Thanks to Chucky and Chychy, the Cockroach Caps leave Buffalo with a pair of points this Thursday night. Playing for the second time in as many nights, the Caps got a stellar netminding performance from Charlie Lindgren (29 saves) and they got what would prove to be the game-winning goal from Jakob Chychrun with just 93 seconds remaining in regulation.
The result was a 2-1 victory over the hottest team in the League at Buffalo’s KeyBank Center.
Thursday’s setback halted the Sabres’ eight-game winning streak; Buffalo had not lost since the Olympic break, winning all eight games in regulation and taking five of them by the margin of a single goal. Thursday’s setback was just the sixth suffered by the Sabres in their last 37 games (29-6-2) dating back the front half of December.
“I would say us probably getting into the [first] intermission and being down 1-0 was [important],” says Caps coach Spencer Carbery. ‘[The deficit] just being at one, we were able to just take a deep breath, regroup, talk about a few things that could help us structurally in the second period and for the last 40 minutes of the game, and the guys did an excellent job.”
Twenty minutes into Thursday night’s game against the Sabres in Buffalo, the Caps were a team that was taking on water. Buffalo swarmed the Capitals and threatened Lindgren constantly in the initial stanza, outshooting Washington by a 15-3 count and limiting the Caps to a paltry 29 seconds worth of puck possession in the offensive zone [according to SportLogiq].
Old friend Beck Malenstyn made a dazzling play at 6:02 of the first to set up Sam Carrick’s second goal in four games since joining the Sabres in a deal with the New York Rangers ahead of last week’s NHL trade deadline. After carving his way around the back of the Washington net, Malenstyn issued a stunning no-look backhand feed to Carrick for a back door tap in at the opposite post, staking the Sabres to an early 1-0 lead.
Buffalo kept the heat on the Caps and Lindgren early, seeking to break the road weary Washington squad, which had played and traveled the night before. The Caps dropped a 4-1 decision to the Flyers in Philadelphia, and then they were delayed getting out of the City of Brotherly Love, resulting in a 2 a.m. arrival at their Buffalo hotel.
But Lindgren weathered the early storm, which included a sublime sequence of three virtually identical blocker saves from Lindgren, all on Buffalo’s Tage Thompson, who was teed up repeatedly for left flank one-timers while the Sabres were on the power play late in the first period.
Three times in 10 seconds, Lindgren thwarted Thompson from 39 and then from 42 and finally from 43 feet away before Trevor van Riemsdyk blocked a fourth Thompson try, four seconds after Lindgren’s third stop on the Buffalo captain.
“That was probably one of the craziest sequences I've ever seen on a power play,” says Lindgren. “He was letting her rip three times in a row there. Obviously, the guy can shoot the puck, and thankfully, I kept those pucks out. But it's pretty funny after the period looking back at that.”
“I don't know if I've ever seen a sequence in 16 years of doing [this],” says Carbery, “where the crowd's like, it was almost like WWE, like, ‘One more, again, again!
“He was phenomenal tonight for us. And I give him a lot of credit, because Logan [Thompson's] been carrying a majority of the load, and Chucky getting in in a back-to-back against the hottest team in the National Hockey League, it's a tough scenario to be put in to. And Chucky, man, he had a great performance for his guys tonight, and I’m real, real proud of him, because obviously we know where we are, and every single game is we're hanging in the balance here. And so, for him to come in and play the way he did with what's at stake, I’m real proud of the performance he put forth today.”
Lindgren’s first-period performance is all that kept the Caps in the game in the first, and it was a critical component in picking up the two points. But so was Ryan Leaonard’s goal early in the second – on Washington’s first shot of the frame at 2:14 – a goal that evened the score before the Sabres could return to their dominant form of the game’s opening 20 minutes.
Leonard read and picked off and intended defense-to-defense pass high in Washington ice, then tore off toward the Buffalo end with Aliaksei Protas on his left. Leonard wisely called his own number, completing the swipe and snipe play with a shot that beat Ukka-Pekka Luukkonen on the stick side to square the score at 1-1.
“I just tried to pick off the pass and won a foot race,” says Leonard of his third goal in as many games and his fourth in the last five contests. “And the defenseman kind of took Pro away, and I just trusted my shot.”
Neither team generated much in the way of offensive threats over the remainder of the second, but the Caps were able to at least exceed their low first period bar in that regard while Lindgren stopped another 10 Buffalo bids in the middle frame.
Despite playing for the second time in as many nights and the third night in the last four, Washington had better legs in the third and it outshot the Sabres by 14-5 in the final frame.
Seeking to improve upon the 6-1-2 career mark he carried into Thursday’s game against Washington, Sabres goalie Ukka-Pekka Luukkonen was also strong in the third, stopping 13 of 14 shots.
It was the 14th shot that made the difference in the contest. With the Caps putting some pressure on the Sabres in Buffalo ice, Chychrun tried to get a tip on a van Riemsdyk point drive, and Protas was able to win an ensuing puck battle near the right post for the rebound.
Protas carried behind the Buffalo net with the puck on his backhand. As he reached the trapezoid line on the opposite side of the ice, he suddenly whirled and fired a forehand pass to the front, and Chychrun’s one-timer eluded Luukkonen on the short side, giving Washington its first lead of the night at 18:27 of the third.
“I found myself kind of low and almost got a tip on the shot from Riemer,” recounts Chychrun. “And me and Pro were just kind of whacking at it to keep it alive. And once he went around the net, I just tried to find a little soft area. And I don't even know if or how he saw me, but he put it obviously right on my tape. So, great play by him.”
Washington locked it down the rest of the way, and the Cockroach Caps – so dubbed by Brandon Duhaime – got out of town with a pair of desperately needed points.
“Brandon Duhaime has been calling us ‘The Cockroach Caps;’ we just won’t go away,” smiles Dylan Strome. “It seems like every time we lose, we’re basically done. We just find a way to gut out a gritty win.
“And that building was packed. I’ve never played in Buffalo when it’s been like this. Good for them, crazy atmosphere, and obviously they’re expecting big things from their team this year and they’ve proven that they’re a good hockey team.”
It all added up to Washington’s first win in Buffalo since a 4-3 shootout triumph on March 25, 2022 and its first regulation win here in Western New York since an April 9, 2021 win by the same score.
“After the first period, I don't think you would have had that game as a 2-1 hockey game in the Caps’ favor,” says Carbery. “So, credit to our guys for turning not just the momentum, but just a deep breath and a reset, at least. And it wasn't like [we had] the momentum, or we all of a sudden just dominated the rest of the 40 minutes; it just got a little bit cleaner."
