POSTGAME NOTEBOOK: Caps 6, Isles 3

I'm Not Down - Oliver Wahlstrom's first NHL goal came at 9:50 of the first period on Thursday at Capital One Arena, putting the Caps down a goal against the Islanders at 1-0. This was no big deal, but when Casey Cizikas scored 18 seconds later, it marked the first time in the young season that Washington faced a multi-goal deficit. Anders Lee tallied on a New York power play late in the first, putting the Caps in a 3-0 hole as they trudged to the room after the first 20 minutes of play.

This was the first time in the young season that the Caps went to the locker room trailing at any intermission.
Playing without several mainstays and key players in the lineup for a fourth straight game, it didn't seem to be Washington's night, and a three-goal hole against the defensive-minded Isles seemed like a big hill to climb. The Caps managed to pick up a point in each of their first seven games, but hey, nothing lasts forever. The first several minutes of the second period offered little to no indication of a different outcome either.
But midway through the second period, the Caps erupted.
Conor Sheary started the outburst with his first goal as a Capital at 9:07. Sheary and the Caps then made the Islanders pay for a couple of icing calls, as T.J. Oshie - playing center for the first time as a pro - won the ensuing offensive zone draw and Sheary deflected a waist-high point shot from Zdeno Chara. Sheary's second goal in as many shifts made it a 3-2 game.
Garnet Hathaway squared the score at 11:11, and Washington's third goal in a span of just 2:04 prompted Isles coach Barry Trotz to call his timeout.
When Wahlstrom was boxed for hooking, Carlson one-timed a left-dot drive past Isles goalie Semyon Varlamov to give the Caps their first lead of the night. Washington has led at some point in each of its first eight games of the season.
With a minute and a half left in the middle frame, Chara completed the flurry of five goals in the frame, cranking a slapper home from the left point. The goal sparked a touching celebration in front of the Caps bench, as Chara's new teammates joyously mobbed him to commemorate his first goal in a Washington sweater.
Tom Wilson's empty-netter filled out the Caps' six-pack of unanswered strikes, putting a coda on an unlikely comeback and sending the Isles on their way out of the District with no points to show for their efforts.
New Kid(s) In Town - When the Caps received the shocking news last month of Henrik Lundqvist's heart ailment that forced the future Hall of Fame netminder to pause his career for the season, the team suddenly had a hole in its goaltending depth chart and $1.5 million worth of salary cap space. At that point, the Caps' hockey operations department opted to cast its lot with Ilya Samsonov and Vitek Vanecek in goal for this season, and it repurposed the $1.5 million to bring in free agents Sheary (on Dec. 22) and Chara (on Dec. 30).
Vanecek, Sheary and Chara made those decisions look good in Thursday's win.
Vanecek is now 4-0-2 in the first six starts of his NHL career, and he didn't get flustered at all after yielding three goals in the first. A comeback doesn't happen unless your goaltender holds the fort, and Vanecek stopped the last 22 shots he faced on the night.
"Every game he has given us an opportunity [to win]," says Caps coach Peter Laviolette of Vanecek. "And at 3-0, you're still going to need saves. Even if you're trying to fight your way back into it, you're still going to need saves along the way and he made those.
"Through it all, I thought he looked really calm in the third period. He just settled things down. When [the Islanders] were trying to press him in the [offensive] zone, he just tied pucks up. He gave us a chance to change, put it into face-off circles and pucks didn't go back alive. I thought he looked his best in the third."
Sheary was in Washington's bottom six for its first two games of the season, and then he was scratched for a pair of games in Pittsburgh against his former Penguin teammates. When Washington lost a handful of players because of COVID protocol and injuries, Sheary returned to the lineup and was put in a top six role in the two games against New York. He picked up his first point as a Capital with an opening night assist, but Thursday's goals were the first with his new team for the former 20-goal scorer.
