Caps Host Golden Knights for First Time in Super Sunday Matinee
The Caps entertain the NHL's newest entry - and the best in the West - when the Vegas Golden Knights hit the ice on Sunday afternoon
The NHL's newest team makes its first ever visit to Capital One Arena on Sunday to provide the opposition for the Capitals' annual Super Bowl Sunday matinee match. The Vegas Golden Knights hit the District on Sunday, coming to town on the fourth stop of a six-game road trip.
Both the Capitals and the Golden Knights will be seeking to rebound from Friday night road losses. The Caps dropped a 7-4 decision to the Penguins in Pittsburgh, surrendering three power-play goals to the Pens for the second time in three games against the defending Cup champs this season.
For the ninth straight game, the Caps surrendered the game's first goal on Friday, and for the second time in as many games, Washington was down two goals to a division rival before the end of the first frame.
Washington showed some resilience, rebounding twice to tie the score at 3-3 heading into the third and then again at 4-4 before the final frame was two minutes old. But the Pens' top-ranked power play proved to be too much for the Caps to handle. Pittsburgh scored three times in less than four minutes, netting two of those three goals on the power play and chasing Caps goalie Braden Holtby to the bench after he was dented for half a dozen goals on 33 shots.
"Penalties, self-inflicted wounds, can't block a shot - bad defense all around," summarizes Caps defenseman Matt Niskanen.
The Caps have been effective at playing with a lead for the most part this season, but they've been making life difficult for themselves of late by falling down early in games. Washington has shown the ability and the resilience to rebound - it has pulled points in six of the nine straight games (4-2-3) in which it has yielded the first goal. But over time, that's not a winning gambit, and that's particularly true against strong opponents.
"Yeah, that's creeping back in," says Niskanen. "We had a stretch earlier in the year where we were really good in that regard; starting fast and scoring first. It's a lot easier to play with the lead, so we've made it a lot harder on ourselves lately, and I think our record shows because of it."
Washington won its most recent home game, a 5-3 win over the Philadelphia Flyers on Wednesday night. In that contest, the Caps' first after the NHL's All-Star break, Washington found itself in a 2-0 hole after 20 minutes, but it rallied for five unanswered goals to wrest control of the game from the Flyers. That win stemmed a short three-game slide (0-2-1) at Capital One Arena.
When Vegas visits on Sunday, the Caps will be aiming for their 20th victory on home ice this season. The Capitals faced the Golden Knights for the first time back on Dec. 23 in Las Vegas. The Knights scored three times in the first frame of that game, and that was all the scoring on either side as Vegas rolled to a 3-0 victory, one of only six games in its last 29 (19-6-4) in which Washington failed to earn a point.
In the first season of their existence, the Vegas entry has stunned the hockey world by getting out of the gates with a hot start and maintaining a fairly torrid pace since. The Golden Knights come to town with the second best record in the NHL - and the best record in the Western Conference. They're the league's second most prolific offensive outfit with an average of 3.35 goals per game, and they rank eighth in the circuit in goals against per game at 2.65.
Vegas has a plus-11 first-period goal differential (50-39), and it has become notorious for jumping on teams early in games, as it did against the Capitals just before Christmas in Las Vegas.
"They're deep in all areas," says Caps coach Barry Trotz of the Golden Knights. "They've got three legitimate scoring lines. Their first line has got a 26-goal scorer, an 18-goal scorer and a 13-goal scorer or something like that. And their second line is not quite similar, but they're in double digits. They've got three lines, they can come at you, they've got some pretty good defensemen, and they've got excellent goaltending. And they've got an unbelievable belief, they can skate, they can pressure and they're locked in as a group."
Ex-Caps general manager George McPhee is the architect of this bunch, and he and his staff put together a team that might be capable of some instant success, but is also built to have sustained success over the long haul. And no recent first-year expansion team in the league's history has had a goaltender with three Stanley Cup championships on his résumé, as the Golden Knights' Marc-Andre Fleury does.
Vegas has had a couple of three-game slides this season, but the Golden Knights are currently in the midst of a sustained run of success in which they've not gone more than one game without collecting a point in just over two months. The Golden Knights dropped three straight games in regulation from Nov. 28 to Dec. 1, but have not lost consecutive contests in regulation since. They've posted a 19-4-3 record over that stretch.
After struggling to contain the Penguins' scorching power play on Friday night, the Caps must now contend with the Golden Knights' own hot extra man outfit. After going 0-for-19 on the man advantage over a seven-game span in January, Vegas has scored at least one power-play goal in each of six straight games since. The Golden Knights are 9-for-16 (56.3%) on the power play in their last half-dozen games, scoring multiple extra-man goals in three of those tilts. Vegas is at 20.4% with the extra man on the season, just a shade behind the Capitals (20.5%).
While the Caps were falling to the Pens in Pittsburgh on Friday, the Golden Knights took a 5-2 loss at the hands of the Wild in Minnesota. Both Vegas goals in that game came on the power play.
