Preseason NHL games typically don’t mean a lot, but don’t tell that to any of the 20 white-sweatered dudes who rolled up to Philadelphia on Saturday night to face what is essentially – aside from the goaltender – the Flyers’ opening night roster at Xfinity Mobile Arena.
Led by plucky goaltender Charlie Lindgren, whose 170 NHL games were easily the most of any of the five Caps with previous NHL experience, the Caps spotted Philly a 1-0 lead in the first minute of the middle frame before getting five unanswered goals from five different skaters in a 5-1 romp over the Flyers.
“I was proud of those guys,” says Caps coach Spencer Carbery. “They played their asses off in a real difficult situation, on the road to begin with, and against essentially Philly's opening night lineup.
“To play the way they did and just try to find a way to grind through that, Chucky was excellent. The [penalty kills], the [six] minutes in the first period, to get through those unscathed, and it felt like we got better as the game went on, too, a little bit more confidence grew amongst the group.”
Lindgren stopped 32 of the 33 shots he faced in 40 minutes of work, and he was his usual plucky self, laying out, diving and extending and contorting his body any way he could to make those saves.
“It is funny,” says Lindgren. And no offense to our group in here because our group was fricking awesome tonight. But just before the game, it almost felt similar to what you saw in the U.S./Russia Miracle movie, where it was just like pure silence in here; you could hear some tape. And then, gosh, we went out and put on a heck of a performance, and that's even Carbs said postgame. That's a preseason game none of us will ever forget. Just with the lineups, they had their full team, and we had pretty much no NHL guys and came out of there with the win.”
The Caps were whistled for three penalties in the first, and Lindgren made five of his 13 first-period stops while the Flyers were playing with the extra man. The veteran goaltender’s performance kept the game scoreless through the first 20 minutes.
In the second, Philadelphia defenseman Jamie Drysdale walked down Broadway and sniped a shot past Lindgren just 31 seconds into the frame, but that wasn’t the end of the Caps’ feel-good story.
Four minutes later, the Caps pulled even on the forecheck. Spencer Smallman made a play behind the Philly net, getting the puck to Andrew Cristall at the left post. From there, Cristall showcased the silky mitts to pull it forehand to backhand, then to the front and tuck it, tying the score at 1-1 at 4:32.
“On that play, we just got the puck in, and their goalie was handling it behind the net,” Cristall explains. “He tried to take it out, and Smallman did a great job and got to me as quick as possible, and had the open to put it in. And yeah, it was a really good play.”
Three minutes later, Maxim Schaefer made Philly defenseman Nick Seeler pay for an egregious turnover, firing a shot past Philly netminder Aleksei Kolosov to give the Caps a lead they would not relinquish at 7:36.
“I just bring the puck to the net, and I was very happy that it went in,” says Schaefer.
When Ethen Frank – with help from Louis Belpedio and Cristall – beat Kolosov with a flank one-timer on the power play at 12:36, the Caps suddenly had a multi-goal cushion.
Meanwhile, Lindgren was a human force field in the Washington crease. He turned aside all 20 Flyers shots in the long-change middle period, all of them coming at even strength. With each save, one could visibly see the Flyers grow more frustrated, and some post-whistle skirmishes began to dot the landscape.
Having faced a game’s work in 40 minutes in the nets, Lindgren yielded the crease to ex-Flyer Cal Petersen, who needed to make only four saves the rest of the way.
Early in the third, Theodor Niederbach curled off the left half wall after collecting another errant Philly pass, and he fired it home from just above the left circle to make it 4-1 at 1:07. That goal took the remaining starch out of the Flyers; they didn’t offer much in the way of offensive threats or resistance the rest of the way.
With 3:54 left, Alex Suzdalev and Petr Sikora combined to set up 19-year-old Lynden Lakovic for the fifth Washington goal.
And minutes later, the buoyant bunch reassembled in the locker room after a job well done.
Carbery told his team the same thing he told the media after the game.
“I told the guys this,” he began. “I've coached at a lot of different levels and coached a lot of preseason games, and you don't remember [them]. This one, you'll remember. You’ll remember when we went to Philly and these young kids – most of them are going to the American Hockey League or junior – that came in and beat Philly's opening night lineup.
“That's pretty impressive, and they should be proud of themselves and feeling good about what they just put on display.”
It was impressive. Twenty guys who had never taken the ice together for any game at any level, and with only five of them having any regular season NHL experience. They hadn’t practiced special teams, and it’s a virtual certainty that these same 20 guys will never take the ice together again.
“We had no practice time, or we didn't play together at all for the power play just a quick meeting before the game,” says Cristall. “First one was not the best that we could have put out there. The breakouts were just a little choppy, but obviously we need more reps get in the groove. And I think towards the end, especially when we got that goal, and then the last power play, we're really moving around well.
“I think they wanted to show well,” says Carbery. “And I told them Friday, I said, ‘These are tough scenarios, no doubt. You're going to play a really good team tomorrow, but it's a great opportunity to go play against NHL players and show what you're capable of doing.
“And the other thing that I that I give those guys a lot of credit for is we separated the groups at the beginning of training camp because of the length of the training camp, and so we were on the ice for both ice sessions, Group A and Group B, and this group was essentially Group B, the whole training camp.
“Their practices were so intense, physical, the detail, the habits. Every day, us as a staff would debrief and go, ‘That practice was excellent,’ every day. And they just did the drill, and everything that you wanted to see in the drill, they would do it. You talk about practice habits and ingraining those things, and then you get to go out and get an opportunity to play in an NHL exhibition game, and you get rewarded. So, I'm happy for the for the guys that played tonight.”
