When the Capitals arrived at Capital One Arena on Saturday for their game with the Carolina Hurricanes, they were greeted with a heaping helping of adversity. Playing at home for the first time in two weeks, the Caps had to dress a lineup that barely resembled the one they deployed on Jan. 17 against Florida in their previous home contest.
Both of Washington’s regular goaltenders – Logan Thompson and Charlie Lindgren – are injured. The Capitals dressed starter Clay Stevenson and backup Garin Bjorklund, both of whom began the week with AHL Hershey. The Caps have been missing center P-L Dubois for three months now, but top six forward Connor McMichael (upper body injury) joined Dubois on injured reserve today, and top six defensemen Matt Roy and Martin Fehervary were also absent from the Washington lineup.
That’s hardly a recipe for success against one of the NHL’s elite teams, so it couldn’t have been too surprising for most to see the Canes gradually build a 3-0 lead by the early minutes of the second period. What may have been less evident at that point of the evening was how well this makeshift Caps lineup was playing to that point, which was well enough to believe they could come back and win it.
And come back and win they did, with Justin Sourdif’s overtime goal supplying the difference in a 4-3 overtime victory, the first of Stevenson’ NHL career, in his second career start and appearance.
“It’s funny,” says Caps defenseman Jakob Chychrun. “I just felt like we were playing so well. Even when we were down three, I said to myself on the bench – and [Rasmus Sandin] was sitting next to me – and I was so close to turning to turning to him and telling him, ‘It just feels like we’re winning this game.”
Stevenson came into Saturday’s game with one NHL game under his belt, and Bjorklund has yet to play at this level. It’s the first time in Washington’s 51-year franchise history – a span of more than 4,000 regular season games – that it has entered a game with a goaltending tandem that carried just one game’s worth of NHL experience between them into the contest.
Despite all the upheaval with the lineup, the Caps came out with plenty of verve in the first.
With 19 shots on Carolina’s Freddie Andersen in the opening stanza of Saturday’s game, the Caps registered the most shots on net they’ve managed in any of the 56 first periods they’ve played this season. Andersen stopped them all, and Carolina was able to dent Stevenson twice on 13 shots in the game’s first 20 minutes.
After snuffing out an early Washington power play without incident, the Hurricanes went in front with a goal from their fourth line in the back half of the first.
Jesperi Kotkaniemi blunted a Caps exit bid at the right point, and he lofted the puck back down low. William Carrier reached up, pulled it down and dished it to Mark Jankowski in the slot, and Jankowski’s shot eluded Stevenson’s glove hand for a 1-0 Carolina lead at 13:27.
Carolina doubled its cushion with just over two minutes remaining in the first. John Carlson partially fanned on an intended breakout feed, and Sebastian Aho was right there to fire it past Stevenson from the slot at 17:51.
Early in the second, the Canes upped their lead to 3-0 when Shayne Gostisbehere found twine on a shot from the left half wall – above the circle – at 4:16. That’s the one that rankled Stevenson; he wanted that one back immediately.
“It’s just ‘next puck,’” says Stevenson of the mentality needed after letting a soft one in. “I just think to myself that things happen; it’s not the first one that I’ve wanted back. It’s not the first time I’ve been in that situation. You just try to do your best to give the team the best chance to win, shut it down, make some saves, and then away you go.”
Just under four minutes later, the Caps began cutting into the Carolina cushion.
The Canes won a draw in their own end of the ice, but Caps winger Sonny Milano came into possession of the puck along the right half wall. Hendrix Lapierre read it well and went directly to the net by himself. Milano fired it to the front, and after Andersen stopped his first two tries from the top of the paint, Lapierre pushed it home on the third try, making it a 3-1 game at 7:52 of the middle frame.
“It’s a good play by [Brandon Duhaime] to hound it to Sonny, to realize that I was by myself,” recounts Lapierre. “I honestly didn’t look at it, so I don’t know exactly how that happened, but it’s a good paly by Sonny. I was calling for it; I knew I was by myself pretty much.”
“They score a big goal and draw two penalties tonight,” says Caps coach Spencer Carbery of Lapierre’s line. “So, those are great situations of where your fourth line arguably turns the tide, grabs momentum and gets us that one.”
With about five minutes left in the second, the Caps pulled to within a goal. Chychrun was able to keep a puck in the offensive zone, and Aliaksei Protas moved it down the left wing half wall before throwing a feed to the front for Dylan Strome, who tucked it through Andersen to make it a 3-2 contest at 14:58.
The Caps were dominant in the third period. Carolina had to take draw after draw in its own end of the ice, and Washington didn’t get discouraged when it wasn’t able to muster an equalizer right away.
As the period wore on, the building began to come alive, and it seemed as though the Caps had transferred their own comeback belief to the sellout crowd.
Finally, with less than seven minutes left in the third, the Caps broke through for the tying tally.
Seconds after Tom Wilson laid out Carolina’s Logan Stankoven with a heavy hit behind the Canes’ net, the Caps re-entered the zone, and Protas fed Chychrun, who fired a wrist shot over Andersen’s blocker from the slot at 13:18.
The Caps vied for the go-ahead marker over the remainder of regulation, and they had a couple of decent opportunities to get it, but that would be left for Sourdif to take care of in the extra session.
Ethen Frank sent Sourdif into Carolina ice, and after an exchange with Carlson, Sourdif fired a shot that Andersen stopped but did not secure. The rookie forward pounced on the rebound and put it into the yawning cage, giving the Caps a pair of consecutive wins for the first time in nearly two months, both achieved beyond the game’s 60th minute.
“It was pretty cool,” says Sourdif of his first overtime game-winner in the NHL. “Especially [because] I made a couple of mistakes in OT there – not very smart plays – so I’m glad it worked out. I was actually trying to change, and then we kept getting odd man rushes. So I stayed out there; you can’t take those for granted. But no, it’s pretty cool.”
Canes coach Rod Brind’Amour issued a desperation coach’s challenge, alleging goaltender interference, but a perfunctory review shut that inquiry down.
“We sure didn’t get to [our game],” laments Brind’Amour. “From opening puck drop to the end, I don’t think I’ve ever been part of a 60-minute game where we were that bad. Somehow, we managed a point. There is zero way we should have; they dominated us from the start.”
The Caps gave the Canes a healthy dose of their own medicine, pumping 42 pucks on Andersen, the second-most shots the Canes have surrendered in a game this season. Only Colorado (48 on Oct. 23, 2025) managed more against Carolina this season.
Washington out-attempted the Canes by a whopping 81-55 at all strengths in the game.
“It felt like they did it to us, probably four out of five [games] in the playoffs last year,” says Strome. “And it feels like this year in the regular season we did it to them two times, and they did to us once.
“The games against them go back and forth where teams really get momentum. And they're great with momentum; they come hard, they forecheck, they get shots on net. It seems like they're relentless.
“And when we do that to teams, like what we've been talking about the last couple weeks where we haven't really been able to do that to teams. So, when we get that opportunity, and we pounce on it, even in the third, even after we tied, it seemed like we were just going quick up, quick up, and they couldn't defend that.
“So it's nice to do it to [other] teams for once. And we showed we can play that way.”
Which is good, because they’re going to need to keep playing that way.
