Jan. 15 vs. San Jose Sharks at Capital One Arena
Time: 7:00 p.m.
TV: MNMT
Radio: 106.7 THE FAN/Caps Radio Network
San Jose Sharks (23-19-3)
Washington Capitals (24-17-6)
Coming off an exhilarating 3-2 overtime win over the Montreal Canadiens in Tuesday’s homestand opener, the Caps will once again attempt to string together successive wins when the San Jose Sharks swim into DC on Thursday for the middle match of Washington’s three-game homestand.
Down 2-0 to the Habs heading into the third period, the Caps first had to finish killing off the remaining vestiges of a Montreal two-man advantage, the third straight game in which they’ve been tasked with an opposition 5-on-3 power play of more than a minute in duration. Once that task was achieved the Caps set about doing the things they hadn’t done enough of for the game’s first 40 minutes against a team that played, traveled, cleared customs, and had some travel woes on their way into the District.
The Caps started playing with pace and with connectivity. They started to tax Montreal by making the Canadiens play in their own end of the ice, and they established their formidable low-to-high game in the offensive zone, a big part of their attack when they can get it humming because they have the defensemen who can walk the line, alter angles and get pucks back down low, and they have the forwards who can win pucks on the walls and in the corners to fuel that brand of game, and then get to the net to finish.
“They didn't get until late,” says Caps defenseman Trevor van Riemsdyk of the Canadiens. “They had a 7:30 [pm] hockey night in Canada, so that goes into it too. We've had that this year too, where you get in super late.
“And yeah, you just stick with it, and wear on them. We’ve got a big, good, forechecking team; they’ve got a [defense corps] that play a lot of minutes. So, if you can just lean on them, lean on them, and hopefully it turns at some point. And the second half of that game, I thought we did a much better job.”
Ethen Frank has scored four goals in the last three games, the last three of which came from virtually the same spot, between the hash marks. The last two of those tallies came in the third period of Tuesday’s game.
The first of the three – Sunday in Nashville – was a straight up rip on the power play. The second, which halved the Habs’ two-goal lead on Tuesday, came when he battled Canadiens blueliner Mike Matheson and held his ground in the slot, and he was rewarded when Matt Roy’s right point shot grazed his skate blade and then found twine after getting under the right arm of netminder Samuel Montembeault. And the third came with Washington netminder Logan Thompson pulled for an extra attacker and the Caps trailing by a goal late in the third. Frank found his spot, presented his stick and waited for Rasmus Sandin to hit his tape with a precision feed for a redirect under the bar.
That goal pushed the game into overtime, where Connor McMichael ended it by burying the rebound of a Dylan Strome shot. With both P-L Dubois and Justin Sourdif out of the lineup, McMichael turned in a terrific performance at center. He logged a single-game career high 22:32 in ice time, a figure that included a team-high 4:49 in shorthanded ice time and 4:09 on the power play as well.
Since he scored twice against the Habs in Montreal on Nov. 20, Frank has 10 goals, tied with Aliaksei Protas for fourth on the team across that stretch. For Frank, that consists of 27 games, so he is scoring at a 30-goal full season rate over one-third of the season. He also matched a single-game career high with 18:06 in ice time on Tuesday, a figure he established in the previous game in Nashville. Frank ended the game on a top six line with Strome and Alex Ovechkin, and he came through with his third multi-goal game in the last 27.
Of the 49 NHL players who – like Frank – have scored 10 or more goals since Nov. 20, forty-seven are averaging more ice time (13:06) per game than Frank.
“He was outstanding tonight,” said Caps coach Spencer Carbery after Tuesday’s game. “It's just another example of Frankie, how far he's come in his career in the National Hockey League, of being able to legitimately take over a game at this level. It's just amazing, his progression, and to be able to play at the level that he's playing at. It's not going to be every night like that, but he was – to me – the best player on the ice tonight. And you're talking about a group of A) 40 NHLers, but B) there's some pretty good players out on that ice. And he was the best of the group and made a bunch of big plays, not just the goals.”
As uplifting as Tuesday’s win was, the Caps will be able to attach more meaning to it if they can follow it up with another two-point performance against the Sharks on Thursday. The Eastern Conference standings continue to be tight, and the Caps have gone six weeks without cobbling consecutive wins together.
“It feels like the season is almost over with how tight the race in the East is, especially,” says McMichael. “And every two points is huge. I think a night like tonight usually kick starts a team into something special, and I think it’s right there in front of us to build on that. And I think it's upon ourselves to take that into control and start winning some hockey games here.”
The Sharks open up a unique four-game road trip in which they play two sets of back-to-back games wrapped around a pair of off days. The Sharks move on to face the Red Wings in Detroit on Friday, then rest for a couple of days. They’ll head south for the weekend; they finish the trip Monday in Florida and Tuesday in Tampa Bay.
For San Jose, Thursday’s game in the District kicks off a stretch in which it plays nine of its next 10 games on the road leading up to the Olympic break.
San Jose last played on Sunday at home when its three-game winning streak ended it a 7-2 setback at the hands of the Vegas Golden Knights. The Sharks have yielded exactly seven goals against in each of their last three losses, and in four of their last eight, dating back to the last time they faced the Caps.
Behind Ryan Leonard’s four-point performance (two goals, two assists), Washington won the first meeting between the two teams on Dec. 3 in San Jose, 7-1.
