Caps Continue Homestand on Saturday vs. Panthers
Washington takes aim at its first five-game winning streak since February when the Panthers come to town on Saturday night.
© Patrick McDermott
By
Mike Vogel
WashingtonCaps.com
Washington's three-game homestand continues on Saturday night when the Capitals host the Florida Panthers for the first of two visits to Verizon Center this season. The game pits a pair of teams coming off Thursday night 4-3 overtime wins in which the overtime game-winner came off the stick of a player scoring his second goal of the game.
Alex Ovechkin netted his 18th career overtime game-winner on a Washington power play at 3:21 of the extra session on Thursday to help the Caps overcome the Winnipeg Jets. The Capitals carried a 3-0 lead into the third period of the game against the Jets, only to see Winnipeg storm back and send the game to overtime with three goals in a span of nine minutes in the third period.
Ovechkin's goal was the 91st game winner of his NHL career, tying him with Wayne Gretzky and Mark Recchi for 16th on the NHL's all-time list in that category. The power-play goal came from Ovechkin's office at the left dot, and it beat Winnipeg netminder Michael Hutchinson.
"You know Ovi is kind of floating around on that side waiting for the one-time pass," said Hutchinson after the game. "But there was a bit of traffic in front of the net when the pass came, so I wasn't as quick at picking up where he is on that side, because that's one of the challenging things with him. He stays on that side, but he doesn't stay in the same spot. He kind of floats around. I was just a little late coming across and picking up where he was, and he made a great shot. He got all of it."
John Carlson, who has three assists in his last two games, set up Ovechkin's one-timer with a brilliant no-look pass. The Capitals dominated the overtime session, possessing the puck for virtually all of the 3:21 the two sides played before Ovechkin's goal, forcing the Jets to take their timeout after an icing and forcing them into a too-many-men-on-the-ice call shortly thereafter. That power play produced Ovechkin's game-winner.
Despite playing poorly in the first and third periods, the Caps played well enough in the remainder of the game to earn their fourth win in six nights, achieving each of those four victories in a different time zone. For the fourth time this season, the Capitals lost the handle on a multi-goal lead in Thursday's game, squandering a 3-0 third-period advantage.
"We started trying to play in front of them," says Caps right wing T.J. Oshie of his team's performance in the third. "We started to turn back, even when we were getting pucks on the wall in our end. We kept letting them get on top of us and we kept turning it back, and their pressure was really good. They turned pucks over in our end, and in our half of the neutral zone, and brought it back in on us and got a lot of shots.
"I think it really all stems with us going towards their end when it's appropriate - when we can - and getting that really balanced attack of five guys going together up the ice. We got a little spread out, not a lot of talk tonight and some things we can [work on]. They're an easy fix. We got the two points, but we've got some things we've got to sharpen up on."
Ten games into the season, the Caps have the second best record in the league at 7-2-1. During the team's current four-game winning streak, it has scored a total of 15 goals to move into the league's top ten in goals per game. Washington is tied for eighth in the circuit with 2.90 per game, and the Caps are tied for second in the league with 2.10 goals against per game.
Although they struggled on special teams early in the season, both units have improved over the last several games. Having put together four straight perfect penalty killing performances during the team's four-game winning streak (11-for-11), Washington is now 12th in the league in penalty killing at 82.8% on the season. The Capitals have scored a power-play goal in three of the four games during the winning streak (3-for-12) and they now rank 20th in the NHL in that department, at 16.1% on the season.
The Panthers started the season with a 3-1-1 record through their first five games, but they're 2-4 since. Florida is 1-3-1 on the road, with that lone win coming in its last road game, a 5-2 win over the Red Wings in Detroit on Sunday.
Florida has won two of last three, with James Reimer in goal for both of those victoroes. Roberto Luongo's last win came two weeks ago, on Oct. 22 against Colorado.
Most recently, the Panthers won a 4-3 overtime decision over the New Jersey Devils on Thursday night in South Florida. Vincent Trocheck's goal in overtime - his second of the game - provided the winning margin for the Panthers.
Florida has been playing without three top six forwards for most of this season. Left wing Jonathan Huberdeau suffered an Achilles injury that is expected to keep him out of the lineup into the second half of the season. Center Nick Bjugstad suffered a broken hand late in the preseason and winger Jussi Jokinen was felled with a knee injury late last month. Both Bjugstad and Jokinen are nearing their respective returns to the lineup, and both could play as early as the upcoming week. But neither is expected to be in action on Saturday night against Washington.
The Panthers' trip to Washington is the team's only road game in a span of 15 days. Coming off two games on home ice, the Panthers will return to south Florida for a three-game homestand after Saturday's game against the Capitals.
The Drive For Five - Last season, the Washington Capitals manufactured five winning streaks of at least five games in length, with the longest being a nine-game run in December and the last one a five-game spree from Feb. 4-11.
With the Florida Panthers in town to provide the opposition on Saturday night at Verizon Center, the Caps aim for their first winning streak of five games in 2016-17.
Both teams come into tonight's game on the heels of 4-3 overtime victories on home ice on Thursday night. Washington frittered away a three-goal lead in the third period, but prevailed on Alex Ovechkin's 18th career overtime game-winner, a one-time blast from his left dot office on the Washington power play.
Florida bested the New Jersey Devils, getting the overtime game-winner from Vincent Trocheck.
