Flyers Nip Caps, 2-1

Facing the Flyers on a Saturday night at home, the Caps didn't have enough game early and it cost them in the end. Philadelphia carved out a 2-0 lead in the middle period, and it was enough for a 2-1 victory for the visitors.

Derrick Brassard and Sean Couturier scored for the Flyers in the back half of the second period, breaking a 0-0 tie that belied Philly's dominance to that point of the game. The Caps displayed some verve in the third, and rookie Brett Leason scored to halve the Philly lead early in the third, but Washington's comeback bid fell a goal short.
"I thought in all three zones they were just quicker than us," says Caps coach Peter Laviolette. "When your opponent is quicker than you in the defensive zone, you're going to give up shots and you're going to give up zone time. When they're quicker than you in the neutral zone, they're going to put the puck behind you and go their way. And when they're quicker in their defensive zone, it's going to be difficult to generate offense because they're closing quick and they're not allowing time and space."

Washington had the game's first power play opportunity in the first, but didn't do anything of note with it, and the Caps needed a diligent and diving backcheck from Alex Ovechkin to deny Philly a prime shorthanded scoring chance. The Caps didn't deliver their first puck to the net at 5-on-5 until the tenth minute of the contest, and they only shot on net from a Washington forward from inside of 30 feet away in the first period was Leason's shot from the slot with just over four minutes left.
It was more of the same in the second, but as the period wore on, the Flyers wore Washington down in its own end. The Caps were hanging on, and Philly finally broke through with a sustained shift in the attack zone against the top Washington line. Seconds after Caps goalie Vitek Vanecek made an excellent stop on Cam Atkinson from in tight, the ex-Blue Jacket winger fed Brassard for a one-timer from the left dot, a shot that made it 1-0 for Philly at 11:18 of the second.
Seventeen seconds after a television timeout late in the middle period, the Flyers struck again to double their lead. Couturier won the draw from Nic Dowd, and the Flyers went to work in Washington territory. Vanecek stopped a Rasmus Ristolainen shot, but no one tied up Couturier and he banged the rebound home to make it 2-0 at 15:44.
Laviolete juggled his lines in the third, seeking a spark from a forward group that had managed only 10 shots on net at 5-on-5, with only five coming from inside of 30 feet away. Among the six forwards who started in the game in Washington's top six, only Daniel Sprong managed to get a puck on Flyers' goaltender Martin Jones from 30 or fewer feet away in the game's first 40 minutes.
Leason and Connor McMichael played together through the evening, and they were joined by fellow rookie Hendrix Lapierre in the third, and the trio accounted for the Caps' lone goal of the game at 6:02 of the third. McMichael carried into Philadelphia ice and around the defense, maintaining possession and carrying behind the cage. He left a pass for Leason, who reached around a defender and lifted the puck to the shelf to make it a 2-1 game.

The goal sparked the Caps, who had more zone time and chances in the remaining time than they did in the first 40 minutes. Philly survived a flurry of shots on a Caps power play in the third, and Washington wasn't able to muster the equalizer with the extra attacker in the final two minutes, either.
"I think we were playing with some urgency in the third, and it translated to the power play," says Caps winger Conor Sheary. "The first couple [of power plays] we were kind of one and done with shots there. But in the third, it felt like we had 10 shots on that last one, and it just didn't go in for us, but a little bit too late."
Saturday's loss is the Caps' first setback in their division this season (2-1-0), and Washington now has one win in its last five games (1-2-2) while Philly has won four of six (4-1-1).
"I believe it's how we need to play to have success," says Flyers coach Alain Vigneault. "Obviously they had a strong push in the third there, but throughout the game we were playing tight the way we needed to, we had good sticks, we were making the plays that we needed to make with the puck and I thought we carried most of the play."
Jones stopped 31 of the 32 shots he faced, including all 10 on the Washington power play.
"Through the first two periods, they didn't have really many Grade A chances," says Jones. "And when you're down two goals in the third, you're going to funnel some pucks to the net. But I thought we did a great job; the [penalty kill] was really good again, and we did a great job around the net."