Cole Hutson scored a pair of pretty goals and Alex Tuch netted yet another game-winner on Thursday night in Nashville, helping the Caps overcome an early deficit for a 4-3 victory over the Predators in a seesaw affair at Bridgestone Arena. Charlie Lindgren made 25 saves for his third straight win.
Thursday’s victory spoiled a celebratory night in the Music City as former Caps coach Barry Trotz was inducted into Nashville’s Golden Hall in a pregame ceremony, joining former Washington GM David Poile in that distinction. Hours before the game, Caps captain Alex Ovechkin and right wing Tom Wilson presented an engraved bottle of wine to the coach that led them to a Stanley Cup in 2018 to commemorate the occasion.
And with Trotz and Poile looking on, Hutson and the Caps conjured a performance that brought up some ghosts from the early days of the franchise, when Poile was the Washington GM and Trotz was coaching the Caps’ AHL affiliate in Baltimore in the early 1990s, more on that later.
Playing for the second time in as many nights, the Caps were seeking a strong start and some early energy. Although they didn’t necessarily check either of those boxes, they were able to exercise some early damage control, thanks to some early saves from Lindgren.
The first shot Lindgren faced was a Filip Forsberg breakaway about two and a half minutes into the contest. He stopped that one, and he shut down 10 of 11 overall in the opening period; it took a 5-on-3 power play to get one behind Lindgren. Forsberg scored that one at 12:48, pounding a left dot one-timer to the twine after a tee-up feed from Ryan O’Reilly.
In the three-plus seasons in which Spencer Carbery has been behind the Washington bench, the Caps have yielded just two 5-on-3 goals against – fewest in the NHL – both at Bridgestone Arena, and both of them in calendar 2026.
With just under four minutes remaining in the first, the Caps pulled even. After forcing a turnover on the forecheck, the Caps began to work the puck around the perimeter of the Preds’ zone. Jack St. Ivany took a pass from Pierre-Luc Dubois, and the defenseman put it down low on the right side for Hutson. From the bottom of the right circle, Hutson unleashed a bullet of a wrist shot that beat Nashville netminder Juuse Saros, squaring the score at 1-1 at 16:13.
“It took a lot of luck,” says Hutson of his first goal. “I took a look up and saw a little space there, so kind of just a hope play, and lucky that it went in.”
Less than a minute after Hutson’s tying tally, Lindgren prevented another lead change when he made an excellent denial of Mavrik Bourque’s redirection from just above the paint.
“He made some big saves,” says Carbery of Lindgren. “We had to keep that at 1-0 because if it gets to two early, it's going to be a real uphill battle to come back on the road, second half of a back-to-back. So, to keep that at 1-0 – and even a few of the saves at 1-1 – I thought he did an excellent job tonight. I thought he played real strong for us.”
Seconds after the conclusion of an unsuccessful Washington power play in the early minutes of the middle period, the Caps jumped in front when they won an offensive zone draw with one second remaining on their power play. Boone Jenner won the draw, and after a Martin Fehervary shot, Jenner pulled the puck from a goalmouth scramble and chipped it under the bar at 4:15, lifting the Caps to a 2-1 advantage.
“We chatted before the draw,” recounts Jenner. “We knew it was one or two seconds left in their penalty, so we wanted to maybe get something at the net quick before that guy can jump in the zone. So, Marty threw it in there, and [Aliaksei Protas] did a great job in front, just creating that chaos. He's a big body, jars the puck loose, and I was able to find it.”
Just under five minutes later, Nashville pulled even on a bit of a jailbreak shift for the Caps in their own end; Forsberg got behind all the white sweaters on the ice, and the puck found him down low. Forsberg patiently pulled Lindgren out of position and scored the tying goal; Forsberg’s second goal of the game came at 9:09.
Fortunately for the Caps, the got the one after 9:09. That’s when Hutson notched his second of the game with another beauty of a goal.
After the Caps won a draw at the Nashville line, St. Ivany rimmed the puck into the Preds’ zone, and it came around to Aliaksei Protas just above the left circle. Protas grabbed it off the wall and pushed it to Hutson, who marched right down Broadway – without even stopping at Robert’s or Tootsie’s; he’s still not quite old enough – before putting a laser to the shelf behind Saros at 13:46, restoring the Washington lead at 3-2.
