Caps Reach End of Road Trip in Winnipeg
Assured of no worse than a split on their four-game western Canada trip, Caps aiming for second three-game winning streak of young '16-17 season.
© Jonathan Kozub
By
Mike Vogel
WashingtonCaps.com
On Tuesday night in Winnipeg, the Capitals conclude their four-game road swing through western Canada and they also open the November portion of their 2016-17 schedule, facing the Jets in the first of 14 games they'll play this month. Finally, Tuesday's tilt between the Caps and the Jets is the front end of a home-and-home set between the two clubs. The Caps and Jets meet again on Thursday at Verizon Center when they conclude their 2016-17 season's series in the opener of Washington's three-game homestand.
Washington's trip began last Wednesday in Edmonton with a 4-1 loss to the Oilers, a defeat that saddled the Caps with a two-game, regulation losing streak for the first time in a span of 99 regular season games.
After a couple nights away from the rink in Vancouver, the Caps got back into action in set of back-to-back games on the weekend. The Caps swept those two games to ensure a break-even trip at worst, and they'll be looking for their third win on the journey on Tuesday in Winnipeg.
"We weren't really happy with the way we played in Edmonton," says Caps goaltender Braden Holtby, "but we also took it realistically that the score was not exactly [reflective of] what was on the ice. It was just the way the game went. We had a couple of good days in Vancouver to get our team mold founded.
"We played a really good game in Vancouver and then a really good back-to-back road game [Sunday night]."
In Sunday's 3-1 win over the Flames, the Caps held Calgary to a single shot on net over the final 11-plus minutes of what was a one-goal game for virtually that entire span. The Flames' lone shot on net over that time was a point shot from T.J. Brodie with 43 seconds remaining. Eighteen seconds later, Marcus Johansson scored his second goal of the night into a vacant Calgary cage to give the Caps their second win in as many nights.
"We tried to keep them on the perimeter," says Caps center Jay Beagle. "We knew they were going to come hard obviously, in a 2-1 game at home. They were going to come after us, and it was just a matter of sticking to our systems, playing our game and making sure we get the job done in front of Holts."
Beagle, playing in front of his hometown crowd in Calgary, helped get the Caps started when he set up linemate Brett Connolly for the game's first goal - and Connolly's first as a Capital - at 2:01 of the first period. Zach Sanford, the third member of that line with Beagle and Connolly, collected his first career point in the NHL on that goal.
"It's good," says Connolly. "Whenever you get on the board early on your shift, you're confident.
"I thought our line was very good tonight. I think it was arguably Sandy's best game of the year. He was strong on the forecheck and making good, smart plays and against heavy [defensemen] on that team, too. He was very good. Beags, he was working and it was a pretty good combination for pretty much the whole night. It was good to play."
Getting a goal from your fourth line is always going to give a team a boost, but when that goal comes on the line's first shift of the game and on the second night of back-to-backs, it might even be worth a little more.
"It's huge," says Beagle, who had a pair of assists in the game. "Obviously on a back-to-back the start is huge. You don't want to go down [on the scoreboard], because it's harder to fight out of that hole if you go down a goal. The first goal is crucial, and Cons buries that and we get rolling from there."
"It gives you a lot of confidence," says Caps coach Barry Trotz. "A lot of times that [fourth] line is sort of the grind line. They are very appreciated by everybody, and when they score it gives your bench a boost. No question."
The Caps were 22-7-1 in back-to-back games last season, and they were 9-5-1 on the second night of those sets. As they did last season, the Capitals have swept their first set of back-to-back games of the season while on the road in western Canada.
Winnipeg is finishing off a quick two-game homestand on Tuesday. The Jets suffered a 3-1 home ice loss at the hands of the Buffalo Sabres on Sunday afternoon. The Jets have scored just two goals in their last two games, but the first of those contests was a 1-0 victory over the Colorado Avalanche in Denver on Friday.
The Jets have played six of their first nine games at home, going 3-3 in those six contests. It's been feast or famine for the Jets at home thus far this season; they've scored four or more goals in three of their games at MTS Centre and one or none in each of the other three.
