh, 81-Cernak
78-Lilleberg, 48-Perbix
43-D. Raddysh
Goaltenders
88-Vasilevskiy
31-Johansson
Extras
None
Out/Injured
20-Paul (undisclosed)
41-Chaffee (undisclosed)
