POSTGAME NOTEBOOK: Caps 4, Flames 3 (SO)

Net Gain -The Caps completed a three-game Western Canada road trip on Saturday afternoon with a 4-3 shootout win over the Flames in Calgary. After splitting the first two games of the trip, the Caps' coaching staff made a bold play to start Pheonix Copley in goal on Saturday, and the move paid off with two points and Copley's first NHL victory.

Saturday's start was Copley's second of the season and his first since Oct. 4. It was also his third appearance of the season; he came on in relief of Holtby in an Oct. 19 game against Florida, a game in which Washington rallied from a three-goal deficit to pick up a point in a 6-5 shootout loss.
In Braden Holtby, the Caps have a top-notch NHL netminder, and one who helped lead them to their first Stanley Cup championship last spring. But as much as he'd like to, Holtby can't play every game. After leading all NHL netminders with 73 games played in 2014-15, Holtby's workload has dipped to 66, 63 and 54 games, respectively, in the three seasons since. Right or wrong, the consensus seems to be that Holtby is better and fresher in the postseason with a lighter regular season workload.
"I've played around with a few different numbers in terms of where we'd like to have him," says Caps coach Todd Reirden of Holtby's workload. "I think so much of it is situation-specific. I think we're going to continue to play it out. To have an actual number, I don't. I know I want to have him fresh like he was last year in the playoffs. That was a huge component in us winning the Stanley Cup last year, the fact that he was - I feel - fresher than he was in the past."
Copley entered the season with just two games worth of NHL experience and as an unknown commodity at this level, and certainly the Caps aren't able to immediately trust him with the workload they trusted last season's backup Philipp Grubauer to handle. The Caps also have only a dozen sets of back-to-back games this season, and Holtby started both ends of the first of those sets on Oct. 3-4.
Clearly, if the Caps are going to keep Holtby's regular season workload at a manageable number, they're going to need to trust Copley to do the job from time to time, and they've got to find him some non-organic starts - those that aren't part of back-to-back sets - along the way, too.
"Yeah," agrees Reirden, "so that's why we went into the trip thinking that this [game in Calgary] was a possibility for us. Obviously we didn't know how things were going to work out with Florida and him getting some action there. I like his chances of coming in today - not necessarily on a back-to-back - and we can make a clear evaluation of him as our backup."
Copley played well on Saturday, getting beaten clean on just one of the Flames' three goals, Elias Lindholm's power-play goal. Each of the other two pucks to get behind Copley in regulation was redirected.
In his Oct. 19 appearance against Florida, Copley struggled in the shootout. But he stopped three of the four shots he faced in Saturday's skills competition. Fortunately for him and the Capitals, the team spent some time on Friday practicing the shootout, a practice that paid instant dividends.
"We have done some shootout work," says Copley. "I did some work with [goaltending coach] Scotty [Murray] over the past week or so to try and tighten that up. Thankfully, it worked out today."
Copley is the 41st goaltender in franchise history to record a victory, and the first since Philipp Grubauer (Dec. 8, 2013 vs. Rangers in New York) to earn his first NHL win in a Washington sweater.
Half A Dozen Helpers - Caps winger Brett Connolly earned his sixth assist of the young season on Saturday in Washington's 10th game, supplying the primary helper on Matt Niskanen's go-ahead goal late in the second period. Connolly's single-season career high in assists is 15, established with the Bruins in 2015-16.
Connolly has scored 15 goals in each of his two seasons with the Capitals. He had eight assists in 2016-17, notching his sixth helper in his 42nd game that season. In 2017-18, Connolly had a dozen assists, but he didn't record his sixth helper until his 51st game of the season.
On The Board -Washington winger Dmitrij Jaskin is the shortest tenured Capital; he was claimed off waivers from St. Louis a day before the start of the 2018-19 regular season got underway. In his last couple of outings, Jaskin has shown himself to be more comfortable and more assertive on the ice, probably a product of being more familiar with the team, his teammates and the Caps' way of playing.
In Saturday's game in Calgary, Jaskin collected his first point as a member of the Capitals with a secondary assist on Niskanen's second-period goal, a tally that put the Caps back on top, 3-2. With that Jaskin assist, all 13 forwards who have suited up for the Capitals this season have now recorded a point.
Down On The Farm -The AHL Hershey Bears hosted Wilkes-Barre/Scranton on Saturday night, facing the Baby Pens for the second time in as many nights. After dropping a 4-1 decision to the Pens on the road on Friday, Hershey rebounded for a 4-3 shootout win on Saturday at Giant Center. The Bears came back from three separate one-goal deficits to earn the two points in Saturday's contest.
Trailing 1-0 as the second period got underway, the Bears got even on Michael Sgarbossa's third goal of the season just 39 seconds into the middle frame. Aaron Ness supplied the lone assist on the goal.
After Wilkes-Barre/Scranton regained the lead a few minutes later, the Bears drew even once again on Riley Barber's shorthanded goal at 11:16 of the middle period, Sgarbossa and Lucas Johansen assisting.
The Baby Pens went back in front early in the third, but the Bears answered back less than a minute later when Beck Malenstyn netted his first pro goal at 4:02 of the third to make it a 3-3 game. Steve Whitney and Jonas Siegenthaler assisted on Malenstyn's game-tying marker.
Hershey prevailed in the shootout to make a winner out of Ilya Samsonov (19 saves), who earned his first AHL victory on Saturday.
The Bears conclude a busy three-in-three weekend on Sunday when they host the Lehigh Valley Phantoms at Giant Center.
By The Numbers - John Carlson led the Caps with 27:24 in ice time on Saturday … T.J. Oshie and Michal Kempny paced the Capitals with four shots on net each … Niskanen led the Caps with eight shot attempts and four hits … Kempny led the Caps with three blocked shots.