Left wing Patrik Laine was Winnipeg's first-round (second overall) draft choice in the 2016 NHL draft. Nine games into his NHL career, he is one of eight players tied for the league lead with six goals. Laine leads the Jets in goals and is tied for the team scoring lead with linemate Mark Scheifele.
Laine, Scheifele and linemate Blake Wheeler have combined to score 13 of Winnipeg's 22 goals this season while all the other forwards on the team have contributed just seven.
Defenseman Tyler Myers, who has both of the goals from the Winnipeg blueline thus far this season, missed Sunday's game against Buffalo because of a lower body injury sustained in Friday's game against the Avalanche. Myers joins fellow veterans Drew Stafford (upper body) and Bryan Little (lower body) among the team's wounded. Little is on injured reserve while Stafford and Myers are both day-to-day.
Miniseries - Since the dissolution of the late, not-so-great Southeast Division, Washington and Winnipeg play each other twice a season, once in each city's building. In 2016-17, the Caps and the Jets are getting their season's series out of the way early.
On Tuesday night in Winnipeg, the Caps will finish off a four-game western Canada road trip with their yearly visit to Manitoba's capital city. Two nights later, the two teams will tangle again, finishing off their season's series in Washington to start a three-game Caps homestand at Verizon Center.
"I think it's happened to us a few times with Winnipeg for some reason," says Caps goaltender Braden Holtby of the consecutive games against the Jets. "It happened to us a couple of times last year, too. It's just the scheduling, and you deal with what it is and focus on one game at a time."
A week ago today, the Caps landed in Edmonton. They began their current road trip there the following evening with a 4-1 loss to the Oilers. Wins in Vancouver and Calgary followed, and the outcome of tonight's game determines whether the Caps have a successful 3-1 journey or a mediocre 2-2 trip.
"Especially when you don't win the first one," says Caps defenseman John Carlson of the team's current road trip, "I think we've responded really well. I think on a road trip when you win the first one, things always seem to go better. Everyone starts to feel good and we bond, because we're around each other so much.
"But to battle back against two of those teams and get those wins coming in here tonight, a 3-1 trip is a win in our mind and a 2-2 trip is not good enough for us and how we think of ourselves."
Moving On Up- It's easy to forget sometimes that Caps right wing Tom Wilson is still just 22 years old. Now in his fourth full season in the league, Wilson has shown incremental improvement every season he has been in the league, but he still started out this season on the fourth line.
But after a couple of rare consecutive losses, Caps coach Barry Trotz re-jiggered his forward lines, elevating Wilson to the team's top nine on the right side of a unit with Marcus Johansson and Evgeny Kuznetsov.
Wilson has skated more than 16 minutes in each of Washington's last two games, since Trotz made those changes. The young winger admits his mindset is altered a bit now, playing alongside more skilled players.
"I think a little bit, it has to," says Wilson. "You've got to hold onto the puck a little bit more, because you're expected to make things happen when you're playing with those guys. The fourth line game is a little bit different. It's low reward, but you've got to make sure you get the puck in, and you've got to grind teams down.
"The mentality changes a little bit. I want to bring my element of my game to that line. I don't want to forget where I came from. I want to create space for them, work hard, be hard on pucks, and hopefully I make that line a little bit harder to play against and then they bring that skill element and hopefully it fits pretty well."
Wilson scored his first goal of the season against the Canucks in Saturday's game, and he skated 64 more seconds than Caps captain Alex Ovechkin in Sunday's win over Calgary.
Wilson has now played more than 16 minutes in consecutive games for first time since Nov. 20-26, 2014 when he did so in three straight games while skating on the right side of a line with Alex Ovechkin and Nicklas Backstrom.
"Tom has kept his identity," says Trotz. "He is still hard to play against and is still a physical presence, but he is playing real good minutes. That line has got really good balance. You've got a real skilled center man in Kuznetsov, and Jojo is skating really well and shooting the puck. It probably forces Jojo to shoot the puck a little bit more than he normally does. Tom is retrieving pucks, heading to the hard areas and playing well on both sides of the puck. I think that line has some really good balance."
