Playing with five of their seven new offseason acquisitions in the lineup, the Capitals put together a strong preseason performance on Wednesday night at Prudential Center in New Jersey. The result was a 5-3 triumph over the Devils, Washington’s first win of the preseason.
Each of the five new faces – four of them seeing their first preseason action – acquitted themselves well, including goaltender Logan Thompson, who notched the victory with a 25-save effort. Thirteen of those stops came in the third when the Devils were pressing to overcome a multi-goal deficit.
“I thought that was our best performance of the preseason thus far, for sure, especially the first two periods,” says Caps’ coach Spencer Carbery. “The third period gets a little bit squirrely because they grab a little bit of momentum with the two power plays, and they're pressing.
“But our first two periods, for sure – all four lines, all three pairs – I thought we were doing a lot of good things that we've talked about through training camp that that we want to try to implement, and it's been a little bit inconsistent the first couple games. But tonight was a much better performance overall.”
The first period was a bit quiet on both sides, though Thompson needed to make big stops on Timo Meier and Ondrej Palat in the game’s first two minutes. The save on Palat was most impressive; Thompson showed good anticipation and lateral movement to deny the veteran winger from in tight, after he took a cross-ice feed.
Once those two opportunities were out of the way, the Caps’ defense stepped up and was quite stingy through rest of the first two frames. But late in the first frame, New Jersey jumped out to a 1-0 lead when old friend Brenden Dillon bit the hand that once fed him, delivering a center point drive to the back of the net at 14:37.
The second period was all Washington, especially late. Again, the Caps’ defense was sturdy. Over a span of nearly 16 minutes of playing time from late in the first to nearly the 13-minute mark of the second, Washington limited the Devils to just one shot on net, a harmless shot from distance off Palat’s stick early in the second.“I thought the whole [defense] corps and forward group did a great job of locking it down,” says Thompson. “And the pucks that did get through early on, they were letting me see them.”
Meanwhile, the Caps slowly began to tilt the ice, spending more time threatening New Jersey netminder Jacob Markstrom. Late in the middle stanza, the payoff came in a trio of tallies in less than five minutes.
First, Jakub Vrana started a scoring play that John Carlson finished, with a nifty give-and-go with the veteran defenseman and Alex Limoges giving Carlson a great look from the slot. He put a shot under the bar at 14:28, squaring the score at 1-1.
“I had a couple things in mind,” says Limoges, of his mindset after taking the feed from Vrana. “But most important, whenever [Carlson] jumps around his guy like that, it's a breakaway for him. So just laid it in there, and he had all the poise and put the puck right where he wanted to.”
With the period winding down, Caps’ defenseman Trevor van Riemsdyk fired a laser sharp, tape-to-tape stretch pass to Strome, exploiting a cavernous opening in the middle of the ice. Strome’s goal on the ensuing breakaway came at 18:33, giving the Capitals their first lead of the preseason.
Just 27 seconds later, Nic Dowd got in on the forecheck, and Duhaime went straight to the net front. Dowd issued a feed to the front, and Duhaime swiftly shelved it, enabling the Caps to carry a 3-1 lead into the third.
There were no penalties whistled in the first 40 minutes, but the Devils got a couple of opportunities with the extra man in the third. The Caps’ penalty killers kept New Jersey off the board, and Thompson made a dazzling stop on Stefan Noesen late in the second of those man advantages, snaring a point blank bid with his glove just before it crossed the line.
Strome scored Washington’s fourth straight goal at 13:47, converting a tic-tac-toe play with Alex Ovechkin starting it and Carlson serving as the middle man.
The Caps have seen the Devils quick strike ability in recent years, and New Jersey bounced back late in this one. With exactly five minutes left, Dillon floated a shot toward the net; it glanced off Nico HIschier and went in to make it a 4-2 contest.
With Markstrom off for an extra attacker, Jack Hughes made things interesting when he scored to make it a 4-3 game with 2:57 left.
The Dowd line – with Duhaime and Taylor Raddysh – was deployed for a couple of those final shifts. First, they made it difficult for Markstrom to get back to the bench for the extra attacker after the Hughes goal. On their next shift, they came out in the final minute and salted it away with a clinching empty-netter, Duhaime netting his second on another setup from Dowd with less than a minute remaining.
“It’s going to be nice to continue to build off this win for our team,” says Caps defenseman Jakob Chychrun, who finished plus-3 with eight shot attempts – four on net – in his 23:11 of work. “And yeah, back at work tomorrow.”
