POSTGAME NOTEBOOK: Caps 4, Jackets 0

Treat Me Like A Saturday Night - On Saturday night in Columbus, Braden Holtby quieted the cannons. The Caps goalie stopped all 28 shots he faced in a 4-0 shutout win over the Blue Jackets at Nationwide Arena, where a cannon erupts loudly after every goal from the home team. Holtby also quieted the Saturday night home crowd in Columbus, giving the locals nothing to cheer about and notching his 11th win of the season.

"A strong game from our full group tonight, from top to bottom," says Caps coach Todd Reirden. "Obviously Holtby played exceptional as well. It was a strong team effort from us tonight."
The Caps in front of Holtby were also exceptional, frustrating the Jackets' forecheckers and generating odd-man opportunities and offense for themselves.
"We know this is one of the better forechecking teams in the league," says Reirden of the Blue Jackets. "We had a pretty good plan when we were going back for pucks and we were able to execute. And because they're so aggressive on their forecheck, you can take advantage of some odd-man rushes and we were able to do that tonight."
While the Caps have had success in this building over the years - going 12-6-2 in 20 regular season games here - Holtby's shutout was the first ever for a Washington goaltender in Columbus. His previous career shutout over the Jackets was a 5-0 win in the District on Jan. 5, 2017, the night the Caps stopped Columbus' 16-game winning streak, one shy of the NHL record. Saturday's shutout stopped Columbus forward Cam Atkinson's scoring streak at 12, one shy of Ryan Johansen's 13-game Blue Jackets record.
Over the course of his career in Saturday games, Holtby is now 58-19-10 with 10 of his 34 career shutouts. He owns a 2.21 GAA and a .924 save pct. on Saturdays.
Line Dancing - Reirden put Evgeny Kuznetsov's line on the ice to start Saturday's game, and the Jackets went with Boone Jenner's line in response. With a faceoff in the Washington zone just 16 seconds in, Reirden replaced the Kuznetsov group with Nicklas Backstrom and company. Columbus coach John Tortorella put out his top line with Pierre Luc-Dubois in the middle.
Nothing unusual there, but late in the first minute of play, Reirden went right back to Kuznetsov's line rather than continuing to cycle through his four lines as is typical at the start of a game. When Tortorella did continue to cycle through his lines by going with the Alexander Wennberg/Brandon Dubinsky line, it may have given the Caps a slight advantage early in a road game, with their second line out against the Jackets' third.
The ploy paid off when Brett Connolly scored on a two-on-one rush, giving the Caps a 1-0 lead at 1:42 of the first, and taking the Saturday night home crowd out of the contest early. Just after the midpoint of the first, the Caps' fourth line also victimized the Wennberg-Dubinsky-Anthony Duclair trio, scoring a Dmitrij Jaskin goal off a strong forecheck to make it 2-0.
"Sometimes you've got to try to stay one step ahead of the game on the road," says Reirden. "Our group is really aware on the bench, and we like to change up some of our match-ups throughout the game, and they're ready to go and take advantage of favorable looks for our team and we were able to do that early on in the game."
Soon afterwards, Tortorella splintered that Wennberg-Dubinsky-Duclair line for the rest of the night; they took just one more long shift together later in the first.
Firsts For the Fourth - Caps fourth liners Dmitrij Jaskin and Travis Boyd both scored their first goals of the season in Saturday's game, Jaskin netting his first goal in a Caps sweater and Boyd scoring the first goal of his NHL career.
Jaskin has been playing strong hockey for weeks without any scoreboard reward; Boyd's pass to him took a favorable carom off his skate blade and went in to make it 2-0 midway through the first.
Playing his second straight game after sitting out three games as a healthy scratch, Boyd scored Washington's fourth goal of the game in the third period, converting an Alex Ovechkin feed off an odd-man rush. Boyd has a goal and three points in two games since returning to the lineup.
"I think we were just skating well," says Boyd, "getting pucks in and getting it back, and then just trying to make plays as much as we can. We were able to make a couple, and I thought we were really good tonight. It was a great team win."
Along with linemate Nic Dowd, the Caps' fourth line turned in another strong performance, regularly playing in the offensive zone and helping to prevent the Jackets from getting any kind of momentum started. Washington's fourth line combined for six shots on net, 11 shot attempts, two goals and four points.
"It's great that we got our first ones today, me and Boyder," says Jaskin. "I think it was a great game not just by our line, but by the whole team."
This One Goes To Eleven - With his goal late in the first period, Ovechkin extended his scoring streak to 11 straight games (10 goals, six assists). He is now two games shy of matching his career standard, a 13-game from Jan. 1-Feb. 1, 2007. Ovechkin's goal was his 22nd of the season; he leads the league in that department.
Also Streaking - Connolly has points in four straight games (one goal, four assists) and Jakub Vrana has matched his career best with a three-game scoring streak (three goals, one assist). Connolly and Vrana each have 18 points on the season, tied for fifth on the team.
Down On The Farm -The AHL Hershey Bears were home on Saturday night, hosting the Hartford Wolfpack. The Bears doubled up Hartford, 6-3.
After the Wolfpack took an early 1-0 lead on a power-play goal, Mike Sgarbossa evened it up for the Bears with his 10th goal of the season at 13:20 of the first. Nathan Walker and Colby Williams collected assists on the goal.
Maximilian Kammerer netted his first career AHL goal at 3:27 of the second to give the Bears a 2-1 lead, Williams and Mason Mitchell assisting. Hartford tied the score at 2-2 with another power-play goal midway through the middle period, but Liam O'Brien answered on a Hershey power play to make it 3-2 for the Bears at 17:11 of the second. Williams claimed his third assist of the night, and Connor Hobbs picked up a helper on the goal, too.
With help from Tyler Lewington and Kammerer, O'Brien netted his second of the night and 11th of the season at 6:30 of the third, the goal that would prove to be the game-winner.
At 10:13 of the third, Garrett Pilon netted his first AHL goal to make it a 5-2 game, Tobias Geisser and Lewington assisting. Less than two minutes later, Sgarbossa scored his second goal of the game on a Bears power play, making it 6-2 with help from Aaron Ness and Jayson Megna at 11:38.
Five of Hershey's six defensemen picked up assists in the game, and Ilya Samsonov made 28 saves in boosting his record to 4-8-0 on the season.
Hershey hosts Wilkes-Barre/Scranton at Giant Center on Sunday afternoon.
Down a level, the ECHL South Carolina Stingrays made it a clean sweep Saturday night for the Washington organization with a 4-3 overtime win over the Atlanta Gladiators at North Charleston Coliseum.
Tad Kozun scored the game-winner at 1:35 of overtime to complete the Stingrays' comeback from a 3-1 third-period deficit. Cameron Askew scored a pair of power-play goals in the third to tie it, and Matt Pohlkamp also scored for South Carolina. Parker Milner made 29 saves to improve to 6-5-0 on the season.
The Stingrays and Gladiators are right back at it on Sunday, but with a shift of venue. They'll finish off the home-and-home set with a matinee in Atlanta.
By The Numbers - Dmitry Orlov led the Caps with 21:35 in ice time … Ovechkin led the Caps with five shots on net and nine shot attempts … Five different Caps were credited with one hit each for a team total of five … Ovechkin and Michal Kempny each had two blocked shots to lead the Caps … Backstrom won only one of eight face-offs in the first, but the one he won led to a goal a dozen seconds later … Kuznetsov won nine of 15 draws (60 percent).