Now in his fourth NHL season, Wilson has gone through the first eight games of the 2016-17 season without taking a minor penalty, the longest such streak of his career. During his rookie NHL campaign of 2013-14, Wilson twice went seven straight games without incurring a minor penalty.
Shots Down - Coming into tonight's game with the Jets, the Capitals lead the NHL in fewest shots on goal allowed per game (25.0), they're tied for second in fewest goals against per game (2.00) and they're coming in after having allowed just one shot on net in the final 11-plus minutes of Sunday's game against the Flames in Calgary, a contest that was a one-goal game for virtually that entire stretch.
"I think the third one is probably the best," says Carlson of those feats. "When we're up on teams, we don't want to give them a sniff, not to let them gain any momentum through that time. But I think it says a lot abut the way we play as a team and our defense keeping everybody to the outside."
The Caps have gone eight straight games now without allowing more than 30 shots on net to start the season. Early last season, the Capitals put together a run of 15 straight games in which they did not allow more than 30 shots on net, the longest streak the team has managed since 1984-85 when it established the franchise record with 20 straight games with 30 or fewer shots on goal against.
"Obviously it shows the quality of our defense," says Holtby. "Just our systems, we all know it like the backs of our hands, what we're doing out there. But the six guys we put out there every night are pretty impressive. You look at [Taylor] Chorney, and how well and how much he played last year and he hasn't even played yet this year. That just shows how deep we are.
"Up front, we've added some guys. But Lars [Eller], [Zach Sanford] and [Brett Connolly] are all two-way guys. They all understand the defensive zone, they all understand tracking back, and that usually shows. We don't give up the zone too easily. It shows that it's working."
Tough Town -Scoring in Winnipeg has been problematic for the Capitals in their last two visits to Manitoba. The Caps dropped a 2-1 overtime decision here last season and were blanked 3-0 in their lone visit to MTS Centre during the 2014-15 season.
Green Blueline - Winnipeg will be playing without three of its top six defensemen from last season on Tuesday night against the Capitals. Jacob Trouba is still embroiled in a contract dispute and has asked to be traded, while veterans Tyler Myers and Brad Stuart are both nursing lower body ailments.
Winnipeg has recalled blueliner Julian Melchiori from the AHL, and he's likely to suit up for the first time this season for the Jets tonight.
Stalwart blueliners Dustin Byfuglien and Toby Enstrom are still the leaders of the Jets' blueline, but the other four defensemen slated to dress tonight have combined for a total of 273 career NHL games among them. Paul Postma leads that group with 132 career games in the league, followed by Ben Chiarot at 119, Melchiori with 12 and Josh Morrissey with 10.
All Lined Up -Here's how we expect the Capitals to look when they take to the ice on Tuesday night in Winnipeg, in the finale of their four-game trip through western Canada. Followed by that is a look at how we believe the Jets will look for Tuesday's game:
WASHINGTON
Forwards
8-Ovechkin, 19-Backstrom, 14-Williams
90-Johansson, 92-Kuznetsov, 43-Wilson
65-Burakovsky, 20-Eller, 77-Oshie
82-Sanford, 83-Beagle, 10-Connolly
Defensemen
9-Orlov, 74-Carlson
27-Alzner, 2-Niskanen
44-Orpik, 88-Schmidt
Goaltenders
70-Holtby
31-Grubauer
Scratches
4-Chorney
26-Winnik
WINNIPEG
Forwards
27-Ehlers, 55-Scheifele, 26-Wheeler
81-Connor, 85-Perreault, 29-Laine
16-Matthias, 17-Lowry, 40-Armia
13-Tanev, 91-Burmistrov, 22-Thorburn
Defensemen
44-Morrissey, 33-Byfuglien
39-Enstrom, 4-Postma
71-Melchiori, 7-Chiarot
Goaltenders
37-Hellebuyck
34-Hutchinson
Injured
5-Stuart (lower body)
12-Stafford (upper body)
18-Little (lower body
57-Myers (lower body)
Scratches
56-Dano
