Caps Roll Over Sens, 7-2

The Caps finished the February portion of their schedule with a flourish on Tuesday night, scoring seven unanswered goals in less than 24 minutes of playing time to cruise to a 7-2 win over the visiting Ottawa Senators. The victory is Washington's fourth in its last five games.

For the second straight season, Ottawa came into D.C. on the day after the trade deadline to face the Caps, but this time Washington is the reigning Stanley Cup champions and the Sens are a team decimated by a long weekend of trades that gutted their roster, taking away three of the team's top four scorers.

Tuesday's win gave the Caps a lot to feel good about offensively, as each of their top three lines contributed two goals to the cause at five-on-five. But it was also a game to feel good about because the Caps kept the Sens at bay after the middle of the first. Washington had allowed five goals in three of its last five games.
"Individually, it's nice to have an outburst like that," says Caps defenseman John Carlson. "I believe that when you score, you get a boost regardless of how you're playing going into it. We've got to keep getting better here, but certainly after a sluggish start we took care of business, and that's good to see."

It turned out to be a mismatch, but it didn't start that way. The Capitals were slow out of the gates against the Sens, falling down two goals before they were able to register their first shot on net On his first shift as a member of the Senators, a day after he was obtained in the Mark Stone trade with Vegas, Oscar Lindberg staked his new team to a 1-0 lead with a back-door tap-in at 3:16 of the first frame, with Brian Gibbons picking up the primary assist in his own first shift in a Sens sweater.
Less than four minutes later, Ottawa doubled its early lead to 2-0 with a power-play goal from Anthony Duclair, acquired from Columbus over the weekend. Duclair's first goal with the Sens came at 7:10 of the first, in his second game with the team. Three of Duclair's dozen goals this season have come at the Caps' expense, two of them on the power play.
When Andre Burakovsky registered Washington's first shot on net at 10:08, the Caps were down 2-0 on the scoreboard and 9-1 in shots on net. But the Caps got right in the back half of the first frame.
Excellent defense and awareness sparked the Caps' first tally. Michal Kempny fully extended himself at the Caps' line, lunging to knock the puck off Jean-Gabriel Pageau's stick. Carlson quickly transitioned the puck up ice, knowing the Caps had a numbers advantage as the Sens were in the midst of a change. From there, the top line went tic-tac-toe, with Tom Wilson on the doorstep and on the receiving end of Alex Ovechkin's setup.
Wilson's goal came at 16:57, and 53 seconds later the Caps had the equalizer. Andre Burakovsky fored a turnover along the wall near the Ottawa line, sending Brett Connolly into the Sens' zone. Connollly carried to the middle before feeding Dmitry Orlov just above the top of the left circle. Orlov put it right back to Lars Eller, who leaned into a shot from above the right hash marks to tie it up at 17:50.

"It's obviously a tough start," says Caps coach Todd Reirden. "About halfway through the period, we realized that we needed to play at a little bit different level and a little different compete than we started with. Our leadership group is strong, and I think they did a good job of pulling everyone into the fight."
The Caps turned on the jets in the second, scoring four times in less than eight minutes to take control of the contest. Carlson netted his 10th of the season with a center point blast on the power play at 2:38. T.J. Oshie scored on a deft backhander after collecting a rebound of a Brooks Orpik shot at 6:29. Connolly walked a tightrope to keep a puck in at the Ottawa line, carried to the net and scored on his own rebound at 9:05, his 16th goal of the season to notch a new single-season high. Oshie scored his second of the game and 20th of the season at 10:33, converting an Orlov feed for another tic-tac-toe goal off the rush.
In the first minute of the third, Evgeny Kuznetsov completed the night's scoring spree with a shot to the shelf, marking his fourth straight home game with at least one goal. He has scored eight goals in as many home games this month.
From there, the Caps put it on cruise control and banked a couple of points to improve to 6-1-1 in their last eight home games.
"There are more games that are decided in the NHL - I say that constantly - games are decided with turnovers, penalties, changes, and all three cost us," says Sens coach Guy Boucher. "Five goals on our turnovers, so five goals, one stick penalty, and one bad change. There you go; seven goals and that's the game. If you give those guys an inch, they'll take a foot. That's why they're the Stanley Cup champions; they are a formidable team. And we know where we are, and how far we have to travel to get to that level."