Tuch scores twice in debut, Capitals cruise past Hurricanes

RALEIGH, N.C. -- Alex Tuch scored two goals in his Washington Capitals debut, a 5-2 win against the Carolina Hurricanes at Lenovo Center on Friday.

The 30-year-old forward was acquired from the Buffalo Sabres in a sign-and-trade deal (eight years, $84 million; $10.5 million average annual value) on June 24.

Jakob Chychrun had a goal and an assist, and Ryan Leonard and Cole Hutson also scored for the Capitals in their season opener. Pierre-Luc Dubois and Dylan Strome each had two assists, and Logan Thompson made 31 saves. 

“Fantastic start," Washington coach Spencer Carbery said. "Right from puck drop, we liked a lot of the things we were doing early in the game. I thought we were handling their pressure. We got on their half (of the ice), capitalized early, attacked their net.”

Sebastian Aho and Logan Stankoven scored for the Hurricanes (0-1-1). Brandon Bussi made 22 saves.

Carolina opened the season with a 1-0 overtime loss at home to the Florida Panthers on Tuesday.

“There’s not a lot of positives out of that game,” Hurricanes coach Rod Brind’Amour said. “The start was not good. You get behind the 8-ball with kind of a freebie. You can’t give good teams free goals. I thought we gave two of those up tonight.

“We have a couple guys who need to get their game up. When we’ve got 20 guys rolling, we’re a good team. When we don’t, it’s too hard."

Tuch gave Washington a 1-0 lead at 6:33 of the first period. Dubois stripped the puck from Bussi behind the Carolina net and fed a backhand pass to Tuch, who scored between the circles into the open net.

“I don’t think I’ve scored many of those goals in my career,” Tuch said. “That was really nice. Great play by ‘Dubie’ on the forecheck there.

“First couple shifts, you’re a little nervous. Keep it simple. Getting that first one, definitely a good feeling, obviously an empty net. That’s a nice treat.”

Hutson extended it to 2-0 at 11:33, scoring on a short side snap shot off a pass from Ilya Protas.

Tuch’s second goal of the period pushed it to 3-0 at 14:23. He tapped the puck into the net after Tom Wilson’s shot from above the left circle trickled through Bussi.

“We were still getting outplayed a ton,” Carolina captain Jordan Staal said. “We weren’t playing our style and playing in their end and getting those bounces. The stress was on us a lot more than we wanted, and it showed.”

Chychrun made it 4-0 on the power play at 1:36 of the second period on a wrist shot from inside the blue line.

Aho scored a power-play goal off a feed from Andrei Svechnikov to cut it to 4-1 at 16:50.

Leonard answered eight seconds later to extend it to 5-1 after he drove the net and redirected a pass from Strome.

“Whenever you’re the next line up the shift after a goal, you’re trying to do something to gain some positive momentum,” Leonard said. “We were just looking for a rim going to my side, and next thing I know, I was looking at ‘Stromer’ on a 2-on-1. I just had to get to the back door, and he made a (heck of a) play.”

Stankoven cut it to 5-2 at 10:50 of the third period when he tipped K'Andre Miller's wrist shot from inside the blue line.

"We did start to find our game in the second half," Stankoven said. "But as we know, you can't take a period and a half off. I think we gave them some easy ones tonight. Just unacceptable on myself and everyone on our team tonight."

Washington was 5-for-6 on the penalty kill, breaking Carolina’s pressure in the second and third periods.

“Credit to the PKers,” Thompson said. “We were keeping afloat, we were grinding. That PK unit was huge tonight. Guys did an amazing job. It’s not easy killing that many penalties in a row.”

NOTES: Tuch became the fifth Capitals player to score two goals in his team debut, joining Mikhail Grabovski (three goals on Oct. 1, 2013), Scott Walker (two on March 4, 2010), Alex Ovechkin (two on Oct. 5, 2005) and Brian Bellows (two on March 28, 1998). Bellows is the only other to also score multiple in his first period of play. … Thompson passed Jose Theodore for the ninth-most wins in franchise history (63). … Jordan Kyrou, who was acquired from the St. Louis Blues on June 23, had two shots on goal in 12:16 of ice time in his Capitals debut.