Down two goals after one period of play on Thursday night at Salt Lake City’s Delta Center, the Capitals roared back and pushed Utah out of the contest offensively and physically, skating off with a 7-4 win over the Mammoth.
Caps captain Alex Ovechkin scored two huge goals in the second period and finished the night with an empty-net goal for his 34th career hat trick, pushing past Brett Hull (33) and into third place on the NHL’s all-time list. Ivan Miroshnichenko scored his first two goals of the season and Washington defensemen had a hand in each of the team’s first six goals, combining for a goal and seven points.
“There’s a lot going on in that game,” says Caps coach Spencer Carbery. “For our group to be down in that game, and you can feel coming in down 3-1 [after one], not an ideal scenario. But I felt pretty good about the way the demeanor inside our locker room was, on our bench, so I knew and was fairly confident that we weren't going to lay down in that hockey game.
“And then a couple things happened through the game. [Ovechkin] gets going in the second period, scores a couple of big goals for us. We grab a little momentum and we build off that; we don't just settle on the one goal, we sort of compounded it in a couple other shifts for other lines and [defense] pairs. And then sticking up for one another, and guys just doing everything they could to find a way to win a hockey game and battle for one another was, what was impressive.”
Washington jumped out to an early lead on Miroshnichenko’s first goal of the season. Two nights ago in St. Louis, Miroshnichenko fired a shot off the left post on his second shift of the night. Tonight, on his first shift of the game in Salt Lake City, Miroshnichenko took a tee-up feed from Hendrix Lapierre just above the right circle and he clapped a shot just inside that left post and past Utah netminder Vitek Vanecek to lift the Caps to an early 1-0 lead at 2:07 of the opening frame.
In the back half of the first, the Mammoth sandwiched a pair of power-play goals around a 5-on-5 strike to take a two-goal lead to the room at first intermission.
Dylan Guenther scored each of the first two Utah goals. Guenther tied the game on a shot from the slot on the power play at 13:04. On his next shift, he took a feed from Clayton Keller and carved his way to the Capitals cage before tucking a backhander from the top of the paint at 16:59.
Caps goalie Logan Thompson made two key stops on a breakaway and a 2-on-1 while the Caps were on the power play to keep his team close, but events in the penultimate minute of the first led to the third Utah tally. Utah’s Brandon Tanev put a hard hit on Washington defenseman Matt Roy, a blow that put Roy’s head hard into the glass. In the aftermath of the hit, Caps winger Tom Wilson and Tanev began barking and clawing at one another, the former showing some frustration over the latter’s unwillingness to fight.
A lot of squawking and a long delay ensued, and the stripes held a brief convention at center ice to decide what they saw. And what they decided they saw was Wilson doing four minutes worth of roughing damage to two minutes of boarding penance for Tanev, plus additional 10-minute misconducts for both players.
Once the lengthy delay ended, the Mammoth snuck another power-play goal in ahead of the buzzer; Logan Cooley bumped home a rebound of a Nick Schmaltz shot at 19:53 of the first.
The Caps clawed their way even on a pair of Ovechkin goals in the middle period. First, the captain redirected a nifty Rasmus Sandin feed past Vanecek at 5:01 of the second period to make it a 3-2 contest.
In the back half of the middle period, the Caps strung together a few good offensive zone shifts in succession, and that sequence culminated with Ovechkin’s second goal of the night, a wrist shot from center point off a feed from Dylan Strome at 11:28.
Tanev was released from the box after the second Ovechkin goal, and two seconds later, he and Washington winger Brandon Duhaime dropped mitts, Duhaime apparently a more suitable opponent for Tanev’s taste. After Duhaime won the bout and took down the veteran Mammoth winger, the entire Washington bench emptied as Caps players skated over to the penalty box and essentially formed a receiving line to show their appreciation for Duhaime.
“I love that stuff,” says Carbery. “I'm a sucker for that stuff, where guys have so much appreciation and so much love for their brother that just threw down for them and did that. And Marty [Fehervary] couldn't make it over there; he's trying to save his legs. I go, ‘Marty, what are you doing? You’ve got to get over there. He's like, ‘I’ve got to save my legs.’
“But it was impressive to see. But that's our group. It's a brotherhood in there, and they love each other. And when they see stuff like that, they're so proud of each other, and want to congratulate them.”
Wilson was released at the next stoppage, and with less than two minutes left in the second, he was sent off for a hit on Utah’s Jack McBain. Officials reviewed the shoulder to shoulder hit and ultimately decided that Wilson was guilty of interference, putting the Mammoth power play unit back on the ice.
Washington killed off the carryover power play without incident, but Utah was still choosing violence as Wilson exited the box. The Mammoth sent Lawson Crouse out to go after Wilson, and the Utah winger was seven seconds into his shift when he and Wilson dropped mitts.
That’s the last we saw of Crouse. He took a drubbing and also incurred a misconduct and an instigator minor which put the Washington power play on the ice. The Caps’ extra-man unit hasn’t had a banner season and wasn’t having a banner night, either. But they locked in and used Utah’s aggressiveness against it, taking the lead for good when Anthony Beauvillier tipped home Cole Hutson’s center point shot at 2:43 of the third.
The Caps seemed bent on making Crouse and the Mammoth pay, and they did so.
“Yeah, of course,” says Beauvillier, asked if they had extra impetus from the circumstances. “I think it's kind of like that after every penalty, where anytime you get power play goals, it's such a big difference in the game, and especially that one. Like I said, it was an emotional game, and after a penalty like that, we you want to take advantage of that.”
Just over three minutes later, with Vanecek out of position on a goalmouth scramble, Beauvillier fed Sandin, who cranked a one-timer into the yawning cage at 6:03 of the third, giving the Caps a two-goal lead, a real luxury of late.
Alas, the Mammoth’s MacKenzie Weegar scored to pull Utah within a goal at 8:06, putting some life back into the crowd.
Miroshnichenko’s second of the night restored the two-goal lead at 9:54, and it also ended Vanecek’s night; he departed in favor of Karel Vejmelka after being dented for six goals on 23 shots in 49:54 in the crease.
Ovechkin deposited a Strome feed into the empty net to seal the deal. Ovechkin has played two games at Delta Center, scoring five goals and breaking his leg here last year.
Asked if he likes playing in the building, Ovechkin responded, “I guess so, Good thing I didn’t get hurt.”
Utah coach Andre Tourigny wasn’t pleased with the way his team handled its emotions in an important game.
“I am disappointed in the way we controlled our emotions,” says Tourigny. “I am a big believer in team toughness, showing up for your teammates, and stuff like that. But there is a way to do it. The more important thing is that we got carried away emotionally. It’s part of the game, but you need to stay composed, and you need to keep playing.
“We got carried away from there, and that cost us. That's the first thing. The second thing is we need to be better at staying present and staying focused on what we have to do. We take leads, then we focus on the outcome we want instead of on what we have to do to keep playing well and paving our way.
“Instead, we focus on the outcome and get paralyzed. That is the situation of the standings and everything. We need to apply pressure and react to it in better ways.”
