The Washington Capitals are finally on their way back to DC. The Caps wrapped up their season-long, six-game road trip on Wednesday with a 4-1 win over the Philadelphia Flyers.

Winning makes everything feel better.

• The Flyers are a bad team that the Capitals should be beating every single time they play them this season. The Caps did what they needed to do at five-on-five in this one by shutting the game down defensively against a talent-deficient Philadelphia side. Philly only recorded six high-danger chances in the game and three of them came in the third period alone.
• Two key offseason additions helped pushed the Caps toward securing the two points. The first being Dylan Strome who tallied the game-winning goal. Strome now has 22 points in 28 games this season for the Caps and has formed quite good chemistry with linemates Alex Ovechkin and Conor Sheary. That top trio was the Caps’ best at five-on-five, with the team finishing the game with positive differentials in shot attempts (+5), scoring chances (+6), and high-danger chances (+3) with them on the ice.
• The other summer addition having to do a bunch of work of late is Charlie Lindgren. Forced into a surprise starting role due to Darcy Kuemper’s injury, Lindgren has responded with two wins in two starts. The mustached man between the pipes only gave up three total goals in those two games and saved 57 of 60 shots against.

Alex Ovechkin is now on pace to score 43 goals this season. Should Ovechkin reach the 40-goal mark, it would mark his 13th career 40-goal season, passing Gretzky (12) for the most in NHL history.

— CapitalsPR (@CapitalsPR) December 8, 2022

• Alex Ovechkin scored twice into an empty net for his 14th and 15th goals of the season. Ovi is now just 99 goals away from tying Wayne Gretzky for first in all-time goals. His second tally was his 50th career empty net marker. It also made Travis Konecny very mad for exactly zero reasons and we got to hear Alan May call Konecny a rat during the postgame show which was great fun.
• The Capitals are now 12-1-1 when scoring three or more goals this season. They should simply score three or more goals in every single game.
• If you were unaware, Hendrix Lapierre leads the Hershey Bears in both goals with 7 and total points with 16. That is incredibly encouraging coming from a player that we mainly know as mainly a passer and normally a playmaker for others. Keep it going, Lappy.

Numbers thanks to Hockey-reference.com and NaturalStatTrick.com.