On Saturday night in Newark against the Metropolitan Division-leading New Jersey Devils, many strong attributes of the 2024-25 Washington Capitals were prominently on display.
Playing their fourth game in six nights, the Caps started swiftly and on time, they were road warriors, they were gutsy in the face of adversity, they were offensively diverse and opportunistic, their resurgent power play was a weapon, their defense was a crucial element of their attack, they managed momentum swings with poise and maturity, and their goaltender made clutch saves.
Every one of those attributes was needed for the Capitals to be able to skate away from their final meeting of the season with the Devils with a narrow 6-5 victory. Saturday’s win in Jersey is Washington’s seventh straight road victory, tying a franchise mark established Dec. 5, 2022-Jan. 5, 2023.
The Caps have also won four straight games overall, winning each of them in comeback fashion and in a span of just six nights during this busy holiday week.
“We talk about it a lot,” says Caps’ center P-L Dubois. “There’s going to be ups and downs, not just in the season, but in games. Everybody wants to play a full 60 minutes, but when you’re playing good teams, they’re going to feel good at a point. [Goaltender] Chucky [Lindgren] was huge on some saves, and that [5-on-6] at the end was phenomenal for us, in keeping it a one-goal game. It’s the little details like that can break the momentum when they think they’re feeling good. We’ve been doing a good job of that this year.”
The Caps navigated the game’s many twists and turns and surges of momentum with patience and confidence, and they got goals from six different players, including three power-play goals in the second period, enabling Washington to carry a 4-2 lead into the third, a lead that turned out to be fleeting.
“There was a lot of ebbs and flows and swings in the game, momentum and emotionally for players and coaches on both sides,” says Caps’ coach Spencer Carbery. “For the power play to get us that lead before the second intermission, they stepped up huge.”
Prior to the first television timeout in the first period, the Caps jumped out to a 1-0 lead when Hendrix Lapierre fed Andrew Mangiapane in the slot off the rush. Devils goalie Jake Allen stopped Mangiapane’s first, bid, but the Washington winger buried his own rebound for a 1-0 lead at 6:19.
New Jersey drew even on a Nico Hischier goal in the first, and it took a 2-1 lead early in the second on a Justin Dowling deflection. The Devils have feasted in the second period this season; entering Saturday’s game they had doubled up the opposition 36-18 in the game’s middle frame, often using the fertile middle period to build leads they would lock down in the third; New Jersey is 14-0-0 when leading after 40 minutes this season.
Lindgren was dented for five goals against on this night by the prolific Devils’ attack, but he also made a number of key stops along the way, including a nifty lateral save to deny Timo Meier’s point blank back door bid soon after the Dowling goal.
Midway through the second, a spate of penalties helped the Caps swing and then seize momentum. With the two teams already playing 4-on-4 hockey because of coincidental minors, Dylan Strome’s magnetic mouth put the Caps in position to retake the lead. For the second time in three games, the Caps’ center took a stick to the mouth – this one from New Jersey’s Dawson Mercer – that resulted in a double minor.
With Washington on a 4-on-3 power play, Dubois – subbing for Strome on the first unit – set up Connor McMichael’s tying one-timer from the slot at 9:49. Just over a minute later, the Caps also hit on the back end of the Mercer double minor when white hot Jakob Chychrun delivered from center point to give Washington a 3-2 lead at 10:56.
For the second straight game, Taylor Raddysh drew a critical penalty, a Luke Hughes tripping call with just over two minutes left in the second. And with time ticking down on that call and the period, Rasmus Sandin – with help from Ivan Miroshnichenko – managed to get the puck out of a scrum behind the net to the front. Sandin found the back of the net with 12.6 seconds left in the frame, a power-play goal that gave the Caps a two-goal cushion going into the third.
Sandin, Miroshnichenko and Lars Eller all recorded their first power-play points for Washington this season in that middle period.
“That’s a huge thing, to go from nothing really working to having a good lead and a lot of momentum,” says Carlson. “That’s a credit to the guys just making plays and not giving up. Sometimes when the clock dwindles down, you know you’re probably not going to get another power play at that point because we had scored a couple and they had called a couple. Just to bear down and find a way through that scrum, those are huge moments.”
Carlson had three assists in the game, the 97th multi-assist game of his career, sixth most among all American-born blueliners in NHL history. Carlson wasn’t the only Caps blueliner doing offensive damage; Washington’s blueline brigade totaled two goals and seven points on the night, with four of the six defensemen finding the scoresheet.
Sandin’s goal loomed even larger when the Devils quickly scored a pair of goals to even the game at 4-4 early in the third. Stefan Noesen scored on the power play at 2:03 and Jesper Bratt finished a tic-tac-toe play at the net front at 4:15.
Lindgren had denied both Bratt and Noesen late in the second period when the Caps led by a goal; those saves also loomed larger later on in the game.
Soon after the midpoint of the third, Washington’s Nic Dowd line put together a stellar offensive zone shift, hemming the Devils in their end while the Caps were able to get the Dubois line on the ice. As Allen reached for the puck to try to freeze it and get a change of personnel, Raddysh was able to snare it away from the veteran goaltender, keeping play alive. Seconds later, Raddysh deftly redirected a Martin Fehervary left point shot past Allen, giving Washington a 5-4 lead at 13:54.
Even at that late stage, one had the sense that another goal might be needed. Ten seconds later, Aliaksei Protas forced an Allen turnover on the forecheck and fed Dubois in front. The center scored to make it 6-4, the Caps’ eighth set of goals scored less than a minute apart in just 24 games this season.
“Just the way we drew it up,” quips Dubois. “Let them come back, and then two goals in a shift.”
Noesen pulled the Devils a goal closer on the power play with 3:45 left, but the Caps got a shot block from Dowd and two Lindgren stops on Jack Hughes late to preserve yet another road victory, and yet another comeback triumph.
With Saturday’s win, the Caps toppled the Devils off the top of the Metro Division heap, and they hold three games in hand on New Jersey, too.
“To me, this is just a rare night of circumstance for our penalty kill, but obviously a huge part of the game,” says Devils’ coach Sheldon Keefe. “It’s 2-1 us, we’re at 4-on-4, we’ve got full possession of the puck in the offensive zone, and we end up taking a four-minute penalty. That’s the difference in the game.
“And then of course, we earn our way back from there. The guys did a real good job to earn our way back, and then we give them two gifts. So that’s disappointing.”
