Caps Rally to Overcome Wings, 4-2

Hosting the Detroit Red Wings in their penultimate preseason game, the Capitals shook off a sluggish start and a pair of one-goal deficits to earn a 4-2 win over the Wings on Wednesday night at Capital One Arena.

Darcy Kuemper was solid in the Washington net, making 31 saves and keeping the Caps in the game until his teammates could get rolling. Connor Brown snapped a 2-2 tie with a power-play goal at 17:33 of the third period, lifting the Caps to their first lead of the night.
From the inside of the right circle, Brown snapped a shot past Detroit goaltender Ville Husso, a goal that proved to be the game-winner.
"I figured it was going to come back around once it went up to [Alex Ovechkin], and reset it down there," recounts Brown of the game-winner. "So I was just trying to find a soft spot in there, and try to get open. And [Evgeny Kuznetsov] and [Dylan Strome] made nice plays to get it in to me."

Brown and linemates Ovechkin and Kuznetsov also warmed to the task as the game wore on, playing their best hockey in the third.
"I think we all got going after the first period," says Caps coach Peter Laviolette. "We were real slow and they were quick, and as the second period moved on we started to control it a little bit. In the third period, I really noticed that line. More [offensive] zone time, generating more chances, more looks, more opportunities."
The news wasn't all good for the Caps, however. With just over seven minutes remaining in the second, T.J. Oshie left the game with an upper body injury after taking a hit from Wings forward Joe Velleno along the half wall in Detroit ice. Oshie did not return, and will be re-evaluated in the morning, according to Laviolette.
Although they didn't get off to a strong start and turned in a rather mediocre first period, the Caps managed to get to the first intermission all even. Detroit came out with more jam and more jump, and the Wings grabbed a 1-0 lead before the midpoint of the first when the Caps put themselves in some penalty trouble.
Thirty-four seconds after Strome was boxed for a face-off violation, the Caps went down two men when John Carlson was sent off for holding. The Wings needed only 25 seconds worth of 5-on-3 time to hop out to a 1-0 lead, Tyler Bertuzzi converting a Michael Rasmussen feed at 8:09 of the first.
Detroit owned a lopsided 10-1 advantage in shots on net when the Caps went on a power play of their own at 11:57 of the first. Although Washington's extra-man unit moved the puck around crisply and efficiently, had plenty of zone time and pumped half a dozen shots on the Detroit net, Husso was equal to every challenge, protecting his team's slim lead.
In the final minute of the first, the Caps drew another call and pulled even on the delayed penalty. From up high on the left side, Ovechkin took a cross-ice feed from Lars Eller and put the puck toward the net front, where Connor McMichael deflected it past Husso, tying the game at 1-1 with 22.8 seconds left in the first.

"He made a really good play to me," says McMichael of Ovechkin. "I was saying to guys on the bench, 'It doesn't get much easier than that.' All I had to do was deflect it in, so he made a really good play."
The Caps managed only four shots on net at even strength in the game's first 20 minutes, and they were on the wrong end of a 14-7 disparity in first-period shot attempts.
Washington successfully killed an early penalty in the second, and the Caps once again fell behind when the combination of Rasmussen and Bertuzzi struck again, this time with the latter feeding the former for the finish off the rush at 7:42 of the second.
Some six minutes later, the Caps pulled even again on an offensive zone shift that bore fruit. Conor Sheary and McMichael combined to get the puck to Nick Jensen at the right point. Jensen shook off a Detroit forward to create space for himself high in the zone, then crept in and put a shot through traffic and past Husso, evening the game at 2-2 with 6:15 remaining in the second.
"Their forwards were obviously aggressive, and it was working most of the night, honestly," says Jensen. "It was taking a lot of our defense away. But anytime you can get that forward out of position and he kind of lunges for that shot lane, that's when I see an opportunity to go the other way. He bit on it, and it opened up a shot lane and an opportunity to get the puck to the net. There was a good screen in front, nothing special about the shot, the goalie just couldn't see it."
The Caps were at their best in the third, but even though they had more zone time and controlled the game territorially, there wasn't always space available to them in the Detroit end. The two teams went at one another with more physicality in the third, but the entire period was played at 5-on-5 until Aliaksei Protas drew a holding call on Rasmussen with 2:45 left, putting the Caps on the power play for the second time.
Eighteen seconds after Rasmussen was seated, Brown delivered the game-winner to the back of the net, converting a feed from Strome from below the goal line.
With Husso off for an extra attacker, the Caps expertly played keep away from the Wings for several seconds, before setting up Alex Ovechkin for an empty-netter from the blueline early in the final minute.
"That first period especially, and those first two periods, I didn't feel like we sustained enough offense and didn't play to our potential," says Brown. "I felt like we took over the game in the third period, so it was nice to come away with the win. I felt like we deserved it, coming down the stretch there."