Flyers Drop Caps, 3-1

Carter Hart made 39 saves - including all 33 shots he faced in the final 40 minutes - to help the Philadelphia Flyers to a 3-1 win over Washington on Saturday at Capital One Arena, giving the Flyers a sweep of a two-game home-and-home set of games with the Caps. Hart picked up both victories over the Caps this week, and Philadelphia has now won seven of its last eight games in what is easily its hottest stretch of the season to date.

"I thought we did a good job of keeping them to the outside," says Hart. "They didn't have a whole lot of looks from the middle, and we got some key blocks as well when we needed them."
On Saturday morning, Caps coach Peter Laviolette talked about wanting his team to be on the attack more and to dictate the play more. The Capitals did that throughout Saturday's game, but managed only Alex Ovechkin's second-chance goal late in the first period.
"Probably just the finish, I think more than anything," says Laviolette, when asked what was lacking from his team's game on Saturday. "There was a lot of looks tonight; their goalie made some big saves. But just the finish, I think. We'll look back on it, but we've got to capitalize on some of those chances."
The Flyers never trailed in either game against Washington this week, and Philly didn't trail at any point in three of the four games played between the two teams this season, including a 3-2 Caps shootout win here on Nov. 23.
As was the case in Wednesday's game, the Flyers took a 1-0 lead on their first power play of the game in the first period. Eleven seconds after Lars Eller was seated for tripping, the Flyers went up 1-0 when Scott Laughton made a drive-by deflection - from the top of the right circle - of Tony DeAngelo's shot from the right point at 13:16 of the first.
In their last 10 games, the Caps are 22-for-27 (81.5%) on the penalty kill, and they've yielded a power-play goal in four of the 10 games. In each of those four games, the power-play goal has come on Washington's first shorthanded mission of the night, and it has put the Caps behind in three of the four contests.
Washington pulled even when Ovechkin scored with 2:04 left in the first. Coming out of a television timeout, Evgeny Kuznetsov beat Laughton on an offensive zone draw, and Conor Sheary tipped a Trevor van Riemsdyk shot wide. After the Flyers retrieved it and coughed it up to Ovechkin, the captain's first backhand try was blocked. But he teed up another backhander from the slot, tying the game.
Ovechkin's goal was his 30th of the season, tying him with ex-Caps great Mike Gartner for the most 30-goal seasons (17) in NHL history.
Things went south for the Caps on consecutive shifts early in the second. In what was essentially a 5-on-4 for the Flyers in Washington's end, Philadelphia struck for what would prove to be the game-winning goal, a James van Riemsdyk shot from the weak side into a wide-open net at 4:51 of the second that put the Flyers back in front to stay.
Caps goalie Darcy Kuemper went behind the net to play the puck on a dump in, and he turned it over to Morgan Frost on the left half-wall. Frost fed Owen Tippett, who spotted van Riemsdyk all alone on the weak side.
"[Tippett] was coming out of the corner," recounts Kuemper. "I played him aggressively, and he made a nice pass to the guy on the back side [van Riemsdyk]."
"I thought we could have done a better job of collapsing back down low early, when we were getting back into the zone," says Laviolette. "When that happens, it just got stretched out for a second; we're usually pretty tight coming back into the zone."
On the very next shift, the Flyers scored again, doing so in a fashion similar to Ovechkin's goal. Laughton beat Nic Dowd on an offensive zone draw, and things got scrambly for the Caps in coverage down low. Kevin Hayes got loose right off the draw, and Kuemper had to stay with him to keep him from stuffing it in at the right post. But Hayes stayed with it, backhanding a feed to the front for Wade Allison, who was able to pump a shot home from the slot through a maze of black sweaters in front at 5:40, just 49 seconds after the James van Riemsdyk goal.
While Ovechkin's goal was achieved eight seconds after Washington won the offensive zone draw, Allison's goal came seven seconds after the Flyers won that draw.
"I thought our guys played hard," says Laviolette. "You look back at the game, and there's a three-minute stretch that you look back at and say, 'Well, we made a couple of big defensive mistakes.' Other than that, I thought defensively we were pretty good."
The Caps dominated in terms of possession and territory the rest of the way, but they couldn't solve Hart, who was aided by 25 blocked shots in front of him, 20 of which came in the final two periods. The Caps also misfired on 22 shot tries on the night.
Back in the lineup after two games as a healthy scratch, Anthony Mantha put four shots on net and laid a couple of hits in just over 17 minutes of work.
"I felt good," says Mantha. "I think I was moving my feet. I had a couple of opportunities, one breakaway which I wish I had back. But I felt good."
Dylan Strome was a healthy scratch on Saturday, sitting out a game for the first time this season.
"Dylan has played great for us," says Laviolette. "He'll be back in there. These are tough decisions. I have to keep a balanced lineup in there; I've got to keep face-off guys in there, I've got to keep penalty kill guys in there. He's done a good job, he'll be back in."
Saturday's loss leaves the Caps at 2-3-1 in January, and they've been saddled with three losses in their last four games (1-3-0). Washington has suffered consecutive losses for the first time since Dec. 1-3 and has dropped successive games in regulation for the first time since Nov. 13-15.
"I think that this game was a lot different," says Kuemper. "We did a ton of good things tonight and had some great offensive [zone] possession time. They defended hard and their goalie played well, and we couldn't crack the code down there. But I think we did a lot of good things and are moving in the right direction."