POSTGAME NOTEBOOK: Caps 2, Sabres 1

The Beast That Beat Buffalo - Caps goalie Braden Holtby turned in a stellar performance on Friday night in Washington, setting aside 36 of the 37 shots he faced to help the Capitals to a 2-1 win over the visiting Sabres.

After a relatively quiet first period, Holtby was at his best early in the second period when the Sabres generated a flurry of good chances. He was at his best again throughout the third when Buffalo teed up 29 shot attempts, getting 17 of them on net. The only one that beat him was Johan Larsson's putback of a rebound at 9:01 of the third.
Holtby earned his 14th win of the season on Friday, raising his save pct. to .914 in the process. He is now 9-3-0 in his last dozen appearances.
"I love talking about him just because he is such a great guy on and off the ice," says Wilson of Holtby. "Right from the start here, he kept us in it and showed why he is a top goalie in the league. He is pretty fun to have around here. He saves your uh, your uh - I'll say a different word - you guys know what I'm saying here. He saves you a few times, It's crazy to have a guy back there like that on any given night. We're pretty lucky."

Killing It - Holtby wasn't the only hero in the Caps' win over the Sabres. Washington's penalty killing unit has scuffled through much of the first half of the season, but they were on point in Friday's game. The group put together a good kill in the first period, scored a shorthanded goal just 13 seconds into a kill in the second, and snuffed out a pair of Buffalo power plays in the third, the second of which came over the final two minutes of regulation and included some six-on-four time for the Sabres.
At night's end, they were perfect in eight minutes of work, permitting just six shots to the Sabres along the way.
"We've been working at it, and were disappointed with our last few games, regarding two or three games ago," says Caps coach Todd Reirden of the penalty kill. "I thought we were headed in the right direction last game against Pittsburgh, but we were good, committed, aggressive when we were supposed to be aggressive, and your goalie has got to be your best killer, and he was excellent tonight. And then obviously being able to score a shorthanded goal is building confidence for our team.
"That's definitely something to build on, and the six-on-four there at the end as well. That was impressive by the guys that were out there, and they were very committed to doing whatever it took to keep the puck out of the net."

Ten Spot - Wilson netted the game-winner with exactly seven minutes left, scoring his 10th goal of the season in just his 15th game. Wilson becomes the fifth player on the team to reach the double-digit level in goals this season, and he is now tied for second on the team in goals behind Alex Ovechkin (29).
Short Stuff -Chandler Stephenson scored the first regular season shorthanded goal of his career - he had one against Columbus in the playoffs last spring - to stake the Caps to a 1-0 lead early in the second period.
Nic Dowd picked up the only assist on the play; Dowd lofted a high flip to space from up high in Washington ice to the Buffalo zone, where Stephenson was able to outrace a Sabres defender and score.
For Dowd, the assist was his first career shorthanded point in the NHL, and it continued his impressive scoring run over the last few weeks. Dowd now has three goals and 11 points in his last 13 games.

Shutdown Town -Buffalo's top forward trio of Jeff Skinner, Jack Eichel and Sam Reinhart entered Friday's game on a collective heater. At least one of the three had scored in 17 of Buffalo's 18 previous games, but the Caps managed to keep them all quiet on Friday. In doing so, Washington ended scoring streaks for all three players; Reinhart entered the game with an 11-game scoring streak while Eichel and Skinner scored in each of seven previous games.
Caps coach Todd Reirden relied largely upon the trio of Evgeny Kuznetsov with Wilson and Jakub Vrana to keep the hot Buffalo wings and Eichel in check.
"Initially we went with that setup," says Reirden, "I just liked how Kuzy played against [Eichel] last time; [Eichel] scored two goals and Kuzy wasn't out there for either of them last time. I just think Kuznetsov does a really good job in those situations against high-speed center men; we've seen it in the past. One of his better face-off games was against Buffalo six days ago, so we put him in that situation early."
The Eichel line was not without its chances; the trio combined for 10 shots on net - six of them coming from Reinhart - and Washington skaters blocked five of their attempts. Six more tries missed the net.
The Kuznetsov line also combined for 10 shots on net, one of them the game-winner off Wilson's stick late in the third.
"We got on the ice a lot against those guys and just tried to be hard on them," says Wilson, "hard to play against. Kuzy and V have a lot of speed, so they can close on them, and I had them every once in a while. So it works out. They're pretty good players. We could be having this conversation the other way if a couple went in the net, but Holts played great and we did a good enough job to keep them off the board for the most part."
This One Goes To Eleven -Eleven different skaters combined to block 19 shots for the Caps in Friday's game, with Jonas Siegenthaler leading the way with four blocks.
Back-To-Back - Friday's game was the front half of the Capitals' sixth set of back-to-back games this season, and Washington remained perfect in the front end, moving its record to 6-0-0 in the first game of back-to-back sets.
Down On The Farm -The AHL Hershey Bears hosted the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguins on Friday night at Giant Center, and the Bears skated away with a 3-2 victory over the Baby Pens.
After Hershey fell down 1-0 just 67 seconds into the contest, Mike Sgarbossa tied it up on a Bears power play at 4:55, netting his 13th goal of the season with help from Riley Barber and Ryan Sproul.
Less than four minutes later, the Bears jumped out in front on Nathan Walker's sixth goal of the season, also on the power play. Aaronn Ness and Barber picked up helpers on Walker's goal, which made it 2-1 at 8:34 of the first.
The Baby Pens pulled even on a power play goal of their own midway through the first, and the score remained knotted at 2-2 until the latter stages of the second. That's when Barber scored yet another power-play goal - Hershey's third of the night and the game-winner - with assistance from Sgarbossa and Ness at 18:27 of the second.
Wilkes-Barre/Scranton outshot Hershey 13-5 in the third, but Bears goalie Vitek Vanecek stopped every shot in the final frame, raising his record to 6-6-1 in the process. Vanecek made half of his 26 saves on the night in the third period.
Hershey is back in action on Saturday night when it hosts Lehigh Valley.
By The Numbers - John Carlson led the Caps with 23:47 in ice time … Matt Niskanen served one of the Caps' four minor penalties in the game, and he was on the ice for 4:24 of the other six minutes in which Washington was down a skater … Lars Eller led all Caps in shorthanded ice time, skating 5:02 of the eight shorthanded minutes … Vrana led the Caps with five shots on net and Wilson led the way with seven shot attempts … Wilson and Devante Smith-Pelly led Washington with three hits each … Nicklas Backstrom won 14 of 20 face-offs (70 percent) … Only four different Caps took face-offs in Friday's game.