Gustafsson's Hat Trick Helps Caps Past Leafs, 5-2

Fans filed into Capital One Arena on Saturday night hopping to witness history. They didn't get what they came for in that regard, but the local rooters went home happy nonetheless after the Caps gave them a 5-2 victory fueled by a hat trick from Erik Gustafsson, three helpers from Sonny Milano and more clutch netminding from Charlie Lindgren, who made 34 saves to win for the sixth time in seven starts, all of them in the last two weeks.

Both the Caps and the Leafs have been hot lately, and both came into Saturday's game on the heels of Thursday night losses. The Leafs' loss on Thursday to the Rangers in New York was Toronto's first in regulation in over a month. When they left Toronto for a two-game trip earlier in the week, the Leafs were 12-0-3 in their last 15 games, but they'll head home tonight empty-handed for the trip.
Toronto beat Lindgren 3-2 up north of the border on Oct. 13 in the goaltender's first start as a Capital, and he played well that night, too, making 36 saves. In Saturday's game, the Caps needed Lindgren to keep the swarming Leafs at bay in the second, and he answered the bell.
"We couldn't ask for anything more from him," says Caps coach Peter Laviolette of Lindgren. "He's been rock solid."
Four of Washington's five goals came from defensemen, and the only one that didn't was arguably the most important goal of the game, a tally fueled by a play from blueliner Nick Jensen just 10 seconds into the third. That Garnet Hathaway goal restored Washington's two-goal cushion off the opening face-off of the third period and immediately following a wobbly middle period for Washington, restoring the Caps' two-goal cushion.
"I thought we had an excellent second period and didn't get rewarded for it, didn't finish our chances," laments Leafs coach Sheldon Keefe. "And they score 10 seconds into the third. That's a tough climb.
"It's tough playing from behind. It's really tough when you come out and you want to get a push in the third, and you're pulling it out of your net 10 seconds in."
Washington drew first blood in Saturday's game against the Leafs, doing so just after the midpoint of the first frame. Gustafsson and Milano worked a give-and-go, with the former feeding the latter from up top to down low, and then jumping into an open area on the right side and accepting the return feed near the right post. Gustafsson then jimmied a backhander between the post and the pad of ex-Caps goalie Ilya Samsonov for a 1-0 Washington lead at 11:12 of the first.
Gustafsson's first goal as a Capital broke a shutout spell of 163 minutes and 44 seconds for Samsonov, who entered Saturday's game on the heels of consecutive shutouts.
Exactly two minutes after the Gustafsson goal, the Leafs got even on a William Nylander one-timer from the high slot.
And less than two minutes after the Nylander marker, the Caps regained the lead on Trevor van Riemsdyk's third goal in the last four games. Milano went cross-ice for Anthony Mantha in neutral ice, and Mantha let van Riemsdyk carry into Toronto ice on the left side. Smartly using veteran blueliner Mark Giordano as a screen, van Riemsdyk threaded a shot through Samsonov's five-hole from just above the left circle at 14:48.
With the four goals from blueliners in Saturday's game, the Caps' have 19 goals from their rearguards in 33 games this season. A dozen of those goals have come in the last 11 games.
"I think just as a team, it makes us a little tough to cover," says van Riemsdyk of the recent offensive outburst from the blueline. "It creates a little more offense when we're moving and not just stationary, and we did a good job of that. The forwards made a bunch of really nice plays to give us a bunch of really good looks."
In the second period, the two teams traded rush goals, with the Caps striking first on Gustafsson's second goal of the game at 2:51. From the Washington line, John Carlson quickly sent Milano into Toronto territory. The winger cut to the middle before dishing to Evgeny Kuznetsov high in the zone. Milano continued to the net, drawing attention from a pair of Leafs and opening a seam down low. Kuznetsov put a sublime backhand feed through that seam to a lurking Gustafsson on the weak side, and the blueliner buried it for the second two-goal game of his career and a 3-1 Washington lead.
"I thought [Milano] was going to play it to me at first," recounts Gustafsson. "But he dropped it to Kuznetsov there. He was looking for me for two seconds there, so I knew he was going to deliver that pass. Obviously it was an open net; it was a great pass from him. I was just scared I was going to miss the net there."
Toronto got that one back less than four minutes later when Auston Matthews fired one home from the high slot in a 1-on-4 situation, using Carlson as a decoy to make it a 3-2 game.
For the rest of the middle period, the Leafs turned on the heat on the Caps in their own end, putting on a forechecking clinic and dominating shot attempts to the tune of 25-9. Lindgren made arguably his best save of the game soon after the midpoint of the middle period, waiting out Leafs captain John Tavares on a glorious chance from in tight in a 1-on-1 situation.
"We gave them way too much opportunities in our own zone," says Gustafsson of the second period. "So the [message between periods was] play a little tighter, play a little easier, and play a little tougher, too. In the first 10 seconds [of the third] when we got the goal, we got the momentum going a little bit. Right from that fourth goal, it was a great third period."
Toronto won the opening draw of the third, but Hathaway put some heat on the defender at the Leafs' line, and Jensen read off that, jumping in front of the intended pass target and carrying into Leafs ice with speed. When Mark Giordano checked Jensen en route to the net, Hathaway scooped up the puck and beat Samsonov to the far side, giving the Caps some needed breathing room and enabling them to exhale.
Less than four minutes later, Gustafsson finished his first career hat trick - and his first three goals as a Capital - with a bullet to the short side, right past Samsonov's right ear, at 3:47, to close out the scoring. Gustafsson's hat trick is just the third in Washington's regular season history and the first since Sergei Gonchar on Jan. 4, 2000 against Montreal.
Lindgren notched his eighth win of the season, and his sixth in December. Since taking over the net after Darcy Kuemper went down with an upper body injury on Dec. 3 in Calgary, Lindgren is 6-1-0 in seven starts, with a 1.87 GAA and a .938 save pct.
Toronto teed up 74 shots tonight, getting 36 of them on net. Lindgren stopped all but two of them, and as he has done so often during his marvelous December run, he refused to give up a goal that would put the Caps behind, once they gained a lead.
"The last game I played [against them], they put a lot of shots at the net as well," says Lindgren of the Leafs. "So I kind of knew they were a little bit of a shot volume team. That's a thing I maybe took not of coming in. They certainly throw a lot of pucks at the net, but we've got our guys though, we've got our forwards and defensemen doing a great job of eating pucks and clearing out rebounds and doing a really good job in front of me. I'm super happy right now with that effort."
As to that history the fans were hoping to see on Saturday, Caps captain Alex Ovechkin put two shots on Samsonov, but neither of them found the back of the net. He remains one goal behind Gordie Howe (801) for second place on the all-time goals list, but he does have as many hat tricks as Gustafsson has, this week anyway.