Caps Overpower Rangers, 5-1

Just over a year shy of its 25th birthday, the big barn on F St. has seen its share of sorrowful and joyful nights over its lifespan. Wednesday's Capitals season opener against the New York Rangers fell firmly into the latter category.

Playing in front of a packed building for the first time in over 19 months, the Caps put on a grand show and sent the home folks home happy after a satisfying 5-1 win over the Blueshirts. Not only that, they sent them home with the memory of three memorable milestone events.
Caps captain Alex Ovechkin scored a pair of goals to catch and pass Hockey Hall of Famer Marcel Dionne (731) for sole possession of fifth place on the League's all-time list. Nineteen-year-old rookie center Hendrix Lapierre made his NHL debut on Wednesday, marking the occasion by scoring the prettiest goal of the night in the second period, and doing so in front of his family, who made the trip in from Quebec.
And finally, the Caps' victory was the 674th of Washington coach Peter Laviolette's career, moving him one ahead of John Tortorella for the top spot among all American-born coaches in NHL history.
Washington got contributions from throughout its lineup, and its power play made the Rangers pay for its frequent transgressions, scoring an extra-man goal in each period. Nine skaters found the scoresheet - led by Ovechkin's four-point game - and Vitek Vanecek stopped 23 of 24 shots to earn the victory in his first career opening night start.

"The atmosphere is crazy," says Ovechkin. "I think we were all missing it the last couple of years. It's a totally different feeling when everybody is cheering for you. It doesn't matter what happens, you can still hear the crowd and it's going to give you anyway."
Washington was a little wobbly early, but Vanecek was not. He made a good stop on the game's first shift to deny Norris Trophy winner Adam Fox before the game was half a minute old, and the sophomore netminder was called upon to make four more saves during an early New York power play.
As that first New York power play was expiring, Caps winger Carl Hagelin made a play to Nic Dowd deep in New York ice, and Dowd was able to draw a slashing minor on Patrick Nemeth to give Washington its first power play of the season.
The Caps took a 1-0 lead on the ensuing man advantage when Ovechkin's shot from the left half-wall got hung up in Alexandar Georgiev's pads and T.J. Oshie banged the loose puck home from a few feet away at 4:39 of the first.
Shortly after the Oshie goal, Vanecek preserved the advantage with a snazzy glove save on a Kaapo Kakko shot from the slot, perhaps the goalie's best stop of the frame.
"They had a couple of chances in the first period," says Vanecek. "I tried to keep the game in play. But the guys helped me a lot in the second and third period."
New York's lack of discipline carried into the second period, and the Caps again took advantage. With Alexis Lafreniere in the box for hauling down Garnet Hathaway, Washington doubled its lead on Justin Schultz's center point drive at 12:38, the Caps' second power-play goal of the night.
While the arena was still buzzing from that goal and before it had been announced over the public address system, the Caps cobbled together the prettiest goal of the evening.
From deep in his own zone, Conor Sheary lofted a long pass up the left side of the rink, similar to a "go deep, I'll look for ya" type of schoolyard football play. Oshie received it and settled it just ahead of the New York line, gained the zone and then made a beautiful backhand feed through his legs to the trailing Lapierre, who scored on a wrist shot from the left circle before careening into the back wall. Oshie leaned over to pick him up and hug him, celebrating the rookie's first goal on the occasion of his first NHL game.

"I knew it was his first one, and I was super excited," says Oshie. "I just thought the celebration would have been better with him on his feet."
"Playing with Osh is really easy; he sees the ice really well," says Lapierre. "I knew when I called for the puck he was going to pass it to me, and I got lucky. I just put the puck at the net.
"It was just so fun. The crowd was incredible. For I first game, I don't think I could have asked for a better one. And we got a great win, too, so it was really good."
Lapierre's goal came just 24 seconds after the Schultz strike, and the Capitals took that 3-0 advantage into the third.
Seventeen seconds after Sammy Blais took a seat for cross-checking Schultz, Ovechkin tied Dionne with Washington's third power-play goal of the night. John Carlson's point drive caught Anthony Mantha in the chest and fell to the ice. The opportunistic Ovechkin pounced on the puck and put it to the shelf to make it 4-0 at 2:37 of the third.
New York's Chris Kreider spoiled Vanecek's shutout bid with a nice deflection on a Rangers power play at 9:13, and Ovechkin put Dionne in his rear view less than three minutes later.
Just as the two teams finished a sequence of 4-on-4 hockey and the Rangers went on a power play of eight seconds in duration, Ovechkin jumped onto the ice. Evgeny Kuznetsov spotted him and put the puck deep and off the back wall in New York territory. Ovechkin outraced K'Andre Miller to the puck, cut to the net and beat Georgiev to make it a 5-1 game.

The goal was Ovechkin's first shorthanded goal since Jan. 3, 2009, when he scored a game-winning shorty against the Rangers in here in D.C., in a 2-1 Caps victory. David Steckel claimed the solo assist on that goal more than a dozen years ago.
Four of Washington's five goals in the game came on special teams, and the Caps' power play had a 3-for-6 night in the opener.
"At the beginning of the year, there's always things that you're working through," says Laviolette. "But at the end of the day, [the power play] scored goals for us and made a difference in the game. There was a lot of opportunity out there tonight, and I thought we did a good job of bring pucks to the net and scored some big goals, so it was a factor."
Ovechkin's four-point outburst spoiled the Rangers coaching debut of Gerard Gallant.
"Two different games," assesses Gallant. "I thought the first 30 or 33 minutes were real good, even though we were behind 2-0. A couple of power play goals that they scored that they got the bounces off both of them. It hit off [Mika] Zibanejad's stick - the second one - and the first one was sort of [Jacob] Trouba tried to clear it to the corner, and just put it behind his goalie. But I thought we played a hell of a first 33 minutes, and after that we weren't too good."