Takeaways From Capitals Romp Over Devils

While afternoon games aren’t their usual forte, the Washington Capitals used a strong second period to notch their second straight win with a 4-2 decision over the New Jersey Devils.

Trailing 1-0 in the first, the game turned on a power play where Ryan Leonard delivered a highlight-reel goal with 3:18 left in the frame, splitting a pair of Devils defenders and sneaking the puck past Jake Allen.

”He makes a huge play and basically brings the building to life and brings our bench to life, and then that snowballs to your point of grabbing that momentum and taking it into the intermission, and then taking over the game in the second. So it was a huge point, huge moment,” Spencer Carbery said. “I mean, highlight reel … You’ll be seeing that, I have a feeling all year long.”

”The first time, the first break in we had, I picked it to Stromer and, um, thought they were kind of overplaying that a little bit,” Leonard said.

”It was a lot of fun to get the game tied and get our power play going,” he added.

From there, the Capitals reeled off three consecutive tallies to roll to a rare matinee laugher and moved to 4-1 in divisional play and 5-3-0 on the season.

“I thought the guys stuck with it and (were) able to rally for, you know, 4 in a row is huge,” Logan Thompson said in a boisterous Capitals locker room afterwards “And, you know, able to lock it down a third.”

76 seconds into the second, Ilya Protas picked up his first goal of the season, taking a pass from Alex Ovechkin and snapping the puck past Allen.

“We had a perfect view from the bench, and it flips up on his on his blade and just an absolute BB that you could see clear as day was going in the second he released it,” Carbery said.

”It was a great pass, and as soon as I kind of saw him looking at me, I’m like, yeah, it’s, he’s gonna try to make ia play, and it was a great pass, and right to my tape,” a grinning Protas said.

Just 3:20 later, Dylan Strome got his first of the year, poking a loose puck in the crease past Allen for a two-goal lead. Washington then put the game out of reach as Boone Jenner took a Vincent Desharnais point shot and beat Allen for a 4-1 edge. The goal was Jenner’s fourth in five games, as the newcomers on the Capitals continue to push the pace.

Unlike the majority of the season, when the Capitals relied on their goaltending, they limited a talented Devils lineup to 14 shots in the first two periods, and instead pressured New Jersey to make mistakes in their own end.

The Devils opened the third with a 10-1 edge in shots, but Thompson was up to the task playing with a three-goal lead. He ended up with 29 saves on the afternoon, a majority of them coming in the third with the game in hand and stopping 16 of 17 shots. New Jersey got a late tally to make the score closer, but it was too little, too late despite the Devils’ best frame.

“They have probably 4, let’s just call it 4 or 5, like, grade A chances in the 1st 5 minutes [of the third],” Carbery said. 
“If they score one of those, if one of those goes in, it’s 4-2, and there’s 60 minutes to go in the game.

“So, like imagine that scenario: if you’re sitting there as a coach, as a player, as a fan, like now it’s game on. So he makes those 5, whatever, huge saves there, keeps them off the board, and basically just sort of calms everything down to where we’re gonna be able to close.”

Washington also played a cleaner game after taking two sloppy penalties in the first 8:03, although part of that was a noticeable lack of pressure from New Jersey once Washington evened the score late in the first.

The Capitals continue their homestand Tuesday when the Los Angeles Kings make their lone appearance at Capital One Arena, with the Capitals holding a 4-1 mark at home. Washington will also face the Buffalo Sabres and Philadelphia Flyers before Ovechkin heads to his final regular-season game in Nashville next Thursday.

But for a rare afternoon, the Capitals delivered a solid effort and picked up 2 points without much drama.