Like a Black Friday sale at Yankee Candle, Jakob Chychrun’s first goal of the 2025-26 season was a big one.
The Capitals’ defenseman scored the overtime game-winner against the Tampa Bay Lightning, muffing a one-timer just enough off the heel of his stick past Andrei Vasilevskiy.
Chychrun’s layup was generated by Tom Wilson, who, on the play, completed a three-point night and registered his 400th career point. Skating down the right wing and then behind the net, Wilson emerged on the other side and sent a pass to Chychrun, who was left unmarked by Lightning forward Anthony Cirelli at the far post.
“It’s one of those plays where you see a guy in a good spot and just try to take advantage of it, and Chychy made a great play to bang it in,” Wilson said.
“I just tried to support him on the entry,” added Chychrun. “I noticed my guy was snoozing a little bit, and just tried to go back post, and he hit me with a heck of a pass.”
For Capitals head coach Spencer Carbery, Chychrun’s goal was the “textbook” result of *everything else* that preceded it in overtime.
Dylan Strome won the opening faceoff with Nic Dowd on his wing just in case he was tossed from the faceoff circle. Dowd immediately went off for a shift change, getting Aliaksei Protas on the ice to join Strome and John Carlson on the ice. Then the Capitals went to work.
- Protas hits Strome wide open for a shot off the left post
- Carlson recaptures the puck and, on the reload, has a chance near the net
- Carlson regathers the puck, skates it around the net, and hits Protas for a shot from point-blank range that’s stopped by Vasilevskiy
- Carlson gets the rebound but his shot attempt misses the net to the corner boards
- Protas regathers the puck and hits Carlson for a one-timer at the top of the circles that’s blocked
- Strome gets the puck back and the Capitals backtrack to change on the fly as Tampa’s original starters are gassed and trapped on the ice
- Protas hits Chychrun, who had just jumped onto the ice, with a pass down the left wing and the Capitals defenseman skates the puck into the offensive zone
- Protas changes for Tom Wilson
- Chychrun reloads and gives Wilson the puck as he picks up steam in neutral
- Wilson skates down the right wing, behind the net, and hits Chychrun for the goal 1:19 into overtime
The Capitals had possession of the puck for all 79 seconds of OT. The Lightning’s Nikita Kucherov, Brayden Point, and Ryan McDonagh were on the ice for almost all of the extra session.
“What I told our guys, I mean that’s textbook how you would like to set up an OT,” Carbery said. “Win the opening draw, and then what’s key is we generate a few — let’s call them attacks, shot attempts, pass through, and we get the puck back, and you get it back. So if you get a few retrievals, now you’ve got a group of three defenders that are a little bit fatigued, and now you can start to try to out-change them, and that’s exactly what you, when you talk about overtime principles, that’s right at the top, is win face-off, out-change your opponent, and that’s what we were able to do.
“We went a little bit far on the regroup to let two guys off, but we kept Kucherov out there, and we get that thing quick up, and it’s a heck of a play by Willie. The OT was executed essentially as good as you can do it.”
With the overtime victory, the Capitals improved their record to 3-1-0, winning their third consecutive game after losing on Opening Night.
