Copley and Caps Cool Oilers, 4-2

Coming off two straight rather ugly losses, Caps coach Todd Reirden made changes to all four of his forward lines and opted to go with Pheonix Copley in net for Monday's home game against the Edmonton Oilers. With all the precincts reporting on Election Day eve in the District, both the early and late returns were strong, and the Capitals ended up on the right side of a 4-2 score.

"We went with some different looks and gave Copley another chance in the net for a home game," says Reirden, "and a lot of the adjustments seemed to work out for us tonight. So it was a positive game in a lot of respects tonight."
Washington's newly cobbled fourth line consisted of Travis Boyd between Jakub Vrana and Devante Smith-Pelly. Boyd was making his season's debut after missing the first month of the season with a lower body injury, and Vrana was playing in the bottom six for the first time this season after a rugged game on Saturday against Dallas.
The trio clicked immediately to give Copley some breathing room against the dangerous Oilers, winners of five of six coming in.

On his first shift of the night, Boyd took the puck to the cooker and tried to jam it home, careening into the backboards just after his stuff attempt. Smith-Pelly retrieved it and put a pass to the slot for Vrana, who drilled a one-timer to the top right corner of the cage, over the glove hand of Oilers netminder Cam Talbot at 2:44 of the first.
Exactly three minutes later, the same unit doubled the Washington lead, scoring on their second shift of the game as well. Edmonton's Jujhar Khaira turned the puck over in his own end, and Boyd came into possession of it in the high slot. With his back to the net, he fed Smith-Pelly whose wrister went to the same spot where Vrana's shot nestled earlier.
"We had a couple of good shifts and were able to capitalize right away," says Boyd, who authored his first multi-point game in the NHL on Monday. "I told you guys this morning that I was hoping to make some plays out there and I think we did a pretty good of that all night. Overall, it was a good first night back for me and a great night for the team to get back in the win column, too."
The Caps hit a spot of penalty trouble soon after, killing the first one but seeing their lead halved on the second one when Connor McDavid slipped a shot through on the short side at 10:24 to make it 2-1.

Washington restored its two-goal lead ahead of the midpoint of the middle period. Coming up the right half wall with the puck, Nicklas Backstrom did partial reverse rotation, spinning a perfect, tape-to-tape to T.J. Oshie, who zipped a shot through Talbot on the short side to make it 3-1 at 8:11.
Backstrom's line also drew the heavy duty assignment of keeping McDavid's unit in check - to the degree that that task is possible - at five-on-five, and not only did they neutralize the Oilers' top trio, they managed to hang a minus on them with Oshie's goal, which proved to be the game-winner.
Once again, Edmonton shaved the lead back to a single goal. Seconds after the Caps completed a successful penalty kill, Oilers center Leon Driasaitl made a deft deflection of an Adam Larsson right point drive to make it a 3-2 game at 10:41 of the middle frame.
A couple of minutes after Draisaitl's goal, the Caps restored their two-goal cushion on the power play. Oilers defenseman Darnell Nurse blocked a John Carlson blast from center point, but the puck caromed right to Alex Ovechkin in his office, as if Carlson had merely used Nurse as a middleman to get to puck over to Ovechkin. From there, the Caps captain cranked up the trademark one-timer, beating Talbot to make it 4-2 at 13:09.

Although the Oilers outshot the Caps 11-2 in the final period, Washington was never in peril. Making his first career start on home ice, Copley shrugged off all 11 shots in the third, and his teammates executed 11 of their 23 shot blocks on the night in the third. He finished with 31 saves in the game.
The Caps were diligent at getting pucks deep, and making the Oilers come 200 feet, and were able to finish off their most complete team win in a couple of weeks, since a 5-2 over the Canucks in Vancouver on Oct. 22.
"I think we gave it away in the first 10 minutes," laments Oilers coach Todd McLellan. "When you're playing that quality of team, you don't want to be chasing the game, especially that early.
"We didn't give up much after that. They got a really nice goal; they earned the goal, the third one, and then a lucky power-play one where it ricochets to Ovechkin and in the net. We didn't give up much other than that, but when you chase the game against a real, real good team - the Stanley Cup champs - you're probably going to lose more often than not. The first two goals set us back."