All season long, the Capitals have excelled at bouncing back from the extremely occasional tough losses they’ve suffered in 2024-25. On Saturday afternoon in San Jose, the Caps started on time and turned in another strong rebound performance in a 5-1 victory over the San Jose Sharks at SAP Center.
Five different Caps – including Alex Ovechkin, who netted career goal No. 887 – found the back of the net on Saturday, and Logan Thompson was sharp in the Washington crease, stopping 19 of 20 shots to claim his 29th victory of the season.
The diverse attack and strong netminding enabled the Caps to shake off Thursday’s 3-0 loss to the Kings in LA and to head home with four of a possible six points for their California trip.
The Caps jumped on the Sharks early in Saturday’s game, and they got into the San Jose bullpen early, too.
“Yeah, first period,” concurs Caps coach Spencer Carbery. “Second period, I thought we got pushed a little bit and started to get a little carless with the puck, and then you could see their speed in transition really started to give us some issues, but [Thompson] was really good.
“But the first period, we knew in this building we needed to have a fast start. And that’s exactly what we did. Credit to our guys for starting on time.”
For the second time on the trip, Dylan Strome got the scoring started for the Capitals. After Tom Wilson sent Alex Ovechkin into San Jose ice with a rinkwide feed, and Ovechkin made a nifty feed to put Strome in a 1-on-1 situation with Sharks goalie Alexandar Georgiev. Strome is lethal from that area, and he fired a shot past Georgiev at 7:33 to put the Caps in front for good.
“We talked a little bit about driving through the middle,” recounts Strome. “And luckily I got ahead of their forward there, and [Ovechkin] made a great pass, so that was a great play all around.”
Late in the first, the Caps struck for a pair of quick goals to create some separation between themselves and the Sharks.
After Washington worked the cycle in the left wing corner of the Sharks’ zone, Lars Eller found enough time and space to take it to the cooker. Georgiev stopped Eller three times from point blank range, but Aliaksei Protas found the third rebound and backhanded it home at 17:26.
Roughly 90 seconds later, the Caps made it 3-0 when Taylor Raddysh ripped a shot past Georgiev from the right circle after taking a feed from John Carlson. Rasmus Sandin didn’t factor into the scoring on the goal, but he sparked the scoring play in transition on the goal with a strong defensive play in neutral ice.
“It was just a great play by [P-L Dubois] and Johnny,” says Raddysh. “Dubie with good poise to find the [defenseman] there, and then Johnny sees me come off the bench, so it was a nice play by them, too. And I just had to miss [Protas] in front of the net, and luckily, it went by the boy.”
Thompson saw only three shots in the first period, but they were all excellent chances from San Jose’s top line, two from Will Smith and another from William Eklund.
Georgiev faced 17 shots in the first, but he was pulled in favor of Georgi Romanov at the outset of the second.
Neither team scored in the second, but tempers got short late in the middle period. Tom Wilson tuned up San Jose’s Zach Ostapchuk, delivering almost as many punches to the pivot as he has letters in his last name.
Forty-one seconds later, Brandon Duhaime dropped Noah Gregor to the ice with right before the Sharks’ forward managed to throw a single punch. Washington then navigated its way through some penalty trouble that carried into the early moments of the third.
The Caps had one shaky shift early in the third and it cost them when Tyler Toffoli found Macklin Celebrini alone in the slot, and the Sharks rookie quickly shelved a shot to spoil Thompson’s shutout bid at 6:19.
But before San Jose could fantasize about a comeback, the Caps went to work and restored that three-goal cushion.
Eller and Andrew Mangiapane did the grunt work down low on the forecheck, managing to get the puck up to Trevor van Riemsdyk at the right point. When he didn’t see a viable shooting lane, van Riemsdyk opted to carry down the wall and behind the cage, and from below the goal line, he banked a shot off Romanov’s backside to make it a 4-1 game at 6:59, a mere 40 seconds after the Celebrini goal.
For van Riemsdyk, Saturday’s goal ended a 145-game goal drought dating back just over two years, to March 9, 2023 when he scored against New Jersey.
“Pretty good,” says van Riemsdyk. “It’s been a long, long time, but I always joke in the locker room that my son is almost two, but hasn’t been alive for a goal [by his dad] yet, so it was nice – a week before his birthday – to get one.”
van Riemsdyk’s teammates were over the moon for their beloved teammate, and they quickly and enthusiastically mobbed him behind the San Jose net.
“That’s the best,” says Strome. “The guy works so hard, doesn’t say much, doesn’t complain ever, just goes out there and does his job; he makes flat passes and doesn’t get beat. He’s not the quickest, fleet of foot guy, but you don’t find a guy [who doesn’t] get beat like him. Guys can’t get around him. He’s got a great stick and I’m happy for him.”
The van Riemsdyk goal also came at a key moment in the game.
“The guys were all fired up on the bench,” says Carbery. “And he hit the post earlier in the game. Not just the goal, I thought he was excellent tonight. He did a great job of moving his feet, created a couple of [offensive] zone situations where he beast the winger down the wall, using poise and his skating to get by that winger in a couple of different spots.”
Just past the midpoint of the third, Ovechkin aroused the crowd when he tipped home a Martin Fehervary left point shot at 10:54 to make it a 5-1 game.
“Hopefully that helps him, because you could feel that he was gripping it a little bit,” says Carbery of Ovechkin. “The power play has been struggling and he hasn’t been getting as many quality looks with his line, and so for him to get that goal, hopefully that’s a good boost for him and grabs him some momentum heading back home and going into our [three] home games this week.”
