Oct. 19 vs. Vancouver Canucks at Capital One Arena
Time: 12:30 p.m.
TV: MNMT
Radio: 106.7 THE FAN/Caps Radio Network
Vancouver Canucks (3-2-0)
Washington Capitals (4-1-0)
The Caps move into the backside of their four-game homestand on Sunday afternoon when the Vancouver Canucks come into town for the matinee match. Washington is seeking its fifth straight victory.
On Friday night against the visiting Minnesota Wild, the Capitals turned in their best 60-minute performance of the season to claim their fourth win in succession, 5-1. The Wild entered the game having scored 10 power-play goals in just four games on the season, and it netted multiple power-play goals in each of its previous three games.
As one would expect, Washington’s pre-scout for Friday’s game leaned heavily on shutting down Minnesota’s power play, which the Caps pulled off with aplomb; they took two penalties in the game and killed both while allowing two shots – and no high danger scoring chances, according to naturalstatstrick.com – on goaltender Logan Thompson in those four minutes.
More impressively though, the Caps thoroughly throttled the Wild at 5-on-5 as well. Washington controlled play and controlled the puck through all three periods, generating 75.56 percent of the game’s shots on goal at even strength (34-11), the second highest rate in any of the 76 NHL games played this season, through Friday night.
The Caps outshot the Wild 45-14 overall on Friday night, and their plus-31 shot disparity matches the third-best mark in franchise history. The all-time franchise standard is plus-34 (49-15 against Winnipeg, 11/7/79).
Dylan Strome sparked the attack with four points (two goals, two assists), but the game was a one-goal game or even until early in the third period when he won a draw to Alex Ovechkin, and the captain bagged his first goal of the season, the 898th of his 21-year NHL career.
But one of the major reasons for Washington’s dominance in Friday’s game was the performance of the Nic Dowd line, with Brandon Duhaime and Justin Sourdif on the wings.
In the immediate aftermath of Friday’s game, before any of us reporter types could even pose the question, Caps coach Spencer Carbery praised that trio for a job well done.
“Stromer’s line was good; it got the production,” says Carbery. “Dowder’s line unfortunately will not get the points, but they’ll certainly get the accolades from the head coach, because I thought they were as good as I’ve seen this year. They were really good – Dewey – some great shifts, could have had two or three goals. Sourdif and Dowder were excellent tonight.”
With P-L Dubois still out of the lineup with a lower body ailment and Connor McMichael in the box for four minutes of Friday’s game, Dowd’s 14:21 of even strength ice time led all Washington centers, and both Duhaime and Sourdif’s overall ice times on Friday were above their season average entering the game. The unit was frequently deployed because they were driving play, crashing the net and more importantly, forcing some of the Wild’s best players to play in their own end of the ice.
“I think [Friday] night was a really good example of how a line that comes out of a game with zero goals and zero assists can have a large impact on a game, and I love that for them,” Carbery further elaborated after the Caps’ Saturday morning practice session. “I know they want to score, and they want to have something to show for what they’re doing in the game, but what I talk to them about so much is their process as a line and how much of a positive impact it can have for our team. And I thought they did that to a ‘T’ [Friday] night, having positive shifts that created momentum for our team, having positive shifts that set up the next line after them, and creating a five-minute momentum swing that tilted the ice.
“And I’ll be honest with you; they haven’t been operating [at peak]. Early in the year it’s been a little bit off for their line. With Justin Sourdif coming onto the line, they’ve been trying to create some chemistry, and they’ve been off a little bit, and they’ve been working really hard and trying to get on the same page, trying to create some chemistry and continuity between the three of them. They met, they talked about it, they’re working at it every day, and then [Friday] night they get great results.
“I just have a lot of time for guys that care so much. They’re trying to make a difference. They go to work, they talk about it, they watch film together, and then they go out and play a game that is a big reason why we played so well as a team.”
Dowd (2:12) and Duhaime (2:09) also led all Washington skaters in shorthanded ice time in Friday’s game. With Dubois again expected to miss Sunday’s game with the Canucks, expect to see Dowd’s line getting an opportunity to build on Friday’s performance against another Western Conference opponent.
Vancouver is playing the middle match of a five-game road trip on Sunday in DC. The Canucks started their journey with a 5-3 victory over the Stars in Dallas on Thursday. A night later in Chicago, they finished up their first set of back-to-back games in 2025-26 with a 3-2 shootout win over the Hawks.
Kevin Lankinen made 31 stops for Vancouver to pick up his first win of the season, and Brock Boeser’s goal in the fourth round of the shootout tipped the extra standings point to the Canucks.
After departing the District, the Canucks will make stops in Pittsburgh and Nashville, respectively, before returning home to open a three-game homestand next weekend.
