Courtesy: Geoff Burke – USA TODAY Sports
WASHINGTON, D.C. — The Washington Capitals are now 10-3-0 when scoring first during the 2013-14 season as they started strong and finished off the Nashville Predators 5-2 at Verizon Center.
At the end of the first stanza, Washington had jumped out to an early 3-1 lead and never trailed at any point throughout the game. It’s hard to believe that the Capitals, for the 25th time in 29 games, allowed more than 30 shots on goal as the pace of the game was seemingly dictated in their favor throughout.
Once again, the Capitals second line found themselves on the contributing end in this contest unlike how they started the season before forwards Eric Fehr and Mikhail Grabovski were inserted into the threesome along with Troy Brouwer. The line contributed two goals, including Brouwer’s sixth of the season, where Nashville goalie Marek Mazanec lost sight of the puck after a barrage of shots from the Capitals.
“Lately, a lot of the time, we’ve been coming from behind and having to come down from either one or two goals,” Brouwer said. “You’re not going to have a ton of success later in the season doing that. We were able to squeeze out some points here and there, but you can only win so many games like that. For us, we wanted to get off to a good start like we did last game and we did. Going into the last minute with a three-goal lead, we would have liked to have had that one back, but we were still in a good situation after the first period.”
Brouwer wasn’t the only winger on his line to contribute in the goal category as Fehr added a goal late in the third period. Fehr has been one of the better surprises as of late for head coach Adam Oates as he has not lacked effort on a single shift he’s played and it’s showing in his play. The left wing has talked about how keeping it simple has aided the line in the past and last night was no different for his mates.
“I think we were getting a little bit too fancy,” Fehr said. “We’re looking for that perfect, tap-in, backdoor play. We talked before the game ‘Let’s just get pucks to the net and just crash and get some rebounds and try to get a [gritty] one.’ It worked out.”
As impressive as the offense was for the Capitals, defensively they played a fairly solid game given all of the youth at the back. Washington blocked 22 shot attempts from Nashville and while goalie Braden Holtby did have to make 34 stops, Oates can’t be too down on his d-men for allowing that many shots. It’s happened all season, it’s just a matter of limiting the opportunistic chances of the opponents. Defenseman Patrick Wey made his NHL debut and was paired with Dmitry Orlov on the third line. Oates said while the puck sometimes appeared like a “foreign object” to Wey on certain shifts, he and Orlov got into the flow of the game and shelled out a decent performance. Holtby was pleased by the third pairing’s efforts.
“I thought they looked fine,” Holtby told reporters. “I thought Patrick held himself very well. Everyone knows the nerves he had in [his] first NHL game. He looked calm and composed and hopefully he can keep that up.”
Two other defenseman set two milestones and had some fun with them in the locker room after the game. Karl Alzner and Nate Schmidt both netted goals yesterday and these points were monumental for vastly different reasons. Alzner has played in 148 home games at Verizon Center in his NHL career. Until last night, he had never scored a single goal in D.C. Schmidt, a rookie defenseman, has yet to score an NHL goal period before Saturday night and fittingly, his first time lighting up the lamp in his career was at the friendly confines of home cooking. Alzner and Schmidt knew they were due, but didn’t think they’d break their goalless streaks this way.
“Me and Schmidty have been talking about that back and forth about how he hasn’t scored yet and I haven’t scored at home,” Alzner said. ” It was a little bit of a battle. In between the intermission, I said, ‘Alright Schmidty, now that I’ve scored, you can score.’ So, he went out and did it.”
“[Alzner] tapped me and said, ‘Hey, might as well right? I got my first home goal in my career, might as well chip in,'” Schmidt said. “I’m glad that it worked out that well.”
Oates knows that his team has to have a short memory as they face the New York Rangers at Madison Square Garden Sunday night. While they may miss Henrik Lundqvist — he took a loss last night to the Devils — Oates hopes that a game like this, where minutes were spaced out across all lines, can benefit his team against of one their bitter rivals.
“We talked about [distributing ice time] and being lucky enough to get that fourth goal,” Oates said. “They got a second one quick again. But the last 10 minutes, obviously, the intensity dropped a hair.”
Oates didn’t reveal a starting goaltender for Sunday, but he could look back to Braden Holtby for what would be his seventh-straight start. With the win, the Capitals are now sitting at 15-12-2 and are alone in second place in the Metropolitan Division with 32 points.
Notes: Alexander Ovechkin netted his 22nd goal of the season off of a face-off win from Nicklas Backstrom. The power play goal now puts him one behind franchise leader Peter Bondra as he has 136 career goals on the man advantage. Washington had more shot attempts than Nashville (69-66). The Capitals are now 10-3-0 when scoring first in the 2013-14 season. Despite being outshot 36-33, the Capitals blocked 22 shots from the Predators. If you didn’t watch the game, you must watch the brawl that ensued between Tom Wilson and Rich Clune HERE.
