October 17 vs. Dallas Stars at Capital One Arena
Time: 7 p.m.
TV: MNMT
Radio: 106.7 The Fan, Caps Radio 24/7
Dallas Stars (3-0-0)
Washington Capitals (1-1-0)
Two nights after authoring their first victory of the young season – a 4-2 triumph over Vegas – the Caps host the Dallas Stars on Thursday night at Capital One Arena. Thursday’s game also turns out to be the rubber match of Washington’s season-opening three-game homestand.
Making his first start as a Capital, Logan Thompson turned aside 24 of 26 shots to defeat his former NHL employer. Half of Thompson’s stops came in the third period as Washington successfully ushered a 4-2 third-period lead to the game’s final buzzer.
Jakub Vrana scored on his first shot on goal in the first game of his second tour of duty with the Capitals, and Alex Ovechkin dealt out a pair of assists to reach the 700-helper plateau for his career. Ovechkin joins Nicklas Backstrom (762) as just the second player in franchise history to reach that milestone, and he becomes just the sixth player in NHL history to join the 700 goals/700 assists club, and he is the seventh active player to reach 700 assists.
With the score tied 1-1 early in the second period, the Caps took the lead on a Tom Wilson power-play goal. It was the first of three goals on three consecutive shots by the Caps in a span of just over three minutes; Alaiksei Protas and Jakob Chychrun followed with markers to extend the Caps’ lead to 4-1, and Thompson shut the door on the Golden Knights in the third period.
“The team came out working tonight,” said Thompson after the game. “They were doing a good job of working and boxing out and making my life really easy. Overall, that’s just a great team win, and a lot of positives to build off tonight.”
The Caps reconvened at MedStar Capitals Iceplex on Wednesday for an optional practice session in preparation for Thursday’s date with Dallas. After spending the first half of October playing once a week, the Caps are now able to feel like they’re back in the rhythm of a hockey season, with games coming every other day and the season’s first road trip just ahead on the horizon.
“I think it always helps early in the season, to get into that rhythm of playing games somewhat regularly,” says Caps’ defenseman Trevor van Riemsdyk. “When you’re playing one and then there’s a break, it still has that preseason feel. But we know the games are going to start coming here; we have a game [Thursday], we go on the road, we’ll have a back-to-back pretty soon. It will start feeling pretty much like a normal season here pretty quick.”
In vanquishing Vegas, the Caps cooled off a team that arrived in town with an unblemished 3-0-0 record. Now, they’ll seek to bankroll those good feelings against a Stars team that comes to DC with a perfect 4-0-0 record on the young season. Tuesday’s win featured contributions from everyone in a red sweater, and that type of full buy-in will be needed for the Capitals to have consistent success.
“Every team in this League is built differently,” says Caps’ center P-L Dubois. “A good thing about our team is that on any given night, anybody can pop up and help in a lot of different ways. You can score goals, you can also block shots, be good on the penalty kill. And as we’ve seen so far, we have a good mix of in here where everybody can do a bit of everything.
“It’s a long season of 82 games, and not everybody’s going to have it each night. But when you have that mix of guys that can do it, it helps your odds of winning on those nights where maybe a few guys aren’t feeling great or a few guys are tired. Other guys can pick up the slack.
“I think the Vegas win is a perfect example of what everybody in this room can do. Everybody pitched in, whether it was on the scoresheet or blocking shots or whatever. And that mix is going to help us out throughout the season.”
Dubois was one of those “pitch in” guys on Tuesday; he and linemates Connor McMichael and Tom Wilson were tasked with quieting the Jack Eichel trio, one of the hottest units in the League in the season’s early going. Nic Dowd’s line also frequently gets that shutdown assignment, but the Caps are approaching it from a more cerebral angle.
“It’s not taking anything away from Dowder; I thought their line was one of our best lines [Tuesday] night; it was very effective,” says Caps’ coach Spencer Carbery. “What I think it does is two things: Dubois is a really good player at playing against some top players in the League, and he has a little bit more of an offensive mind to that. So what that means is, when you face the Eichels and the [Connor] McDavids, and then [Thursday] night when you see whatever line it is – [Jason] Robertson, [Roope] Hintz, Wyatt Johnston’s line – sometimes turning those lines and making them have to defend, you can put them in some tough spots, and try to create some chances and try to score offensively.
“And not that Dowder’s line couldn’t, but when we deploy Dowder against Roope Hintz – and Dowder is as good as anybody in the National Hockey League at this – he’s like, ‘I’m not going to let this line score,’ which is what makes him so elite.
“Can we take that one step further now, and potentially try to put some players on the opposition that are thinking offense first and are offensive-minded players, can we make them have to get uncomfortable and put them in a defensive situation? I think that’s a Dubois [attribute], and he loves playing against top players, has done it before. So I think trying to get him those assignments with Willie and Mikey right now is a positive. Not that Dowd is not going to do it a lot, but I think it gives us some flexibility.”
The Stars are a popular pre- and early-season pick to come out of the Western Conference and reach the Stanley Cup Final next spring, and the early returns of the season support that view. After opening the season with a road win over the Predators in Nashville, the Stars rolled through a three-game homestand and will arrive in the District sporting a perfect 4-0-0 mark on the season.
Dallas has permitted just five goals against in its four games to date, and Stars netminders Jake Oettinger and Casey DeSmith authored back-to-back shutouts in back-to-back home games over the weekend. Oettinger whitewashed the New York Islanders on Saturday and DeSmith matched the feat against Seattle on Sunday.
Most recently, the Stars edged the San Jose Sharks on Tuesday night in Dallas in the homestand finale, prevailing 3-2 in a shootout decision.
For whatever reasons, the Stars have always given the Caps fits, regardless of venue. Washington has won only 34 of 107 games against the Minnesota/Dallas franchise; the Caps own a 34-51-16-6 record all-time against the North Stars/Stars, and their home mark against that franchise is 17-24-8-4, but it’s much worse over the last three decades.
Way back on March 17, 1996 the Caps eked out a 2-1 win over Dallas in the Stars’ last ever visit to USAirways Arena. Since the Capitals moved downtown midway through the 1997-98 season, Washington has won only three of 19 home games (3-11-5) against Dallas. The Stars have outscored the Caps by a combined total of 70-44 in those 19 games. The Caps’ most recent home win over the Stars was a 4-3 victory on March 20, 2018.
