POSTGAME NOTEBOOK: Caps 3, Wings 1

Four Straight - For the first time this season, the Caps have strung together four successive victories. Their latest triumph came at home over the Detroit Red Wings on Black Friday afternoon, a 3-1 victory.

The Caps were somnambulant for the game's first 15 minutes, spotting the Wings a 1-0 lead. But Braden Holtby kept the Capitals in it, they found their legs late in the first, and they slowly mounted an attack and were ultimately able to break down the Wings.
After 40 minutes of play, the Caps and Wings were all even at 1-1, and Washington had managed only eight even-strength shots on net. But the Caps struck twice in less than two minutes in the front half of the third period, and Holtby walled off the Red Wings the rest of the way.
Anatomy Of A Game-Winner - For the second time in as many games, Caps defenseman Michal Kempny supplied the game-winning goal for Washington. Both came in the aftermath of a face-off win, but Wednesday's goal against Chicago came after the Caps won an offensive-zone draw. Friday's game-winner came after winning a draw in their own end, smartly advancing and moving the puck, and it culminated with a well placed shot and a critical screen.
Travis Boyd won the draw in the Washington zone, and he and linemates Andre Burakovsky and Devante Smith-Pelly advanced it up ice. Burakovsky carried into Detroit ice with Smith-Pelly supporting, and the duo was surrounded by four white Detroit sweaters as it gained the zone. Burakovsky turned and fed Boyd, the late guy into the zone, and the latter carried low into the zone before throwing a cross-ice feed to Kempny on the weak side, at the left point.
With Smith-Pelly expertly and fearlessly blocking the vision of Detroit netminder Jonathan Bernier, Kempny fired a drive from the top of the left circle to the high far corner of the cage, giving the Caps a 2-1 lead at 6:38 of the third.
"I was coming into the zone late and Burky had it," recounts Boyd. "He kind of stopped up and hit me. I took a couple of strides down and tried to drove a little deeper into the zone, and saw two or three guys coming right over at Burky and me there. I tried to take a quick peek out of the corner of my eye and saw [Kempny] open there, and just threw it over there. He did the rest; it was a great finish by him."
Detroit had numbers back to defend, but the Wings got a little puck-focused, and Boyd was able to exploit that.
"They come back hard; they're a fast team," says Boyd of the Wings. "They come back in the [defensive] zone and collapse down hard, and they had four guys. As I took a peek and saw Kemps over there, he was wide open and that's what happens. They had four guys over by the puck, and we were able to spread them out a little bit, and ended up having the game-winner, so it was good."
That defensive zone draw came in the immediate aftermath of the first television timeout of the third period.
"It's on putting out a right-hand shot to win that draw," says Caps coach Todd Reirden, "and they're able to win that draw, get it out of the zone, and now we're attacking with speed. It's a great shot by Kempny, it's a great play by Boyd in that situation on the delay. But for me, Smith-Pelly standing at the front of the net. That's where it's at. That's where I think we were able to create a lot of offense if you go back to some of the success we had last year.
"So we changed sides on the entry with the puck, which makes it difficult for the goalie. And then having that body there at the front of the net, I can't say enough about him standing there and trusting the defenseman shooting the puck. It was a great shot obviously, by Michal, but lots of great things that transpired on that play."
One of those great things was trusting a rookie center to take an important defensive zone draw late in a tie game, and that rookie center going on and winning that draw.
"It's big," says Boyd. "When you get a chance to go out there for a [defensive] zone draw, and at the same time proving to the coaches that we are able to go out there and do that, and we can also chip in and help offensively, too."
Double Dipping Defensemen - Kempny is the fifth defenseman in Caps franchise history to register the game-winning goal in consecutive games for Washington, and four of those blueliners were on the ice for Friday's game.
Prior to Kempny's recent heroics, John Carlson was the most recent Caps blueliner to turn the trick, doing so on Dec. 14 and 16, 2015. Dmitry Orlov scored the game-winner in back-to-back games for Washington a few weeks earlier, on Nov. 23 and 25, 2015. All three of those defensemen were wearing red Caps sweaters on Friday.
Ex-Cap Mike Green was wearing Detroit's white sweater on Friday, and back on April 11 and 13, 2013, he had game-winners in consecutive games for Washington. The first Caps defenseman ever to achieve the feat was Kevin Hatcher on Jan. 16 and 19, 1990.
By The Numbers - John Carlson led the Caps with 26:32 in ice time … Celebrating his 31st birthday, Nicklas Backstrom led Washington with five shots on net and seven shot attempts … Alex Ovechkin led the Caps with six hits … Kempny and Matt Niskanen paced the Caps with five blocked shots each, accounting for nearly half of Washington's team total of 21 … Nic Dowd won five of six draws (83%) and Boyd won eight of 10 (80%) while Lars Eller won 11 of 18 (61%) … A total of different skaters (from both sides) took at least one face-off in Friday's game.