The Caps rode a three-goal second period to a 3-2 win over the Vegas Golden Knights on Friday night on Capital One Arena. P-L Dubois scored two goals, Jakob Chychrun netted the game-winner in his 600th career NHL game, and Logan Thompson won his third straight start overall and also defeated his former Vegas teammates for the third time in as many starts, making 24 saves.
Coming out of the Olympic break with a pair of home games and needing to make up some ground in their late season push for a playoff spot, the Caps picked up all four points and they extended their winning streak to three straight. Overall, Washington is now 7-2-1 in its last 10 games.
Two nights after defeating the Kings in Los Angeles with a five-goal third-period outburst, the Golden Knights threatened the Caps consistently in the final frame, closing to within a goal of Washington on goals from Braeden Bowman early in the third and a power-play marker from Tomas Hertl midway through the final frame.
Thompson locked the door tightly thereafter, making three critical stops while the Caps were on the power play late in the third, and with Vegas just a goal away from squaring the score.
“We didn’t make any adjustments going into the third period,” says Caps coach Spencer Carbery. “I believe they’re the best third period team in the National Hockey League, at a plus-34 differential.
“So, we knew they were not going to lay down in that game. We just reverted to some really poor decisions early in that period, and they get us back on our heels. We don't find exits out of our zone. Now, all of a sudden, they're getting a grade A and now everybody on the bench starts to get a little bit [tight], and [the Knights] get momentum. And now we are back on our heels.
“And then some of the special teams stuff that we do there on the power play, obviously, was not the way that we want to handle that scenario. But again, Logan bails us out and makes two huge saves, the [Brayden] McNabb breakaway and then [Mitch] Marner and it was Reilly Smith that was in with him, in a borderline 2-on-0 in that spot.
“So, huge, huge, huge saves there to preserve that win.”
For the second time in as many games on this brief homestand, the Caps and their opponent played to a scoreless first frame. And for the second time in as many games, Washington opened the scoring in the second period. On Friday against Vegas, they took that 1-0 lead in the first minute of the middle frame.
Rasmus Sandin entered the Vegas zone on the right side, and he fed Aliaksei Protas in the high slot. Protas then tapped a short feed to Dubois, who caught the pass and released a shot from high in the right circle, all in the same motion. The shot clipped Vegas goaltender Akira Schmid in the right shoulder and went in for a 1-0 Washington lead just 49 seconds into the frame.
On Dubois’ next shift, he netted his second of the night to double the Caps’ advantage. From behind the Vegas net on the forecheck, Protas issued a sublime behind-the-back feed to the front, and Dubois one-timed it home from the bottom of the left circle at 3:23.
Prior to the first television timeout of the second period, the Caps used their timeout to talk over an impending two-man advantage of 43 seconds in duration. Washington managed one shot on Schmid during those 43 ticks and was unable to add to its lead on the power play.
But in the back half of the middle frame, Washington put together a dominant offensive zone shift in which it changed out four of the five players who had started that sequence that had Vegas hemmed in its own zone.
As is so often the case of late, the Nic Dowd line – with wingers Brandon Duhaime and Ethen Frank tonight – put together a dominant offensive zone shift that featured a number of puck retrievals and had the Knights on their heels. As the Caps began to change out the Dowd line for the Dubois unit, Chychrun was the lone Cap who remained on the ice.
Dubois came into possession on the left side, put it to Sandin at center point, and then the latter put it on a tee for Chychrun, who leaned heard into a shot from the right circle that blazed Schmid on the short side at 14:52.
All five Vegas skaters had been on the ice for at least a minute and a half at that point, with four of them just under two minutes on the shift. Chychrun, whose own shift stretched to a minute and 47 seconds by the time he scored, established a new career high by recording his 48th point of the season with the game-winning marker.
In three games since his return to the lineup after undergoing abdominal surgery in early November, Dubois now has three goals and a pair of assists for five points.
“I think the second game – the one after the break [against Philadelphia] might have been the hardest one; the adrenaline is kind of down,” says Dubois. “But I felt good tonight. Tom [Wilson] and [Protas] really make my life a lot easier out there. I thought [Sandin] and Marty [Fehervary] played really well with me too.
“So, I felt great, but I had a lot of help around me.”
The Caps now head to Montreal where they’ll face the Canadiens on Saturday night to finish up a weekend set of back-to-backs. Washington will be aiming for its first winning streak of four or more games in nearly three months.
