Caps Clash with Canucks on Sunday
Washington seeks to extend its winning streak to four on Sunday afternoon when Vancouver makes its lone Verizon Center visit of 2016-17.
© Patrick Smith
By
Mike Vogel
WashingtonCaps.com
Back from a successful one-game road trip to Buffalo on Friday, the Caps make a quick stop home for a one-game homestand on Sunday afternoon. The Capitals host the Canucks on Sunday before departing the District once again, this time for two games.
On Friday in Buffalo, the Capitals earned a 4-1 win over the Sabres. The win was the Caps' third in as many games this season against Buffalo, and all three games of the season's series were played in a span of just 15 days. Rookie Caps winger Jakub Vrana scored his first NHL goal on a Washington power play in the second period, and the goal turned out to be the game-winner for the Capitals.
Vrana joins Dmitry Orlov (Jan. 15, 2012) and Julien Brouliette (Feb. 8, 2014) as just the third Caps player since 2008-09 whose first NHL marker was also a game-winner.
Friday's victory over the Sabres halted the Caps' four-game road losing streak (0-2-2), their longest road slide since they lost five straight (0-3-2) on the road from Jan. 8-31, 2015.
Special teams were critical in Friday's win; the Caps were 2-for-3 with the extra man and they killed off four of five Buffalo power plays on the night. The Sabres had four consecutive man advantage opportunities in a 12-minute span starting late in the second period, and the Caps came within 24 seconds of killing off the entire stretch without a blemish. Buffalo's Kyle Okposo finally scored on a rebound to spoil Philipp Grubauer's shutout bid.
Grubauer won his second straight start - both against the Sabres - and made 27 saves in running his record to 4-1-1 on the season. For the third time in as many starts and four the fourth time in his six starts this season, Grubauer carried a shutout into the third period of Friday's game.
Last season, most of Grubauer's work came in the back end of back-to-back games. Thus far in 2016-17, only one of his starts has come in that situation, and it has made a difference.
"It's nice to not get the second game [of back-to-backs], but also it doesn't matter," says Grubauer. "The preparation is the same as going into a back-to-back.
"We played a good game [Friday]. The first [period] was really good and the second was really good, too. Then we got into some penalty trouble there at the end. Moving forward we can't do that. I don't know how many penalties we took there, but we don't want to kill off the last period with the lead."
Last season was an adjustment for Grubauer, who had to get used to playing a couple of games a month instead of being the go-to goaltender on his team. But he learned from the experience, and it has paid dividends in the early going of this season.
"The more I can play, the better it is," says Grubauer, who now has a 1.67 GAA and a .940 save pct. on the season. "I knew my role last year, and I know my role this year. But I didn't know what to expect last year, so I learned from last year and coming into this season I knew what to expect and how to approach things and to prepare myself and make sure I help the team win games."
Sunday's game against Vancouver is the Caps' first against a Western Conference opponent since a 4-3 home ice win over St. Louis on Nov. 23. The Caps won't play another Western foe until they host Chicago on Jan. 13, so Sunday's game is the only one they'll play against the opposite conference in a span of 22 games. Washington is 7-2-0 against Western foes this season.
The Caps and Canucks will finish off their season's series on Sunday. The Caps earned a 5-2 win over the Canucks in Vancouver on Oct. 29. Marcus Johansson scored twice that night - his second and third goals of the season - and Grubauer made 23 saves to pick up his second win of the season. The victory over Vancouver set the Caps off on a five-game winning streak, which is still their longest of the season to date.
Vancouver is in the midst of a five-game trip out east. The Canucks' journey started on Tuesday in New Jersey with a 3-2 loss to the Devils. A 5-1 win over the Lightning in Tampa Bay followed on Thursday, and the Canucks lost the middle match of the trip on Saturday night in South Florida, falling to the Panthers by a 4-2 score.
Trailing 3-0 after 40 minutes against the Panthers, Vancouver rebounded for a pair of third-period goals to pull within one. The Canucks narrowly missed tying the game on a couple of occasions, but ultimately fell when Florida bagged an empty-netter in the game's final minute.
The Canucks got out to a surprising 4-0 start to the season, but they needed more than 60 minutes to earn three of those victories, and Vancouver fell into a lengthy tailspin immediately after those four wins to start the campaign.
From Oct. 22-Nov. 7, the Canucks lost nine straight games (0-8-1), getting outscored by a whopping 31-12 margin in the process. Since that nine-game losing streak, the Canucks are a more respectable 8-6-1, but they have won consecutive games just once since that four-game winning run to start the season.
Vancouver has been beset by a bevy of injuries this season, and the Canucks were missing half a dozen players out of their lineup on Saturday in Florida. Among the missing is veteran No. 1 netminder Ryan Miller, who suffered a lower body injury on Thursday in Tampa Bay.
The Canucks recalled first-year pro goaltender Thatcher Demko, the team's second-round pick (36th overall) in the 2014 NHL Draft. Demko, a native of San Diego, just turned 21 on Thursday. He has yet to play at the NHL level, and a baptism by fire in Washington seems unlikely on the second night of back-to-backs for the Canucks. Jacob Markstrom started and took the loss on Saturday in Florida; he was also the Vancouver starter when the Caps won over the Canucks in British Columbia in late October.
Vancouver is also playing without two of its top four defensemen in Alexander Edler (hand) and Chris Tanev (lower body).
As has been the case for the better part of the last decade and a half in Vancouver, the Sedin twins are the Canucks' leading scorers. Henrik Sedin has 18 points (eight goals, 10 assists) and brother Daniel is right behind him at 17 (seven goals, 10 assists).