"We have guys stepping in there - myself included - and you get to move up and down the lineup and get bigger roles," says Sheary. "Obviously a couple of younger guys are playing well for us. But we have a good system in place, we've got a good group of players and a lot of depth and I think we're just doing well with that."
At this time a month ago, Chara was still a free agent. In his short time in Washington, he has made a big impact both on and off the ice on his new teammates, and their display of affection and reverence for Chara after his goal on Thursday was truly heartwarming.
"It was awesome," says Laviolette. "There was a lot of emotion on the bench at that point; we had fought hard to get back into the game.
"Those things are good for a team. They can help galvanize a team where not everybody is new, but there are a lot of new pieces and our team is new. Comebacks and adversity and moments like that - everybody is pulling for Z to be the great player that he is and tonight I thought he had an awesome game both defensively and offensively.
"When that moment aroused his teammates, they let him know. It was pretty awesome. I said after the game it was one of the coolest things I've seen in a long time with regard to a teammate."
At 43, he is still playing upwards of 20 minutes a night and playing effectively. He has been on the ice for 10 of Washington's even-strength goals this season - ranking in the top 10 in the league in that department - and only three goals against.
Channel Z - With a goal and a helper against the Isles on Thursday, Chara became the fifth defenseman in NHL history to register a multi-point game at age 43 or older, joining Doug Harvey (five times), Tim Horton (two times), Chris Chelios (Oct. 20, 2007) and Allan Stanley (March 20, 1969) in achieving that distinction. The goal was Chara's 206th of his career; he ranks third among active defensemen behind only Shea Weber (220) and Brent Burns (212).
Chara has averaged 20:29 TOI this season and is on pace to become the first player since 1997-98 - both his first season and the NHL's first season of tracking time on ice - to average at least 20 minutes per game at the age of 43 or older. His 1,561 career games rank third among all active players, first among defensemen, and he trails Hockey Hall of Famer Nicklas Lidstrom by three games for fifth in NHL history among defensemen.
Chara became the second Caps player to score a goal beyond the age of 40, joining another former Boston blueliner on that short list. Way back in Washington's inaugural season of 1974-75, the late Doug Mohns was Washington's captain. He netted a pair of goals that season as a 41-year-old playing in his final NHL season. Mohns' career began in Boston in 1953 and stretched for 22 seasons.
Carry Fourth - Mike Sgarbossa is 28 years old. He was never drafted, but he has carved out a pro career for nearly a decade now, playing in 52 NHL games scattered over seven different seasons with four different organizations, and playing in half a dozen different AHL cities over the same time span. In the AHL, he is a top six center and he totaled 30 goals and 65 points for Hershey two seasons ago, career highs at that level.
Daniel Carr is 29 years old. He wasn't drafted either, but after four solid years at Union College he has also forged a pro career that now stretches into its seventh season, skating in 113 games for four different NHL teams and posting 20 or more goals in three of the five different AHL cities where he has also toiled.
Daniel Sprong is just 23. The native of Amsterdam is just the second Dutch-born player in the NHL, following in the skatesteps of Ed Kea, a defenseman who logged 583 games in the league from 1974-83. Sprong was a second-round draft pick of the Penguins in 2015 and he was just 18 when he first pulled an NHL sweater over his head. He has now played 103 games for three different NHL teams and has also played for three different AHL clubs, scoring 32 goals for Wilkes-Barre/Scranton in 2017-18.
For the last two games, Sgarbossa, Carr and Sprong have populated Washington's fourth line through a combination of circumstance and opportunity, and none of them knows how long this run will last together. But they're making the most of their time together. On Tuesday night, Carr set up Sprong's first goal as a Capital, the tying tally late in the second period of what would be a 3-2 Washington win. Two nights later, Sgarbossa found the scoresheet as well, picking up an assist on Chara's first goal as a Capital.
The newly cobbled fourth line has played hard and well in those two games, going up against one of the top fourth lines in the league and drawing the starting assignment against that Matt Martin-Casey Cizikas-Cal Clutterbuck line on Thursday. Sgarbossa's line has manufactured a goal in each game it has played.
