POSTGAME NOTEBOOK: Caps 4, Canes 2

Special Delivery -Through much of the first quarter of the regular season, the Caps have relied on a strong 5-on-5 game to keep a steady diet of standings points coming in. Heading into Friday's game against the Florida Panthers, the Caps owned a plus-22 goal differential at 5-on-5, tied for the best in the NHL.

But they edged Florida 4-3 by winning the special teams battle on Black Friday, keeping the Panthers' power play off the board while getting a shorthanded goal from Tom Wilson and a power-play goal from Alex Ovechkin in the victory.
Two days later in Carolina, the formula was similar. The Caps scored twice at 5-on-5 in the second and Carolina responded with a pair of 5-on-5 goals in the third, though the second of those two Canes tallies came just two seconds after Washington completed a penalty kill.
Unable to do much with a trio power plays early in the game against a staunch Carolina penalty killing unit, the Caps finally cashed in when the Canes got themselves into some penalty soup in the final five minutes of regulation in a 2-2 game. Dmitry Orlov's power-play goal with 2:55 left in the third snapped a 2-2 tie and gave the Caps a 4-2 victory.
First, Seth Jarvis hooked Nick Jensen as the Caps defenseman carried to the Carolina cage with five minutes left in the third. Thirty seconds later, Sebastian Aho went off for hacking Aliaksei Protas, giving the Caps a 5-on-3 opportunity for 90 seconds.
Although Carolina killed off the 5-on-3 portion of the power play successfully, the Caps managed to manufacture Orlov's game-winner four seconds later, just after Jarvis exited the box but before he could factor into the play defensively. All five Caps on the ice were involved in the creation and manufacture of Orlov's goal - a tic-tac-tic-tac-toe tally.
Sunday's game marked the third time this season the Caps have scored the game-winner on the power play, and the second time they've done so in the third period (also vs. Arizona on Oct. 29). Although the Caps weren't able to salt the game away earlier on previous power-play opportunities, they did so on the road, late in the game against a divisional foe.
"They're one of the top penalty-killing teams in the League," says Caps coach Peter Laviolette of the Canes. "That would be a great plan, oftentimes it's harder to make it come to fruition. But in the end, it was the power play that did it for us, and so from that standpoint it was a positive.
"But their penalty kill has been good. In the third period, they pushed and we found a way in the end."
For the season, the Caps rank 14th with a power-play success rate of 18.8 percent. Although Washington's power-play unit is still a bit south of its previously established standards, it has held its own without a lot of its key personnel and with the unit in a near constant state of shuffle as far as who plays where and on which unit.
Led by Ovechkin's total of four, eight different Caps have combined for 13 power-play goals this season. Orlov's power-play goal on Sunday was his first of the season and just the third of his 589-game NHL career. His last power-play goal came on Oct. 2, 2019 in St. Louis on opening night of the 2019-20 campaign.
With their performance over the last decade or so, the Caps have raised power play expectations locally. The unit has not been consistent this season, but it has contributed a goal to the offensive cause in four of the team's last five games (4-for-16, 25%).
Washington's own penalty killing unit was once again spotless on Sunday. The Caps' penalty-killing outfit has climbed to the top 10 in the NHL, ranking ninth overall with an 86 percent kill rate.
More recently, they've been even better. In their last dozen games, the Caps' penalty-killing outfit has been successful on 27 of 28 missions (96.4 percent) while scoring two shorthanded goals of its own during that stretch.
Great Eight Update -Another game, another Ovechkin goal and more noteworthy achievements involving the Caps' captain and the League's all-time lists and such. He scored Washington's first goal of the game midway through the second, taking a sweet feed from Orlov for a slam dunk from just off the left post.
Sunday's goal was his 10th in 14 November games to date. Ovechkin becomes the first NHL player aged 36 or older with a double-digit goal total in a calendar month since Boston's Jarome Iginla had 13 goals in 17 games with the Bruins in March of 2014. Iginla was inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame earlier this month.
With 19 goals on the season, Ovechkin is a goal shy of becoming the seventh player in League history to record 17 straight seasons with 20 or more goals. Only two players in League history have had 20 or more goals in more than 17 straight seasons: Gordie Howe had a 22-season run from 1949-50 through 1970-71 and Brendan Shanahan did so from 1988-89 through 2007-08.
Ovechkin's goal on Sunday against Carolina was the 128th game-opening goal of his career, pushing him ahead of Howe (127) for third most in League history. Only Jaromir Jagr (135) and Brett Hull (131) have scored the game's first goal more often than Ovechkin.
Finally, Ovechkin has once again been named the League's No. 1 star for the week ending Nov. 28. He was the League's second star for the week ending Oct. 18 and its first star for the month of October. This month, he's been first star for the weeks ending Nov. 14 and again Nov. 28.
First Time - Caps rookie Aliaksei Protas scored his first NHL goal on Sunday against Carolina, tallying Washington's second goal of the game just 59 seconds after Ovechkin's goal gave the Caps a 1-0 lead. Protas is the sixth Capital to score his first NHL goal for the team this season, in a span of just 22 games.
Washington's third-round choice (91st overall) in the 2019 NHL Draft, Protas is still more than a month shy of his 21st birthday, but he has logged upwards of 17 minutes worth of ice time in three of the Caps' last four games, skating the right side of the team's top line with Ovechkin and Evgeny Kuznetsov.
"It doesn't matter who you're playing with," says Protas. "If you get more time with these guys, for sure you will get more comfortable and you will get chemistry with these guys. We have played a couple games, and one of the biggest things is they're Russian, so they help me a lot. I'm getting used to playing with them, so it's awesome."
Johnny B. Goode - Caps defenseman John Carlson racked up a three-point game (one goal, two assists) in Carolina on Sunday to push himself to the top of the NHL's scoring race among defensemen. Carlson's 22 points (five goals, 17 assists) in 22 games is one more than the Rangers' Adam Fox (21) at this juncture of the season.
By The Numbers - Carlson's 26:54 in ice time topped the team on Sunday and is his highest single-game figure of the season to date … Ovechkin and Protas led the Caps with four shots on net each and Ovechkin's 13 shot attempts led the team … Nick Jensen led the Caps with six hits … Fourteen of Washington's 18 skaters had at least one hit; the team totaled 30 on Sunday … Kuznetsov, Tom Wilson, Martin Fehervary and Beck Malenstyn each blocked two shots to share the team lead.