“A heck of a play,” says Carbery of Hutson’s second goal. “And it's a great play by Pro. Pro sets that up. Big Pro makes a real nice play, a real high end, undercover play to pull that puck off the wall and get it to the middle for Cole.”
With his second goal of the night, Hutson became the fifth rookie defenseman in Caps franchise history – and the first in more than three decades – to have a two-goal game. He follows Greg Theberge, Peter Andersson, Mikhail Tatarinov and Ken Klee in achieving that feat.
Theberge and Andersson both played for the Caps during Poile’s tenure as Washington’s GM, and Poile was responsible for drafting both Tatarinov (11th round in 1984) and Klee (ninth round in 1990). And Trotz coached Klee at both AHL Baltimore and AHL Portland.
Also on Hutson’s second goal, St. Ivany joined Brian Pothier and Rasmus Sandin as just the third defenseman in Washington’s franchise history to notch as many as four assists in their first two games with the team.
St. Ivany also became the first player in franchise history to record multiple assists in each of his first two games as a Capital, and he is just the fifth NHL defenseman in the last 30 years to record multiple assists in each of his first two games with a franchise. He joins some pretty good company: Francois Beauchemin, Johnny Boychuk, Zdeno Chara and Eric Weinrich.
“He's unbelievable,” says Hutson of St. Ivany. “Easy to read off, really defensive. He's able to kill plays quick and make us transition quick north. He's been unreal. So hopefully we can keep it rolling.”
The Caps went on the power play six seconds after Hutson’s second goal, but they could not manufacture the goal that would have given them a two-goal advantage.
Nashville answered back at 6:34 of the third, tying the game yet again when Ross Colton found and buried a loose puck in front after Lindgren had thwarted Adam Edstrom twice from just above the paint.
Not to worry, kid.
Tuch hadn’t scored yet to that point in Thursday’s game, but he buried the game-winner for Washington on a well-manufactured goal at 10:09 of the third.
Jakob Chychrun crept over the Preds line and slid a shot toward Saros, one the goaltender easily set aside. But a speeding Jordan Kyrou – playing in his 500th NHL game – got to it first, collecting it just above the goal line and quickly dishing it to Tuch in the left circle. Tuch partially whirled and let a dart fly, one that beat Saros on the short side to put the Caps on top for good.
“Chychy, honestly, a really, really smart play to throw that off the goalie to just try to give us more possession there,” says Tuch. “Because I think on rimmed pucks, they were doing a really good job of supporting and breaking out. So, that was a little bit of a weirder one. And then I saw the two guys went to [Kyrou], which they were doing all night. He's such a skilled player. Being able to find that, I thought, was no problem for him. He was in a good area.”
“He plays the puck so well,” says Carbery of Saros. “So, you have to strategize against that, and try to do some different things.
“The fourth goal, we get it where we forecheck off him. So, you shoot it off him, and we talked about that. He's that good at playing the puck. You have to build a little bit of a plan, and guys did an excellent job on that fourth goal and everything. Tuchie, the shot is world class, but everything we did to get him into that spot was really well done by our group.”
Tuch has 10 goals in a dozen games with the Caps, and he has scored in three straight games, netting five of them in that span.
Washington managed the remainder of the game nicely against a Predators team that has displayed an early season penchant for forcing overtime. Thursday’s win sends the Caps home happy, with their first three-game winning streak of the season and an 8-4-0 mark at the end of the season’s first month.
For Lindgren, the win was his third in succession, marking his first three-game winning streak since he reeled off four in a row from Nov. 27-Dec. 12, 2024.
The Caps also managed to sweep a set of back-to-backs with travel for the first time this season, doing so immediately after a stretch in which they played just one game in a span of seven days.
“It's a lot of time off, right?” says Jenner. “You're not used to it when the season gets going. You're used to playing every second or third day, but we tried to use it to our advantage with a little bit of rest, but also nailing in some details. And I think you can see that the last two games, just little details here and there in our breakouts and whatnot throughout our systematic play. I think you can see it in these last two games.”