Tonight's meeting between the Caps and Panthers is the second of three between the two sides this season, and the last one until Game 82. Washington will host the Cats in the season finale for both teams on April 9. The Panthers are the first Eastern Conference club the Caps are facing for the second time this season.
Sixteen days ago in Florida, the Caps downed the Panthers by a 4-2 count. Washington rolled out to a 2-0 lead - as it has done in seven of its last eight games - only to lose that lead and head into the third period with the score even at 2-2. Ovechkin supplied what would prove to be the game-winner, and Marcus Johansson chipped in with a key insurance tally in the game's penultimate minute, giving the Caps their third straight victory.
"They're a good team," says Caps center Jay Beagle of the Panthers. "They're real aggressive, and they come at you hard. They are a fast, shifty team. They love turnovers, they feed off that and they come at you hard. So we've just got to make sure that we limit our turnovers, get it behind their [defense] and when they do get the puck, make them come 200 feet because it takes away from a lot of their rush game. But they're a good team, they work hard and they will make you pay if you're turning the puck over in the neutral zone."
Four Lines, Four Games, Four Wins, Four Time Zones -In Vancouver a week ago tonight, the Caps unveiled their radically revamped forward lines in which each of the four units received a major overhaul after the team suffered the rare indignity of two consecutive regulation losses.
Starting with the game against the Canucks that night, the Capitals won four straight games in four different time zones in a span of six nights. All four lines have contributed to the scoring attack over that span as the Caps have netted 15 goals in the four games.
Tonight, the Caps will tweak those lines for the first time. Caps coach Barry Trotz has reinstalled veteran winger Daniel Winnik into the Washington lineup, and Brett Connolly will be a healthy scratch for tonight's game. Winnik will skate in Connolly's spot, on the fourth line with Beagle and rookie Zach Sanford.
This One Goes To Eleven - Tonight, in their 11th game of the young season, the Caps will roll out the same group of six defensemen they've used in each of the previous 10 games. That means Taylor Chorney is still the only Caps skater who has yet to get into a game this season.
Because of the effectiveness of Washington's usual top six of Dmitry Orlov with John Carlson, Karl Alzner with Matt Niskanen and Brooks Orpik with Nate Schmidt, it has been difficult to get Chorney into the lineup. Through 10 games this season, Washington has surrendered only 13 five-on-five goals, third fewest in the league. Chicago has permitted just nine five-on-five goals in 11 games and New Jersey has allowed 11 five-on-five goals in nine games.
Overall, the Caps have allowed an average of 2.10 goals per game, tied for second in the league and just a shade behind Montreal's league-leading figure of 2.09.
Along with New Jersey and San Jose, the Caps are one of only three teams in the league that have deployed just six defensemen thus far this season.
The Kid Line -Over the nearly 100-year history of the National Hockey League, there have been dozens of forward lines dubbed "The Kid Line." The original "Kid Line" was a trio of Toronto Maple Leafs from the 1930s, each member of which was ultimately enshrined in the Hockey Hall of Fame: Charlie Conacher, Harvey "Busher" Jackson and Joe Primeau. When the started out together, Primeau was 23 and the other two were both 18 years old.
Florida has its own "Kid Line" these days, a line with Jared McCann and Kyle Rau flanking teenaged Swiss center man Denis Malgin. Malgin is 19 and the 11 games in which he has skated this season is the sum total of his NHL experience. The 20-year-old McCann, obtained from Vancouver over the summer, is the most experienced of the three. The biggest of the three at 6-foot-1 and 198 pounds, McCann has skated in 80 NHL games. At 24, Rau is the oldest of the group. He has appeared in 15 career NHL games.
Both Malgin and Rau skated in the September rookie tournament in Coral Springs, Fla., a tournament that included the Capitals and the Panthers as well as the Nashville Predators and the Tamps Bay Lightning.
While McCann is still seeking his first point of the season and Rau is still seeking his first goal (he has one assist), Malgin has the hot hand. He has collected a point in three straight games and has scored a goal in each of Florida's last two contests.
All Lined Up - Here's how we expect the Capitals to look when they take to the ice against the Panthers tonight, and how we believe the Panthers might look as well:
WASHINGTON
Forwards
8-Ovechkin, 19-Backstrom, 14-Williams
90-Johansson, 92-Kuznetsov, 43-Wilson
65-Burakovsky, 20-Eller, 77-Oshie
82-Sanford, 83-Beagle, 26-Winnik
Defensemen
9-Orlov, 74-Carlson
27-Alzner, 2-Niskanen
44-Orpik, 88-Schmidt
Goaltenders
70-Holtby
31-Grubauer
Scratches
4-Chorney
10-Connolly
No Capitals Injuries
FLORIDA
Forwards
81-Marchessault, 16-Barkov, 68-Jagr
18-Smith, 21-Trocheck, 7-Sceviour
90-McCann, 62-Malgin, 92-Rau
41-McKegg, 17-MacKenzie, 38-Harper
Defensemen
19-Matheson, 5-Ekblad
3-Yandle, 55-Demers
13-Pysyk, 6-Petrovic
Goaltenders
1-Luongo
34-Reimer
Injured
11-Huberdeau (lower body)
27-Bjugstad (upper body)
36-Jokinen (lower body)
Scratches
7-Kampfer
22-Thornton
