Entering Monday’s game against the New York Islanders with a modest two-game winning streak, the Caps kept a good thing going with a 4-1 victory in the last of the four meetings between the two Metro Division rivals this season. The win pulls the Caps to within two points of the Isles for third place in the division, with New York holding a game in hand.
The Caps spotted the Islanders a 1-0 lead late in the opening period, then struck for four unanswered goals – two in the second and two in the third – to grab the two points.
Four different Caps found the back of the net in support of goaltender Clay Stevenson, who followed up his first NHL victory – a 4-3 overtime win over the Hurricanes on Saturday – with a second straight win in a 29-save performance.
Led by four from Trevor van Riemsdyk, a dozen different Capitals combined to block 23 shots in front of Stevenson.
Anthony Beauvillier’s second-period goal – against the team that drafted him in the first round of the 2015 NHL Draft – stood up as the game-winner.
“It was such a big game for us, I think especially against these guys being ahead of us in the standings,” says Beauvillier. “I thought it was great response from our group; it was not necessarily going well in the first few minutes, but we picked it up late in the first and then didn't look back since then.”
The Caps and the Islanders traded first-period power play opportunities. New York tested Stevenson with three shots, all of which he set aside. The Caps managed a single Alex Ovechkin one-timer from the left dot, and Isles goalie David Rittich handled it.
Late in the first, a rare Tom Wilson puck blunder led directly to the Isles jumping out to a 1-0 lead. From the corner of his own end of the ice, Wilson tried to make a feed to the front, but it went directly to the tape of New York’s Mat Barzal, who quickly ripped it home from between the hash marks, a gift of an opening goal at 16:38 of the first.
The Isles went on a second power play late in the first, managing two shots on a man advantage that carried over into the middle frame.
New York had the territorial edge early in the second, but the Caps were able to warm to the task and turn the tides before the first television timeout.
Nic Dowd carried up the left side wall and handed the puck off to proud new papa Martin Fehervary before going for a change. Fehervary then worked a give-and-go with Wilson, taking the return feed in the high slot and threading it through Rittich’s five-hole to square the score at 1-1 at 5:29 of the second period.
“It was really special,” says Fehervary of his goal. “I just got a daughter, so I would like to give it to her and obviously my girlfriend Natalia. She did an amazing job and I feel really amazing, to score one right after the game I missed because of my daughter.
“Some of the guys called it, even before [it happened]. They said there is something in ‘dads’ power.’”
On the very next shift, the Caps grabbed the lead.
After gaining the zone, Ovechkin tried to hit Beauvillier on a timing play that just failed to click at the back (right) post. Matt Roy pinched down the right wall and pushed the puck back below the goal line for Beauvillier. From there, the winger worked a creative reverse wrap; he made like he was going to try a wrap to the far (left) side before slamming on the brakes, reversing, and tucking it behind a stunned Rittich from below the goal line.
“I just felt like I had space on this side,” says Beauvillier. “I tried to put it on net, and it went in. It’s fun to see the puck go in from behind the goal line.”
Beauvillier’s goal came at the six-minute mark, lifting the Caps to a lead they would not relinquish, just 31 seconds after the Fehervary goal.
Just over a minute later, Stevenson made one of his most important stops of the night, thwarting an Emil Heineman shot from the left dot.
Early in the third, Isles defenseman Scott Mayfield got irked at Wilson’s clean hit on Simon Holmstrom, so Mayfield and Wilson dropped mitts, with the former incurring an additional minor for roughing.
Ten seconds shy of killing that penalty, New York’s Carson Soucy was boxed for hi-sticking Ryan Leonard, a penalty that gave the Caps a brief 5-on-3. Although the Caps didn’t score on the power play – and Stevenson needed to make a stop on Casey Cizikas’ shorthanded shot on a 2-on-1 rush – the penalties took some starch out of New York’s bid to mount a comeback.
A little over three minutes after the Isles finished killing the penalties, Dowd – playing in his 500th game as a Capital – picked up a huge insurance goal on a fortuitous bounce.
Ethen Frank carried into New York ice with speed, and he lugged the puck behind the New York net, curled out the left side and fed Rasmus Sandin at the left point. Sandin went to Dowd in the right circle, and the veteran center tried to set up Ovechkin just off the left post. Instead, the puck bounced off the skate of Isles defenseman Tony DeAngelo and went in for a 3-1 Washington lead at 8:46.
“With anything, and when you start talking about our group as a whole,” begins Dowd, “I think the bounces start coming the more you start to put yourself in good opportunities. You talk about bounces, and there’s some weird stuff that can happen. But I think if you continue to try to put yourself in the [offensive] zone in good spots, getting pucks to the net, you see weird things go in all the time.”
All that was left was for the Caps and Stevenson to lock it down, which was fully achieved when the master of dialing long distance outdid himself. From behind his own goal line with 2:25 remaining, John Carlson drilled a 181-foot shot to the middle of the New York net for his 10th goal of the season.
Carlson has reached double-digit goals for the ninth time in his 17-year NHL career, and he has finished with exactly nine goals in four other seasons.
“I would say probably two things,” says Caps coach Spencer Carbery of his team’s recent turnaround. “Our urgency level hasn't been higher this year. I think through this last stretch, guys understand the significance, and that essentially our season's on the line and our playoff lives are on the line. Because once you get down after the [Olympic] break and you're 10 points back – or whatever it might be – you’ve got to go on like an 18-2 two rip or whatever.
“So, I think the urgency level on point two, number one. The second thing, I think there's a pretty good understanding – and it's not always the case; tonight was a little bit off – of just how it needs to look, shift to shift, period to period, game to game.”
