After that dud against Buffalo, the Washington Capitals put their best skates forward to soundly defeat the Philadelphia Flyers on Saturday afternoon.
Alex Ovechkin scored on an early power play, a rare one (this season, at least, for now, at least) from the Ovi Spot. Ivan Provorov tied it in the final second of the first period.
Dmitry Orlov put his monster slapshot to work early in the second period, but a bad shift change allowed Trevor van Riemsdsyk to tie it up yet again with a two-on-oh rush. Alex Ovechkin drew a penalty and then immediately scored on the ensuring power play, his second from the Ovi spot of the day. Tom Wilson threaded a perfect pass to Evgeny Kuznetsov to make it 4-2 heading into the third period.
On a third period power-play, Wade Allison scored a layup for his first NHL goal, bring the Flyers within one. Conor Sheary tipped a set-play shot by Justin Schultz to put the Caps in Bailamos territory soon after. Anthony Mantha’s empty-netter sealed the deal.
Caps win!
Nothing is forbidden.
- The Capitals positively owned puck possession in this one. I think they played well (Kevin at Japers Rink made a great point about Mantha’s forechecking), but I also think the Flyers have sorta given up. They didn’t have much fight in them, except when the Caps made a bad line change or failed to get an easy clear.
- It was those mistakes that created the rare scoring chances by Philly, and it felt like they all ended up in the back of the net. Ilya Samsonov, just returned from missing a game with an upper-body injury, wasn’t great, but the D in front him wasn’t either.
- Further on the Caps forecheck, from Philly analyst Charlie:
I tracked entries/retrievals from the second period. The Caps dumped the puck in 12 times; they recovered 10 of them. In fact, they recovered the puck the first 9 times they dumped in it.
I’m not a big “criticize the effort” guy, but that’s seriously unacceptable d-zone effort.
— Charlie O’Connor (@charlieo_conn) April 17, 2021
- Alex Ovechkin notched two identical goals but was denied the hat trick. He’s one behind Marcel Dionne now.
- Zdeno Chara blew a few opportunities to clear the puck before Provorov’s goal late in the first. He wasn’t gonna let the team down late in the second.
Zee was BIG to end the second period pic.twitter.com/RLZbCnFluY
— Washington Capitals (@Capitals) April 17, 2021
- John Carlson got an assist on Washington’s first four goals, giving him 42 points on the season, most among any NHL defender. That alone is a case for the Norris.
- Tom Wilson‘s play and pass before Kuznetsov’s goal was a masterpiece.
- Garnet Hathaway was almost enticed to fight Justin Braun in the first period. He showed a lot of maturity in declining the offer and taking the power-play instead.
- Endlessly nauseated by the number of players who score their first NHL goal against the Caps. Today is was whoever the newest Weasley that the Flyers have signed.
- Anthony Mantha has three goals in three games. Decent start.
#JoeBSuitOfTheNight #CapsFlyers Olive! pic.twitter.com/Ju1ZEj2geF
— Ian Oland (@ianoland) April 17, 2021
That was a good hockey game, but miles from perfection. The Caps had some great even-strength attack, but they’re still allowing too many odd-man rushes and letting their trailing opponents hang around a bit too long. Let’s see if they can fare better 21 hours from now, as the Caps play another noon roadie in Boston.
RMNB Coverage of Caps at Flyers
Screenshot courtesy of NBC Sports Washington
