Playing in his home state and with his dad – and all the other Caps’ dads and mentors – in the building, Jakob Chychrun helped the Caps halt their two-game slide in an impressive 4-1 victory over the Florida Panthers on Monday night at Amerant Bank Arena.
Chychrun set up the game-tying goal late in the first period, and he scored what would prove to be the game-winner on a 5-on-3 power play early in the third. His power-play goal was the first by a Washington defenseman in more than a month, since John Carlson scored the team’s first goal of the season in that fashion, in the first period of their opening night contest against New Jersey on Oct. 12.
Chychrun also added a second assist on the first of two Washington empty-net goals in Monday’s game, his third multi-point game and first three-point game as a member of the Capitals.
Both teams entered Monday’s game with minor losing streaks; the Caps nipped theirs in the bud at two while Florida’s slide reaches four; the Panthers have lost four straight games in regulation for the first time in well over a year, since March 21-27, 2023.
Special teams were critical for the Caps; they killed off all four Florida power plays and Chychrun’s game-winner came on the power play, the first time in 14 wins this season that the Caps’ game-winner came with the extra man.
“The third period, I thought, was our best period by far, starting with the power play,” says Caps’ coach Spencer Carbery. “So it gets us the lead there, and then we completely locked it down and carried majority of the play in the third period – generated a ton of good looks. I thought [Florida goaltender Spencer] Knight played really, really well tonight too. We could have had probably three or four more.”
The Caps fell down a goal in the front half of the first period. Florida jumped out to a 1-0 lead on Niko Mikkola’s first goal of the season. The Florida defenseman joined the rush on the left side, and after taking a feed from Sam Bennett, he fired a shot from the bottom of the left circle to the far side shelf, putting the Panthers up by a goal at the seven-minute mark.
Washington kept the Panthers at bay on their first power play of the evening, and the Caps pulled even with the Cats late in the opening frame. Hendrix Lapierre sent Chychrun into Florida ice on the right side, and the latter abruptly pulled up at the Florida line, sending a perfect diagonal feed to Lars Eller, who was driving the net on the weak side. Eller snapped a shot past Knight on the short side at 17:49, squaring the score at 1-1.
“I didn’t feel like I had enough room to take it across,” says Eller. “And then I just tried to get it high on the short side.”
In a scoreless middle frame, the Caps successfully snuffed out a pair of Panthers power plays while whiffing on their own first man advantage of the game. In thwarting the Florida power play four times on Monday night, the Caps extended their consecutive streak of successful road penalty kills to 25, dating back to their first road game of the season on Oct. 19 in New Jersey.
“Our [penalty kill] has been outstanding lately,” says Washington goaltender Logan Thompson, who raised his record to 9-1-1 with a 20-save performance. “Guys are putting their bodies on the line. And credit to them; there's a lot of pucks that I can't see, and they're getting in the way. And yeah, a lot of credit goes up to the PK.”
In the waning seconds of the second, the Caps drew a carryover call that left them with 99 seconds worth of power play time at the outset of the third.
And just 16 seconds into the third, Knight made an excellent left pad stop on Connor McMichael, who drew a slashing call on Florida blueliner Aaron Ekblad, resulting in a two-man advantage of 83 seconds in duration for Washington.
Just over a minute later, the Caps cashed in when Chychrun scored Washington’s second 5-on-3 goal in as many Monday nights and its third of the season at 1:18 of the third. Chychrun’s sixth goal of the season came on a wrist shot through traffic from center point.
With their first lead of the night, the Caps kept the heat on Florida for the remainder of the game, and only some stellar stops from Knight kept the Panthers close until the final minute.
With less than six minutes remaining, Knight denied both of the Caps’ Florida boys – first Chychrun and then Brandon Duhaime – to give his team a chance for a late equalizer. But the Caps were determined not to let it happen.
With 1:28 remaining – and with help from Chychrun – Eller added his second goal of the game into an empty net. And in the final minute, Ivan Miroshnichenko scored his first of the season into the still vacant Florida net.
“And that's how you close out a team like that,” emphasizes Carbery. “You grab a lead, and you don't sit back and let them attack your net. We're playing on our front foot. We're dictating that pace to them, and now we're in the offensive zone in the third period, which is a good recipe to close out wins.”
