The Caps rode a three-goal first period and another stellar netminding performance from Charlie Lindgren to a 4-1 victory over the Chicago Blackhawks at Capital One Arena on Saturday night. Saturday’s victory is Washington’s second in succession, giving the team a lift as it prepares to head out on its last lengthy road trip of the season on Sunday, a five-game tour of western Canada beginning on Monday night in Winnipeg.
Lindgren stopped 29 of 30 shots to win his second consecutive start, notching his career best 15th victory of the season. The lone Chicago goal of the game came on a Tyler Johnson deflection at 9:49 of the third, with Lindgren just over 10 minutes away from a second consecutive shutout. At the time of the Johnson goal, Lindgren had stopped 88 straight shots over 131 minutes and 48 seconds in the crease, dating back to last Sunday’s loss to Arizona.
Washington improved to 20-3-4 when scoring the game’s first goal, the fourth best record in the NHL in that situation. Their 16-2-0 mark when leading after 20 minutes is fifth best in the circuit.
Playing with a lead agrees with most teams, but the Caps in particular.
“I think so,” agrees Caps’ defenseman John Carlson, who assisted on each of Washington’s first two goals of Saturday’s game. “And I think as of late, we’ve been getting better with the lead, too. I think early on [in the season], we were getting away with it, but we were scratching our teeth just trying to make it out of there, and now we’re staying a little more aggressive.
“It wasn’t perfect tonight, but it was a different kind of lead tonight.”
Hendrix Lapierre started the scoring for the Caps, staying hot – scoring his fifth goal in the last six games – with an expert deflection of a Carlson right point drive at 7:01 to give the Caps an early lead.
“We work on it a lot, a lot of time before and after practice,” says Lapierre of the deflection from the slot. “In games, it’s harder because first of all, you have to be in the right spot at the right time; the shot has to be good. It’s a bunch of stuff. It’s not just like practice where you’re standing and tipping pucks.
“John had a really good shot – as he always does – a smart shot, and it was really easy for me to tip. I’m glad it went in, and it’s always fun to get those kind of goals.”
Less than two minutes after the Lapierre goal, Mike Sgarbossa scored on the rebound of a Trevor van Riemsdyk shot, lofting a backhander to the shelf from the top of the paint at 8:45.
After Sgarbossa drew a boarding call on Hawks’ defenseman Jarred Tinordi, the Caps increased their lead to 3-0 on the ensuing power play. Tom Wilson scored from the bumper at 13:36, converting a perfect feed from Dylan Strome, who was dishing from behind the Chicago cage.
Wilson’s goal marked the seventh straight game in which Washington’s rejuvenated power play has scored, matching the team’s longest streak in seven years.
“I thought tonight’s goal was a really, really big one – the third one – because they had some really good chances,” says Caps’ coach Spencer Carbery. “Chucky made as few big saves, it was 2-0, it’s kind of hanging there, and if it goes to 2-1, it’s ‘Here we go, game on.’ But that third goal gets it to 3-0, and that puts us in a really good spot.”
Washington actually lit the lamp four times in the first frame on Saturday, but the fourth of those goals – from Aliaksei Protas – was taken off the board after a prolonged coach’s challenge video review determined that Max Pacioretty was in the zone just ahead of the play.
The final 40 minutes were not Washington’s best, but Lindgren was still at the top of his game, gobbling up virtually everything, and leaving little in the way of loose change in front. And the Caps were able to add to their cushion late in the frame.
Caps’ defenseman Rasmus Sandin made an assertive play in the neutral zone to force a turnover, and Protas scooped up the puck and took off down the left side with Sonny Milano riding shotgun. Protas issued a perfect feed for the lefty-shooting winger, whose one-timer eluded Hawks’ goaltender Petr Mrazek on the short side to make it a 4-0 game at 17:24.
“I didn’t think we were really physically and mentally into that game early, and it showed,” says Hawks’ coach Luke Richardson. “And we got behind. I think at the end of the [first] period, we picked our game up and we created a power play opportunity. And that definitely had some life, and it gave us a little bit of life.
“And then just the one break in the second period; we can’t turn pucks over in the neutral zone like that. We needed a change. Even if it’s icing, we’ve got to get that puck through the neutral zone, and that fourth goal really hurt.”
Coupled with the Caps’ 6-0 victory on Thursday in Pittsburgh, Milano’s goal was Washington’s 10th unanswered tally, the first time the Caps have achieved that feat since striking for a dozen straight lamplighters over a span of three games from Dec. 6-11, 2018.
Milano’s goal marked his fifth straight game with a goal; he has 10 goals in 31 games after netting 11 goals in 64 games in his first season with the Capitals in 2022-23.
Lindgren made some strong early stops, one on Jason Dickinson near the midpoint of the first stands out; the Hawks’ center was all alone in front, and Lindgren casually blockered his shot away. But Lindgren’s best stop came late in the game on Connor Bedard, the Hawks’ teenaged phenom, who pumped 15 pucks at the Washington net on this night, getting four of them on Lindgren.
Chicago was on a power play when Bedard took a feed from Nick Foligno and issued a blast of a one-timer that sent Lindgren sprawling laterally to his right, thrusting out his glove; the shot seemed to catch both leather and iron, but the Washington netminder – the game’s first star – kept it out.
“He has stepped up big time,” says Carbery of Lindgren. “And to be put in the game in [Pittsburgh]; Darcy [Kuemper] is supposed to start that game, and [Lindgren] gets called in the morning of the game [and told he is going to start]. He posts a shutout there, we play fantastic. And then he does the same thing tonight, essentially.”