"It beats practicing and training camp - that's for sure - playing an actual game," says Sgarbossa. "We seem to have good chemistry, the three of us, and it's really just about working hard and sticking to the system, and not getting too far away from what makes us strong, and that's our skating and that's our work ethic.
"For me, I'm just having so much fun out there and it's so enjoyable right now. It's great."
Sgarbossa got into a couple of midseason games with the 2019-20 Capitals, but his recent action is his first at this level in 14 months, and his assist on Chara's goal was his first NHL point since April 3, 2017 when he notched two-thirds of a Gordie Howe hat trick for Florida in a game against Montreal. Sgarbossa assisted on Jonathan Marchessault's 30th goal of the season that night and dropped the mitts with the Habs' Phillip Danault.
"It's a lot simpler," says Sgarbossa of the Laviolette system. "It's hockey, and he gives players the confidence to play. When you stick to a system that's easy to follow, you can turn your brain off and just play the right way. I think that's where the success is coming from right now. You see a lot of attempts at the net, and that's our plan, and it's working. It creates a lot of offense and makes the other team play in their own end and not in our end."
Big Boys - Playing without Alex Ovechkin, Evgeny Kuznetsov, Dmitry Orlov and Ilya Samsonov for the last four games, and also missing Lars Eller and Tom Wilson for games during that stretch, the Caps have continued to thrive thanks to contributions from the likes of Sgarbossa and his line, the tenacious checking of the Nic Dowd line, three straight multi-point games from defenseman Justin Schultz, and grunt work from unheralded blueliners like Jonas Siegenthaler and Trevor van Riemsdyk.
But the Caps core of veterans have also been instrumental in keeping the standings points coming while Washington is missing several of its main men.
Nicklas Backstrom has a four-game point streak (two goals, four assists) during the absence of the aforementioned quartet. Carlson has points in five straight games (two goals, five assists). T.J. Oshie has a goal and three points in those four games, and Wilson extended his point streak to five (four goals, three assists) on Thursday night.
Backstrom now has recorded 33 points (11 goals, 22 assists) in 28 games with Ovechkin out of the lineup, and he has points in seven straight games (four goals, five assists) without the Caps captain on the ice.
Take Five - A year and 10 days after their last-five goal eruption, the Caps did it again on Thursday night, victimizing the same opponent they punished with a five-spot in the same last January 18 on Long Island. In that game, Ovechkin's hat trick sparked a five-goal eruption in the third period in Washington's final game before the All-Star break, turning a 4-1 deficit into a 6-4 Caps victory.
Eight Miles High - With Thursday's win, Washington has a point in eight straight games (5-0-3) to start the season, eclipsing the franchise standard established in 2011-12 (7-0-0).
This One Goes To Eleven - When Sheary scored his second goal of Thursday's game with help from Chara and Richard Panik, it marked the 11th straight Washington goal in which a defenseman had a hand in the scoring.
Less than a minute later, Hathaway's goal broke that remarkable run; linemates Carl Hagelin and Dowd collected the helpers on Hathaway's goal, which was scored at - checks notes - 11:11.
Also, eleven different players earned points in the midst of Washington's five-goal outburst in the second period. Eerie.
On the season, the eight different Washington defensemen who have seen action have combined for seven goals and 23 points in eight games.
By The Numbers - For the eighth straight game, Carlson led the Caps in ice time at 25:38. He leads the team and ranks 10th in the NHL with an average of 25:10 per night … Panik led the Caps with three shots on net and Jakub Vrana led the Caps with seven shot attempts … Carr, Chara, Wilson and Brenden Dillon had two hits each to lead Washington … Chara led the Caps with three blocked shots … Dowd was a beast on the dot, winning 15 of the 25 draws the Caps won on the night. Dowd won 65 percent of his 23 draws while his teammates combined to win 10 of 33 face-offs (30 percent).