Logan Thompson came home to Calgary, stopped 32 of the 33 shots he faced and led the Caps to another victory, 3-1 over the Flames at Scotiabank Saddledome on Tuesday night. For his efforts – and his 23rd victory of the season – Thompson was named the game’s No. 1 star.
Tuesday’s victory lifts Thompson’s record to 23-2-3 on the season.
“I felt good out there tonight, and it’s always fun to come home,” says Thompson. “Obviously, being in Washington, we only get to come once a year, so it’s always special when I get to come home and see my family and friends. I always have a lot of fun in this city.”
Thompson’s Tuesday night fun extended to his teammates. The Caps are now 10-1-3 in their last 14 games, and they improve to 14-2-0 in games immediately following losses this season.
“I thought that was a good hockey game,” says Caps coach Spencer Carbery. “We were being pushed for big portions of it, but right from the get-go there was good pace to the game, and they put us back on our heels. We were playing a little bit slow in the first period but get out of it 1-0.
“I thought it was a pretty competitive game throughout, and we got better as the game went on. [There were] some key moments that we took advantage of, whether it was a big penalty kill in the third period, or a power play. The 5-on-3 was arguably the difference in the game.”
The best thing the Caps were able to do in a rather unimpressive first period was to take an early lead on their first shot on net of the night. After MacKenzie Weegar’s exit bid ended up on Dubois’ tape in the slot, he promptly ripped a shot to the top right corner of the net for a 1-0 Washington lead at 1:51 of the first.
Playing in his hometown of Calgary a day after inking a six-year contract extension with the Capitals, Thompson was at the top of his game in the opening frame. Thompson denied Ryan Lomberg on a breakaway in the front half of the frame, and he thwarted Nazem Kadri on a partial breakaway just after the midpoint of the first.
Washington needed to kill off a Calgary power play – the Caps were guilty of too many men on the ice – in the final two minutes of the opening period in order to get to the intermission with its one-goal lead intact.
In the middle frame, the two sides traded power-play goals. First, the Flames pulled even when Blake Coleman tipped home a Tyson Barrie center point drive at 12:17 of the second, squaring the score at 1-1.
Minutes later, the Flames found themselves in some deep penalty trouble. First, Brayden Pachal was boxed for hooking Ethen Frank. A mere eight seconds into that penalty, the Caps found themselves with a 5-on-3 power play after Coleman unwisely closed his hand on the puck, and then drew attention to the misdeed by flinging the disc toward the blueline.
Nine seconds after Coleman was seated, Dylan Strome converted a John Carlson feed from high to low, the former tucking a backhander under the bar from the top of the paint, putting the Caps back on top at 15:12.
Washington was assertive on the 5-on-3, eschewing the typical formalities of passing the puck around the perimeter until getting a shot opportunity to their liking.
“Credit to our five guys,” says Carbery. “Because you could tell what [the Flames] were doing with their 5-on-3 [PK]; they were sitting on [Alex Ovechkin]. And you can do that 5-on-4, but if you do that 5-on-3, it opens up a passing seam which our guys recognized right away. We didn’t get it to [Ovechkin] right away – I can’t remember who the first guy was who was holding it, that was about to pass it through that seam, because it was wide open.
“They just waited another second, found it, Stromer was wide open on the backside. That’s an underrated great play by Stromer to not just rip that thing, to have a little bit of poise there, hold it, take it to his backhand, and great finish there.”
Nursing a 2-1 advantage in the third, the Caps ran into some penalty trouble. They successfully faced down and snuffed out three Calgary power plays in the final frame, and as the second of those power plays expired, Aliaksei Protas scored on a breakaway at 17:35 of the third, giving Thompson a bit of breathing room that he ultimately did not need.
Washington’s staunch defense has now yielded just 11 goals against in its last 10 games, and the Caps have also permitted just five goals against at 5-on-5 in their last eight games.
And finally, with Thursday’s 3-1 win over the Flames, Washington has strung together eight straight games with two or fewer goals against, doing so for just the sixth time in franchise history and the first time since Jan. 20-Feb 8, 2011.
“I think that just speaks to our group in the dressing room, our coaching staff and our systems,” says Thompson. “When we stick to our systems, we don’t give up a lot and we’re making teams earn what they get.”
