Caps Take Down Canes, 3-1

Lengthy breaks from the rigors of the regular season schedule haven't always treated the Caps well over the last few years, but they moved past the NHL's holiday break and got back into action on Thursday night against Carolina at Capital One Arena, picking up right where they left off before the break.

Facing the Hurricanes for the second time in less than two weeks, the Caps skated off with a 3-1 win, their third in a row and their 15th victory in their last 18 games. Braden Holtby stopped 28 of 29 shots to earn his 15th win of the season and his fifth win in his last six starts.
"There were parts of the game where you just need to kind of survive and get through, and get a couple of skates under our belt again and go from there," says Caps defenseman John Carlson.
When the Caps defeated the Hurricanes 6-5 in the shootout in Raleigh on Dec. 14, they did so against all odds. Not only did they rally from a 4-1 second-period deficit, but the Capitals also won that game despite losing the special teams battle decisively. The Caps yielded a shorthanded goal and three power-play goals against the Canes that night, winning for just the second time in franchise history - and the first time in more than 32 years - under those circumstances.
Nearly two weeks later, the Caps used an entirely different formula to top the Canes. Washington killed three first-period penalties with aplomb and killed another with the game on the line late in the third, and it also scored what would prove to be the game-winning goal on the power play late in the second period. The Caps won the special teams battle on Thursday, but they also maintained their stellar five-on-five play of late, particularly in their own end of the ice.
"We've been improving that aspect," says Holtby of the Caps' penalty kill, "and [after] last time we played them, we all wanted to step up. It was not one of our better performances, and I think we took that to heart and went out there with a really good plan and executed.
"I didn't think we gave them much for free; they had to work for everything, and that's a good PK."
The first period was scoreless and a little sluggish on both sides, but Washington managed to outshoot Carolina - the league's leading team in shots per game - by a 16-8 count despite those three first-period penalty-killing assignments. Holtby denied the best chance either side had in the first when he denied Micheal Ferland on a breakaway try just ahead of the first television timeout of the period.
Washington used a one-two punch from its bottom six to nudge its way into the lead early in the second. Lars Eller's line - with Brett Connolly and Andre Burakovsky - put together a strong offensive zone shift, gradually changing in favor of Travis Boyd's line as the shift wore on, while a group of weary Hurricanes remained on the ice.
Carolina's Calvin de Haan took a soft pass from teammate Janne Kuokkanen in front of his own net, and first Boyd and then Devante Smith-Pelly dive-bombed de Haan, forcing him to cough up the puck in a bad spot. Chandler Stephenson swooped in on the loose puck and fired it high over the glove hand of Canes goaltender Petr Mrazek for a 1-0 Caps lead at 3:33.
Stephenson's goal went into the books as an unassisted tally, but the previous shift laid the groundwork for the goal, and the goal doesn't happen without Boyd and Smith-Pelly putting some heat on a weary de Haan, who had been on the ice for close to two minutes when the red light came on.
"Conno, Burky and Lars wore them down for us," says Stephenson, "and then Boyder and Devo were grinding them down, too. So the puck just popped into a spot, and I was kind of in the right place at the right time. They obviously should have two assists - Boyder and Devo - for that one."
Carolina began tilting the ice a bit midway through the second, and Holtby made another good stop on Ferland just after the midpoint of the second. At the other end, the Caps got some good chances on Mrazek too, and he seemed to have trouble securing some of them, but the Caps weren't in position to take advantage of any rebound opportunities.
The Hurricanes feature the league's fourth-best road penalty-killing outfit, and the Caps had nothing doing for their first three chances with the man advantage. But when Brett Pesce was boxed for hooking late in the second, the Caps cashed in and doubled their lead.
From the slot, T.J. Oshie laid his stick blade on a John Carlson center point drive, redirecting the puck past Mrazek to make it a 2-0 game at 18:16 of the middle period.
There was a scary moment in the back half of the third when Caps defenseman Matt Niskanen went into the corner glass face first after taking a hit from Carolina's Clark Bishop, a play that went unpenalized. Niskanen struggled to get to his feet and eventually was able to leave under his own power, but he did not return. No further word was available as to his condition after the game.
Instead of being shorthanded for the next two minutes, Carolina cut the Caps lead in half less than a minute after the Niskanen incident. Once again, Holtby stopped Ferland on a breakaway, but a trailing Sebastian Aho pounced on the rebound and buried it, cutting the lead to 2-1 with 7:35 left. Aho's goal ended a shutout streak of 124 minutes and 24 seconds from Washington netminders.
Washington went shorthanded for a fourth time when Michal Kempny was sent off for hi-sticking with 3:48 left. Carolina pulled Mrazek for the last half-minute or so of that power play to get a six-on-four skater advantage, but it wasn't enough.
Seconds after an offside call on Carolina with less than a minute remaining, Nicklas Backstrom won the draw at the Washington line, and Carlson drilled a long-distance shot into the empty Carolina net to seal the win.
"We got one and got back into the game," says Canes coach Rod Brind'Amour, "and then nothing on the power play at the end. That's definitely been the Achilles' heel all year. It's been like that for a long time her, unfortunately. We don't have the killer instinct that we need out there on the power play, that's what was evident tonight."
The Caps, on the other hand, did exhibit a killer instinct on the penalty kill.