Dec. 5 vs. Anaheim Ducks at Honda Center
Time: 10:00 p.m.
TV: MNMT
Radio: 106.7 THE FAN/Caps Radio Network
Washington Capitals (17-9-2)
Anaheim Ducks (16-10-1)
Two of the NHL’s division leaders clash in Anaheim on Friday night when the Caps conclude their four-game road trip against the Ducks at Honda Center. The Caps will be seeking a clean sweep of the trip – and their seventh straight victory – while the Ducks will be aiming to bounce back from a bad beat on home ice Wednesday night against Utah.
Playing for the second time in as many nights on Wednesday in San Jose, and facing a more rested Sharks squad, Charlie Lindgren kept San Jose at bay early and the Caps attack got rolling midway through the first period. Washington erupted for four goals in a span of 8 minutes and 42 seconds in the opening period and it never looked back, cruising to a 7-1 victory and a season-high six-game winning streak.
Ryan Leonard (two goals, two assists), Alex Ovechkin (two goals) Matt Roy (three primary assists), Brandon Duhaime (Washington’s first shorthanded goal of the season and an assist) and Trevor van Riemsdyk (two assists) all had multi-point games, pacing an attack that produced on the power play and while shorthanded, and which included an assist from Lindgren to augment the goaltender’s 23-save night; he won his fourth straight start.
Logan Thompson – whose next victory will be the 100th of his NHL career – also has won each of his last four starts for Washington, marking the first time the Caps have had a pair of goaltenders win as many as four straight starts concurrently since Pheonix Copley won five straight starts from Feb. 7-March 10, 2019 while Braden Holtby was also authoring a five-start winning spree from Feb. 26-March 8, 2019.
The 20-year-old Leonard and the 40-year-old Ovechkin became the first pair of teammates aged 20 or younger and 40 or older to score multiple goals in the same game in NHL history. Leonard also became just the fourth Capital in the last 40 years to register a four-point game at age 20 or younger, joining Nicklas Backstrom (five times), Ovechkin (twice) and Jaroslav Svejkovsky (once) in that distinction.
All seven Washington goals came from its forward group on Wednesday, but the Caps’ back end combined for seven assists – five of them primaries – from four different defensemen in the win. The Caps’ blueline corps leads the NHL in goals (22) points (78) and points pct (30.1) heading into Thursday night’s NHL activity.
The Caps played Wednesday’s game without John Carlson (upper body) and Justin Sourdif (lower body), but they did get Nic Dowd back in the lineup after an eight-game absence with an upper body injury.
Carlson was on the ice for warmups, took line rushes and was listed on the pregame lineup sheet handed out in the San Jose press shelf, so he was likely a late scratch, and hopefully his absence will be brief. Caps coach Spencer Carbery indicated after the game that Sourdif’s absence might be a bit more lingering.
“I’ll have a better idea once we talk to [director of sports medicine/head athletic trainer Jason Serbus], said Carbery of Sourdif. “Nothing long term, but going to miss a little bit of time.”
Leonard’s recent rise has him in third place among rookie NHL forwards in scoring this season, with 18 points (seven goals, 11 assists) in 28 games. Friday’s game pits two of the League’s top three rookie scorers; Anaheim’s Bennett Senecke (7-13-20) shares the lead with Montreal’s Ivan Demidov (6-14-20).
Leonard was efficient in Wednesday’s win, putting up those four points in less than 14 minutes (13:39) of ice time. According to Stathead Hockey, over the last quarter century in which the League has ice time data available, Leonard is the seventh player to have a four-point game with less than 14 minutes of ice time.
“The talent and the drive that he has as a young man, I saw that day one,” says Carbery. “It’s only a matter of time. And to have nights like this as a player in this League, and to have four points and score the goal he scored tonight – I’m sure I’m going to see it all over social media and Sports Center at some points – he’s shown that talent even going back to development camps and in college. But what he’s doing is he’s continuing to push – like I’ve said over the last few weeks – to get better, and better, and better, and he’s very driven.
“And that’s where you’re excited as a coach, because he’s so coachable and he wants to get better and he wants information and I think that’s a big reason why you see a young man like that continue to just chip away and earn more opportunity, and to just continue to produce and play better.”
Among all rookie NHL forwards, Leonard’s total of 60 shots on net is second only to New Jersey’s Arseny Gritsyuk, who has played 27 games to Leonard’s 28. Gritsyuk has averaged 14:50 per game in ice time this season, to just 13:38 for Leonard. The Washington winger leads all NHL rookie forwards (12 or more games) with 1.1 primary assists/60, and he also leads all rookie forwards with 15 penalties drawn.
With 40 shot attempts blocked, Leonard leads all rookie forwards. And with 28 missed shots, he ranks second behind only the Blues’ Jimmy Snuggerud (35). As you’d surmise, Leonard leads – by a wide margin – all NHL rookie forwards in shot attempts/60 (19.02), so we can only imagine where his game goes when he A) begins to earn more ice time and B) tweaks his radar just a bit, as he did in San Jose on Wednesday, leading Washington with six shots on net, missing just once and having none of his attempts blocked.
While the Caps were dealing out a beating in Northern California on Wednesday, the Ducks were on the wrong end of one at home the same night, absorbing a 7-0 drubbing from the Utah Mammoth in Anaheim.
Anaheim is currently without each of the top two netminders on its goaltending depth chart; both Lukas Dostal (upper body) and Petr Mrazek (lower body) are on injured reserve, so the Ducks have been rolling with veteran journeyman Ville Husso of late. Obtained from Detroit in a trade last February, the 30-year-old Husso started the season at AHL San Diego, but was summoned from that club on Nov. 26 when Dostal was injured.
Mrazek landed on IR days later, and Husso has now appeared in each of Anaheim’s last four games, starting three. In Wednesday’s loss, rookie goaltender Vyacheslav Buteyets entered in the third period, making his NHL debut.
Despite missing Dostal and Mrazek, the Ducks are still occupying the top perch in the tightly packed Pacific Division standings, where six points separate the top six clubs in the division entering Thursday night’s slate of NHL activity.
