Making his first start of the season and seeing his first regular season action since April 15, Charlie Lindgren stopped all 35 shots he faced to lift the Caps to a 1-0 victory over the New York Rangers at Madison Square Garden on Sunday night.
From the start of the game, it was clear that Lindgren was on his game, but the Rangers threw everything they could at him, and he thwarted them at every turn.
“I felt pretty good right away,” says Lindgren. “Practices have been going really well, and, yeah, it's the first game, and you always kind of wonder how it's going to go. You want to feel the first couple pucks.
“But credit to the guys in front of me. I thought they did a terrific job tonight. I got to see a lot of pucks. The Rangers do a good job bringing guys to the net. And I thought my guys did a really good job of clearing guys out and taking my rebounds, because I gave up a couple rebounds and they cleared it out. I love the job my guys did.”
Lindgren’s shutout performance enabled the Caps to bring home four points from a weekend set of back-to-back games on the road against the Islanders and Rangers, respectively. The Caps did not yield a goal at even strength in the two weekend wins, and they’ve given up just one 5-on-5 goal in three games on the young season.
With Sunday’s shutout win over the Rangers, Lindgren improves to 4-1-0 in his five career starts against the Blueshirts, with two shutouts, a 1.19 GAA and a .957 save pct.
Washington’s Anthony Beauvillier scored the game’s only goal shortly after the midpoint of the middle period, and Lindgren made it stand up.
Like Lindgren, Beauvillier has had some strong performances against the Rangers over the course of his career. Beauvillier’s game-winner was his 14th career goal against the Rangers, the most he has scored against any opponent.
“Madison Square Garden is a special place, and it’s always fun to play here and [the Rangers have] been a rival, and still are now,” says Beauvillier. “Honestly, it was such a fun game to play, and both teams played really hard, and it was a playoff atmosphere out there.
“Both teams battled really hard, and we're glad we came out on top.”
Lindgren put the wall up early. He made an excellent stop on New York’s Will Cuylle on a bang-bang play from the low slot midway through the first, and his best stop of the night was a dazzling, sprawling glove save to deny Mika Zibanejad on a 2-on-1 rush chance just ahead of the five-minute mark of the second period.
“Two really good hockey players coming down on a 2-on-1,” says Lindgren, when asked what he saw on that save. “It's not easy. [Artemi] Panarin made a nice play, nice pass. Zibanejad got a lot on it; I felt like I got a nice piece of it with my glove. Just for a second, I saw a little flash, like going into the net. I don't know what it was, but then I looked down at my glove, and it was in my glove, so I’m pretty happy about that. But it was a great play. And thankfully, I made the save.”
Lindgren also made two quick stops on Conor Sheary and JT Miller just after the midpoint of the middle period, soon before the Beauvillier goal.
Washington won only four of the game’s 18 face-offs in the second period, and it won only one draw of the last dozen drops of the middle frame, covering a span of 15 minutes and 5 seconds. While that disparity likely led to more chasing the puck and defending than the Caps would have liked, they still managed to grab a lead with the game’s first goal in the back half of the period, and they then defended that slim lead by killing off a pair of New York power plays in short succession.
The Caps were quiet offensively in the second, right up until Beauvillier struck for the only goal of the game. After Declan Chisholm – making his debut in a Caps sweater and playing his 100th career NHL game – took a shot from the right point that missed the mark, Alex Ovechkin retrieved it off the left half wall. From just above the left circle, the captain spotted Beauvillier, who was well off the net on the left side, right at the bottom of the circle. Ovechkin put it right on his tape, and Beauvillier redirected it over the shoulder of New York netminder Jonathan Quick on the short side at 13:47.
“It’s one of those plays where you're just trying to get a little bit get open around the net,” recounts Beauvillier. “And [Ovechkin] didn't have shot lane to the net, he finds my stick, and one of those where you're happy it goes in. I mean, it's a good play, a good look by [Ovechkin] there. And like I said, one of those were you’re happy it goes in.”
Almost immediately after the goal, the Caps got into some penalty trouble, taking two consecutive minors with only 24 seconds separating the end of the first kill and the beginning of the second. Washington’s penalty kill – which had been dented for three goals against in the season’s first two games – rose to the task, killing both with Lindgren making four stops.
“I thought it was a real good hockey game – entertaining – even though there was just the one goal in the game; you could feel good energy in the building,” says Caps coach Spencer Carbery. “Early on, you could tell that even though it was a back-to-back for both teams, you could tell it was going to be a highly, highly competitive game, right from the start.
“I thought we found our way through it, but it felt like that was our team. We play in a lot of games that look sort of like that. Obviously, Chucky is outstanding for us. Would like to have been a little bit more consistent through the game of some of the things that we were doing structurally and some of our puck play, but that's what we do a lot of times in those situations, is we find ways win games and gut it out. And that's what we did tonight."
Despite being blanked in consecutive home games to start the season for the first time in their 100-year history, the Rangers played well in what was a compelling hockey game.
“I think this was the best game we’ve played all year, the most complete game that we’ve played all year, against a really good team,” says New York coach Mike Sullivan. “I thought the guys played hard. Both teams were coming off back-to-backs; I thought both teams had good energy, given the circumstances. I thought it was a real good hockey game.”
Lindgren becomes the seventh Washington goaltender to author a shutout in his season debut; his Sunday performance is the eighth in franchise history (Olie Kolzig did it twice). Among all those performances, only Maxime Ouellett’s whitewash of the Thrashers in Atlanta on Dec. 16, 2003 featured more saves (37) than Lindgren’s on Sunday.
The only down note from Sunday’s game was the loss of Pierre-Luc Dubois late in the third period. Dubois left the Washington bench at the game’s final television timeout with 5:59 left in the game.
“We’ll evaluate him and see where he’s at,” says Carbery. “But yeah, he left the game and did not return.”
