Caps Take to the Road in Brooklyn
Washington heads out on a two-game Metropolitan Division road trip this week, starting on Tuesday night in Brooklyn against the Islanders.
© Mike Stobe
By
Mike Vogel
WashingtonCaps.com
After a string of four straight one-game road trips, Washington hits the road for the duration of the work week. The first stop on the Capitals' two-game journey is Brooklyn, where they'll face the Islanders on Tuesday.
This is the first of three trips the Caps will make to Brooklyn this season, and the first of two this month. When Las Vegas joins the NHL as the league's 31st team next season, Eastern Conference teams will no longer face two divisional rivals five times (and the rest, four times) as has been the case since the 2013-14 season.
Washington carries a four-game winning streak with it on the road this week, and on Tuesday against the Islanders, the Caps will be looking to match their longest winning run of the season, a five-game spree that ran from Oct. 29-Nov. 5.
The Caps are coming into Tuesday's game on the heels of an impressive home ice performance on Sunday when they blanked the Canucks by a 3-0 count, limiting Vancouver to just 20 shots on net in the process.
The Canucks had five power plays in the game, including three in a row while the Caps were nursing a 1-0 lead during the second period. But Washington not only navigated its way through that stretch without getting scored upon, the Caps didn't even permit the Canucks as much as a shot on goal until the final minute of Vancouver's fifth power play of the night. That shot, a 46-footer from Canucks winger Loui Eriksson, was easy for Caps goaltender Braden Holtby to set aside.
"We were really strong tonight," says Holtby, "using each other on the ice to clear pucks and making it very tough on them to enter the zone. That's the sign of a penalty kill that's working together and on the same page, and it was phenomenal tonight."
It turned out to be the only shot on net the Canucks were able to muster during their 10 minutes of power play time in the game. Of Vancouver's total of 20 shots on goal in the game, just three came from inside of 20 feet. Nine of the Canucks' shots on net were generated from defensemen.
The Capitals also took advantage of what the schedule gave them. Vancouver was playing its second game in as many nights, and its fourth in six nights. The Canucks had to travel to D.C. from South Florida after playing the Panthers the night before, and then they had to face the Caps with a 5 p.m. start time, the tightest window between start times (22 hours) that the collective bargaining agreement allows.
Washington continually frustrated the Canucks, preventing them from getting through neutral ice with speed, and frequently forcing turnovers and heading into the Vancouver end in transition.
"That's what you have to do to be successful against teams that are a little tired," says Holtby. "NHL players are going to make sacrifices, but they're not going to want to play a game where they're dumping it in and grinding it out every single play. When you're tired, you're looking for a little more of a rush flow, and we shut that down. That showed in the very limited amount of scoring chances we gave up."
The Caps now have eight games remaining in the calendar 2016 portion of their 2016-17 schedule. Six of those games - including both on this week's trip - are against Metropolitan Division opponents.
Washington is playing at a 112-point clip right now, but the Caps still find themselves in fifth place in the extremely tight and competitive Metropolitan Division standings.
"I think we seem to be trending in the right direction," says Caps right wing Justin Williams. "We've won four in a row, but we've played better in every game we've won so far. I'm happy with that, I'm happy we were able to shut down the game tonight as we did. And now we'll go on the road."
The first stop is Brooklyn, where the Caps will face the Islanders for the third time in the young season. Throw in a couple of preseason games against the Isles, and these two Metro foes have seen quite a bit of each other since the start of October.
Behind two goals from Daniel Winnik, Washington won its home opener over the Islanders on Oct. 15. But the Islanders came into Verizon Center on short rest and blanked the Capitals 3-0 on Dec. 1, handing them a second straight regulation loss.
New York netminder Jaroslav Halak made 38 saves to become the first ex-Caps goalie to spin a shutout against Washington in more than 15 years. The victory was New York's third in a row, and it marked the first time all season the Isles had been able to string together as many as three straight wins.
The win in Washington to start the month of December is one of just two victories the Islanders have earned in 10 road games thus far this season. The Isles are 9-4-4 on home ice, and even though they are 6-3-1 in their last 10 games, the Islanders are still occupying the basement of the Metro standings with 27 points.
New York has collected at least a point in six of its last seven games (5-1-1), but because the teams above it in the Metro have been on fire, the Islanders have been unable to make up much ground. They are a point behind seventh-place Carolina and three points south of sixth-place New Jersey.
Most recently the Islanders took a 6-2 humbling at the hands of the Blue Jackets in Columbus on Saturday night. That game was all even at 2-2 heading into the third period, but the Islanders -- and Halak - surrendered four goals in a span of 12 minutes and 4 seconds in the third period. Halak was eventually pulled, giving third goaltender J-F Berube his first action of the season. Berube stopped the only shot he faced in just under six minutes of work.
