Caps Finish Brief Homestand vs. Anaheim on Sunday

Dec. 2 vs. Anaheim Ducks at Capital One Arena
Time:3:00 p.m.
TV:NBCSW
Radio: Capitals Radio 24/7, FAN 106.7
Anaheim Ducks 13-10-5
Washington Capitals 15-7-3

On Sunday afternoon in D.C., the Caps will put their seven-game winning streak on the line as they close out a two-game homestand with a matinee match against the Anaheim Ducks. The Ducks are finishing off a five-game road trip, and they come into Sunday's game with a three-game winning streak of their own.
Washington ran its streak to seven straight wins with a 6-3 doubling up of the Devils on Friday night in the District. Nicklas Backstrom recorded the second hat trick of his NHL career, Braden Holtby was stellar in the Washington nets, stopping a slew of New Jersey breakaways in the second period, and Alex Ovechkin had a goal and three points to help seal the win.
The Caps won five of the first six games of the streak despite yielding the game's first goal, but they altered the script on Friday against New Jersey, scoring early in the first on Backstrom's first goal of the game. They added to and maintained that lead for the remainder of the evening, and never trailed at any point in the contest.
With Evgeny Kuznetsov back in the lineup following a six-game absence because of an upper body injury, the Caps' forward lines were fortified and each of their four lines was able to put together one or more strong offensive-zone shifts in the first period. But in the second period, an area where the Caps have been strong of late, they were guilty of giving up too many odd-man breaks. Holtby came through for them, running his career record to 16-3-3 against New Jersey.

"In the first period," says Caps coach Todd Reirden, "we're at our best when we are hunting, pursuing, forcing teams to execute plays under pressure with our speed, with our stick detail and with our ability to separate physically the man from the puck. The number of puck battles we won in the first period allowed us to get some very high quality chances. I think we made some poor reads and some poor decisions in the second, and [the Devils] were able to take advantage of it. It's something we will look at.
"To me, at that point Braden Holtby saved the game for us. He had a huge part in our success tonight; he was outstanding in particular in that period. But that's not how we want to play. Especially throughout this streak, we've done an excellent job of eliminating that. That was not the case today in the second period, and we were able to get away with it by some strong penalty and some timely goal scoring."
One more thing to add to Reirden's list is some clutch penalty killing. The Caps executed a couple of key kills early in the game, and winger Tom Wilson netted their first shorthanded goal of the season early in the second. But with Wilson out of the game because of a match penalty late in the second period, the Caps were faced with a five-minute, all-you-can-eat power play while clinging to a 2-1 lead.

The Caps' penalty killing outfit was much maligned early in the season, but it got the job done on Friday, snuffing out all five New Jersey power play chances to help usher Washington into the win column. In just over 11 minutes of power play time, the Caps limited the Devils to a mere four shots on net.
"It all starts with the pressure for us," says Caps defenseman Matt Niskanen of the team's penalty kill. "I think we just save ourselves a lot of in-zone time by disrupting the breakout or getting pressure up ice, or disrupting their entries. We force them to put the puck on the wall so we can pressure them again, and we're giving ourselves a good chance for success."
Whatever they're doing is working. The Caps' penalty killing outfit has now authored 19 straight kills while climbing to 19th on the league's shorthanded efficiency ledger.
The Ducks have done an excellent job of dealing with a raft of early season adversity, mostly in the form of a raft of injuries. Only four Ducks have played in all 28 of Anaheim's games this season, and the club has already employed 34 different players - 11 of them defensemen - in 2018-19.
"They've had a tough time with injuries," says Reirden of the Ducks, "especially to some of their bigger guys early on. They've done a good job; their goaltender has kept them in a lot of games early in the year, and he's one of the top young goalies in the league. That always gives you a good chance to have success as a group.
"But they're a team that has speed and size, and they're a difficult opponent for sure. We're going to have to be on our game, certainly, after watching some of their game [Friday] from Carolina. We're going to have to be on top of our game to have success [Sunday] afternoon."
Anaheim started its current road trip a week ago with a 5-2 loss to the Predators in Nashville. But the Ducks claimed wins on back-to-back nights at Tampa Bay and at Florida, respectively, earlier in the week. Most recently, they earned a 2-1 overtime victory over the Hurricanes in Raleigh on Friday night. John Gibson made 33 saves in Friday's win, and Ryan Getzlaf scored the game-winner in overtime.