Forty minutes into Tuesday night’s tilt with the Montreal Canadiens at Capital One Arena, things weren’t going swimmingly for the Capitals in the opener of their three-game homestand. For the second time in as many home games, they fell behind in the first when their power play surrendered a shorthanded goal against. And for the third time in as many games, they faced down a lengthy 5-on-3 man-advantage from the opposition.
Heading into the third period looking up at a 2-0 deficit, the Caps had a seven percent chance to win Tuesday’s game, according to Sport Logiq. But after they finished snuffing out the back end of Montreal’s two-man advantage early in the third, the Caps turned on the jets and turned the tables on the Habs, skating away with a massive 3-2 overtime victory.
Connor McMichael won it for Washington at 4:21 of the extra session, stuffing home the rebound of a Dylan Strome shot from the slot.
“It feels good anytime, no matter how it looks,” says McMichael of the win. “We’re willing to take it at this point. The race in the East is so tight, and whether it’s me or anyone else, we don’t care how it looks. We just want the two points, and we’re real pleased to have them tonight.”
It was Ethen Frank who did the heavy lifting to get the Caps to overtime; he struck twice in the third period to force overtime, notching his second straight two-goal game against Montreal.
After the Caps’ penalty kill finished its work early in the third, the Caps swarmed Montreal – which played and defeated Vancouver at home last night – in its own end of the ice, finally starting to tax the Canadiens’ energy after Montreal had the better of possession in the middle period.
At 5:06 of the third, the Caps finally solved Canadiens netminder Samuel Montembeault when Frank deflected Matt Roy’s right point drive home, making it a 2-1 contest.
Precisely 13 minutes later with Logan Thompson pulled for an extra attacker, Frank stationed himself in the slot. From the left point, Rasmus Sandin issued a sublime slap pass that Frank expertly redirected to the shelf, squaring the score at 2-2 and forcing overtime.
Sandin picked up an assist on all three Washington goals while logging a season-high 24:36 in ice time.
“We needed a push,” says Caps coach Spencer Carbery. “As a group, we’re working through trying to find ourselves through this stretch, with some injuries and battling through some things, and missing some key guys. But we showed a ton of character to fight in that third period. You could tell right from the start, the first two shifts of that third period. You never know how that’s going to end up, but I knew we were going to put our foot on the gas and throw the kitchen sink at them, and I think that’s what we did.”
Frank supplied that push. He finished the night with a team-high five hits and with a single-game career high 18:53 in ice time. He came close to completing what would have been a natural hat trick on a great scoring chance in overtime.
“I think just a little more urgency; desperation, you could call it,” says Frank of the Caps’ late thunder; they outshot the Habs 26-6 from the start of the third to the end of overtime. “Realizing that they were on the second game of a back-to-back was a big part of that, and just making a push for us, making them come 200 feet, and making it a little more challenging for them to get into our zone.”
That’s how it ended, but the game’s outset was inauspicious. Washington went shorthanded in the game’s first minute, but it managed to kill off the penalty without incident thanks to a quartet of stops from Thompson, including a pair on Juraj Slafkovsky from in tight and in short succession.
Alas, the other side of the special teams wasn’t as proficient. For the second time in as many home games, the Caps fell behind 1-0 by yielding a shorthanded goal against on their first power play opportunity of the contest.
Washington lost the offensive zone draw, battled to get the puck back below the goal line, then turned it over to Josh Anderson at the half wall. Anderson took off on a 2-on-1, carrying down left side. From just inside the top of the left circle, he fired a shot that beat Thompson for a 1-0 Montreal lead at 8:14, just 19 seconds into the man advantage.
The remainder of the power play was also a dud; the Caps turned it over twice more and were offside on one of their entry tries. They failed to register a shot on net, and Anderson’s shorthanded strike is the sixth they’ve yielded this season, tied for the most in the NHL.
Until their fifth power play of the game – a 4-on-3 advantage in overtime – the Caps’ extra man unit struggled mightily and didn’t offer much in the way of scoring threats.
The Caps needed a big Thompson stop on Oliver Kapanen’s shot from the top of the paint with just over three minutes left to stay within a goal of the Habs heading into the middle frame.
Washington had the better of puck possession at 5-on-5 in the first, but the Habs turned the tables in that regard in the second, and they also doubled their lead.
A couple minutes ahead of the midpoint of the second period, Montreal’s Brendan Gallagher made it a 2-0 contest at 7:40 when he converted a Phillip Danault feed on a play that originated from behind the Washington net.
For the third time in their last three games, the Caps faced down a 5-on-3 opposition power play of more than a minute in duration – 64 seconds – late in the middle period. The Caps successfully killed it off, with the last several seconds bleeding into the beginning of the third period.
Once the kill was completed, the Caps put their work boots on, and they got the job done.
“I thought that the undercover huge part of that game was that 5-on-3 kill,” says Carbery. “There were some key moments at 2-0 where we kept it at two, because if it gets to three, it’s going to be really, really challenging. Not insurmountable, but extremely challenging.”
A year ago Saturday, Frank made his NHL debut against Montreal, picking up an assist. Tonight, he ran his totals to four goals and seven points against the Habs in three career games.
“You can see him getting more comfortable in this League,” says Thompson of Frank. “You hear about how fast he was in the American League and how dominant he was and some players just need time. And I think he's really coming into his own, and it's really impressive.
“He's got an elite shot, unbelievable speed, and even in the overtime there he, I think he generated a lot of chances. So, that's his game. And he's looked tremendous even through our losing skid. I thought he's been playing really well, so I’m really happy for him. He deserved it. He works hard, and he’s just a really good person.”
Tuesday’s win is Washington’s second in as many games this season over the Habs; they won 8-4 in Montreal on Nov. 20, the game in which Frank notched the first multi-goal game of his NHL career. Now, he has three of them.
“They definitely brought a lot of pressure,” says Habs coach Martin St. Louis of the Caps’ late charge. “They were playing fast; we had a tough time getting pucks below their goal line. We lacked a little detail on executive versus their pressure, we lacked a little detail in the [defensive] zone, and they made us pay.”
