From the time he woke up in the morning, Tom Wilson had a day to remember on Wednesday. It started when he learned he and teammate Logan Thompson would be the first Capitals in franchise history to represent Team Canada in the Olympic Games, and it culminated with him showing the world why Team Canada made a wise decision to include him on its roster.
Wilson put his stamp on a tight contest, putting a hard, heavy hit on New York’s Noah Laba that resulted in Wilson scoring to snap a 1-1 tie, putting the Caps ahead for the remainder of the afternoon. Less than two minutes later, he fought New York’s Sam Carrick, who incurred a roughing minor on the sequence. Washington scored on the ensuing power play to carve out some critical breathing room in a Metro Division tilt that felt like a playoff game.
In a span of just minutes, Wilson created a two-goal cushion for his team in a critical contest.
Late in the third, Wilson scored his 200th career goal, then assisted on Justin Sourdif’s empty-net marker to complete the third Gordie Howe hat trick of his NHL career, and a 6-3 Capitals victory.
“That may be one of the best shifts I’ve seen in a long time,” says Caps coach Spencer Carbery. “Not to change the momentum; I thought we had a lot of momentum early in the hockey game and were playing well, moving our feet and skating well.
“It was just a heck of a shift, and just his overall body of work, I told the guys in there that could be one of the greatest days for a hockey player. Gordie Howe hat trick, plus one, his 200th career goal, and gets named to his national team and is going to represent Team Canada at the Olympics in Italy. You can’t get much better than that for a day.”
Soon after the midpoint of the opening period, Ryan Leonard made a nifty play to get the scoring started. From the left side of the ice, Leonard found a seam and fired a hard backhand feed to Anthony Beauvillier on the weak side. From the right circle, Beauvillier clapped it home for a 1-0 Washington lead at 12:27.
The Rangers pulled even in the final minute of the first frame, squaring the score at 1-1 when Vincent Trocheck tipped an Artemi Panarin left point shot past Charlie Lindgren at 19:20.
In the front half of the second, Wilson took over. First, he delivered a clean and heavy hit on Laba at center ice, right in front of the penalty boxes. As the Caps entered New York territory, they had a manpower advantage because Laba stayed down on the ice.
Rasmus Sandin moved the puck to Connor McMichael down low on the left side, and the latter put it to the front for Wilson, who popped it home to restore the Caps’ lead at 2-1 at 7:33.
Of course, we all knew someone from the Rangers would come after Wilson after the clean hit on Laba, and that someone was Carrick, less than two minutes after the Wilson goal. Wilson and Carrick fought, with Carrick incurring an additional minor for roughing, which put Washington on the power play.
With one second left on the man advantage, Sourdif converted an Alex Ovechkin feed at the top of the paint at 11:12, giving the Caps their first multi-goal lead in nearly two weeks. Sourdif’s first career power-play goal came on a primary assist from his boyhood hero, Ovechkin.
“Getting a chance to play with him on a line, I know he throws a lot of pucks to the net, and that's how you score goals. And whether it goes off a couple skates and then it ends up right on your stick, I just go to the net when he has a puck on his stick and good things will happen.”
The Rangers began to push back in the back half of the second, and they were able to close the gap when Adam Fox fired a center point drive past Lindgren on a New York power play at 15:17. Playing his first game back in the lineup after an absence of 14 games, Fox figured in the scoring of each of the first two New York goals.
Eight days after losing hold of a 3-2 third-period lead against the Rangers, the Caps entered the final frame in that exact situation again, and knowing the next goal would be a crucial one. The Rangers pressed hard for the equalizer, and veteran New York netminder Jonathan Quick kept his team in it with a stop on McMichael’s breakaway bid midway through the period.
Almost immediately after, Lindgren moved laterally to his right and made a dazzling windmill stop on New York’s Gabe Perreault, who was trying to finish on a 2-on-1 rush.
“Two-on-one, and you just try to get over with as much equipment as you can,” recounts Lindgren. “And thankfully kept that puck out. I’ve said it before, but those are the fun ones.”
It was even more fun a couple minutes later when Sandin made a sublime feed to Aliaksei Protas for a redirect goal at the goalmouth, restoring the Caps’ two-goal cushion at 4-2 with just 6:26 remaining. About three minutes later, McMichael set up Wilson’s 200th career goal to make it a 5-2 contest.
New York’s Braden Schneider scored off the rush at 18:16, leading Rangers coach Mike Sullivan to pull Quick for an extra attacker. That’s when Wilson finished the Gordie Howe hat trick, feeding Sourdif for his second goal of the game in the final minute.
The Caps head to Ottawa to finish up a set of midweek back-to-backs on New Year’s Day against the Senators. The Rangers fly south to face Florida in Friday’s Winter Classic, and the Blueshirts do so have gone 1-3-1 in their last five games, all of which were played on the road.
“We had some looks,” says Sullivan. “The reality is, it’s a one-goal game for the majority of the game. We competed hard. I think we pressed down the stretch, we opened it up a little bit, and they took advantage of it.”
