For the second time in as many Septembers, the Caps rolled into Giant Center for an exhibition game with their Metro Division rival Philadelphia Flyers, and for the second time they rolled over the Flyers, this time by a 5-2 count on Monday night in Hershey. Last year’s final was 5-1 in favor of the Caps.
A night after starting their four-game preseason slate with a 3-2 shootout loss to the Bruins in Boston, the Caps turned in a much more complete game. Caps coach Spencer Carbery has been talking about Washington’s ability to lean on teams and wear them down over the course of a 60-minute game, and that’s what the Caps did Monday night.
“Honestly, yes,” replies Carbery when asked if Monday’s win was an example of what he’s been talking about. “And I liked our whole game tonight, and I give our guys a lot of credit.
“I was happy for the guys because we did a lot of really good things tonight as a team. And then you leave the rink going, ‘This guy looked good, this guy looked good, this guy had a great night, this guy had a great night,’ and that's ultimately in the preseason what you want to do. You want to see some of the things that structurally that we're trying to implement, how we want to play, what our identity is going to look like, and then individuals that have success inside of that. And I thought there was a bunch of examples.”
The Caps and Flyers hooked up in a high event first frame in Monday’s contest. Philadelphia earned the game’s first power play before the two-minute mark of the first, and former Bruin Jack Studnicka staked the Flyers to a 1-0 lead at 2:42, taking the puck to the cage from down low on the left side, and banking a shot off the far post and in.
Cole Knuble, son of ex-Caps and ex-Flyers winger Mike Knuble, picked up an assist on Studnicka’s opening salvo.
Just ahead of the midway mark of the opening frame, Washington’s Dylan McIlrath and Flyers forward Garrett Wilson engaged in a spirited scrap, and the Flyers’ Noah Powell was also boxed for unsportsmanlike conduct, putting the Caps on their second power play of the game.
Eight seconds later, Philly’s Simon Benoit put an airmail stamp on a puck and sailed it over the window, putting the Flyers down two dudes for a minute and 52 seconds. Aliaksei Protas tied the game with a 5-on-3 strike, getting the shaft of his stick on a Dylan Strome shot to square the score at 1-1 at 9:25.
In the final minute of the frame, Ryan Leonard – who had a couple excellent looks earlier – sent a laser past the glove of Flyers goalie Joseph Woll, lifting the Caps to a 2-1 lead with 41.3 seconds left.
Knuble tied it up for the Flyers at 8:06 of the second. He gathered the puck below the goal line in the Washington end and threaded it to the left point for Hunter McDonald, who pushed it to partner Oliver Bonk on the right side as Knuble went to the net. Bonk sent it back down low and Knuble bumped it home from just above the paint.
Midway through the second, Clay Stevenson came on in relief of Lindgren, as planned. And just before the 13-minute mark, Caps winger Andrew Cristall was assessed a five-minute major for crosschecking Wilson in the face after the latter laid a hit on Leonard along the wall in Philadelphia ice. Cristall was also given a game misconduct.
Faced with a five-minute, all-you-can-eat Philly power play, Stevenson and the Caps’ penalty killing outfit stiffened and got the job done. Stevenson made a couple big stops and the Caps supported him brilliantly with eight clears from six different penalty killers. In the waning seconds of the five-minute major, Theodor Niederbach got loose on a breakaway and forced Woll to make a big stop to keep the game even.
But the Caps gathered some momentum from the kill. Less than half a minute after the Philly power play was thwarted, Washington regained the lead. Ryan Chesley alertly sent the puck from his own blueline to Jordan Kyrou at the opposite line, and Kyrou sent a nifty indirect to Dylan Strome, giving him a short-ice two-on-none break. As Leonard had done a period earlier, Strome fired glove side and beat Woll there, making it 3-2 at 18:17.
As it turned out, that was pretty much the end of the night for the Flyers.
“We just stuck with it all game,” says Strome. “I felt like we controlled most of it. I'm not exactly sure on the shots, but I think that that penalty kill in the second was obviously huge to get to come away with five minutes there and have a great kill and then get some momentum off that.”
Carson Bjarnason relieved Woll at the start of the third, as planned by the Flyers. Less than two minutes into the third, the Caps extended their lead when Chesley sent the puck below the Philly goal line for Ethen Frank, who found and fed Jonny Brodzinski with time and space in the slot. The feed was good and the shot was better, and Brodzinski’s second one-timer tally in as many nights made it a 4-2 game at 1:57 of the third.
“Great pass,” exclaims Brodzinski. “Got it over that guy's stick, right on my tape; I just did the rest. I think it was good the whole night, just fighting to get pucks back when they had full possession in their zone, just being in the right spots to turn those over and get those second, third opportunities. I think we did a lot better job tonight than we did yesterday [in Boston].”
As a right-hander playing on his offside, Chesley turned in a strong game at both ends and finished the night with three assists.
Fifteen seconds ahead of the midpoint of the third, Brodzinski closed out the scoring with a shorthanded strike with help from Martin Fehervary and Niederbach, accounting for the 5-2 final. It was the third goal in two games to start the preseason for Brodzinski, who has certainly put his best foot forward in the last several days.
Philadelphia had as many shots (two) as Washington had goals in the third, and the Flyers didn’t muster a shot on goal at 5-on-5 in the final frame until fewer than five minutes remained.
“I told the guys in there I’m really happy for the way that we played,” says Carbery. “A lot of good things that we'll take from the film, and that we needed to accomplish in an exhibition game.
“But the other part of this is this building, organization and community means a lot to a lot of guys that played tonight, and I think anytime you come back, when you're driving in on the bus, flying in, walking into this building, I get goosebumps. I spent three years as a coach, but essentially five years with my family in this town, and seeing the familiar faces. And I know a lot of the guys in there feel the same way. They won championships here. They won Calder Cups. They called this place home and had so many memorable moments out on that ice sheet, so to come here again this year and play well and in front of the home fans – with the sprinkled Philly Flyer fans in there – I'm proud of the guys because it means a lot to a lot of people that that were here today.”
