WASHINGTON, DC — The Capitals’ top line led the charge in the team’s best game of the season, combining for three goals and seven points in a 5-1 victory on Friday over the Minnesota Wild. Both Alex Ovechkin and Dylan Strome put up standout performances: Ovechkin netted his first goal of the season in a two-point (1g, 1a) night, while Strome scored a pair of goals for the third four-point showing (2g, 2a) of his career.
Ovechkin was happy with his line’s game up and down the ice and hoped they could use the momentum to carry that play forward.
“I think we moved well,” Ovechkin said. “Breakouts, neutral zone, and obviously offensive zone we have very good chances. So we just have to keep rolling and play the same way.”
Both Ovechkin and Strome went goalless in the first four games of the season before the floodgates seemed to open against Minnesota, though Ovechkin told reporters postgame that he hadn’t been worried.
“If it was like, ‘I don’t have any chances,’ it (would have been), like, ‘Oh sh—.’ But no, chances were there,” Ovechkin said. “Just sometimes you just have to be patient. One goes in and hope next game is going to be more.”
The pair opened the scoring late in the first period, kicking off a rush in their own end. After reaching the offensive zone, Ovechkin dished the puck through defenseman Jake Middleton and right to Strome, who tipped it past a wide open Filip Gustafsson.
Strome shouted out Ovechkin during his goal celebration and gave him further credit for the play postgame.
“Obviously great pass by O, just driving the net, and he did the rest,” Strome said. “Nice to get on the board; always feels good to get the first one out of the way.”
Ovechkin, meanwhile, highlighted Strome’s performance, both on that goal and throughout the rest of the game.
“Stromer was on fire… He’s a great playmaker, but you can see he can score goals as well,” Ovechkin said. “Obviously, he was driving to the net and finding the rebounds and finding the pucks, so deserves it.”
Early in the third period, Strome would return the favor in a set play off the draw. Strome beat Wild forward Ryan Hartman at the faceoff dot and sent the puck straight to Ovechkin’s stick, barely giving Minnesota time to react before Ovechkin snapped it off the post and in.
Strome chuckled when asked about the sequence: they haven’t always found success with the play, he said, but it has the opportunity to pay off big.
“We try that play quite often and when it works, it looks great,” Strome said. “Sometimes it doesn’t always work, but just one of those where it just was kind of right in the wheelhouse and a little lucky, but a great shot by O.”
Head coach Spencer Carbery emphasized the goal’s timing in helping seal the game. Before Ovechkin scored, the Capitals were only up by one. They had a dominant 28-15 lead in shots, but Minnesota had already erased the deficit once — Marcus Johansson had tied the game 1-1 in the second period before Aliaksei Protas regained the lead 31 seconds later with another lucky goal.
After the Caps failed to score to score on so many of their chances, Carbery noted the goal gave the team some much-needed breathing room.
“That was a big moment,” Carbery said. “It’s 2-1. Game’s still teetering, even though we had controlled play. To get that third one, I think it just eased the group. Because anytime you’re playing really well and you’re only up a goal and you feel like you should be up two or three, things can happen in a game. And so that was a big goal in that moment. I thought (the first line was) excellent all night.”
Like his winger, Strome hadn’t been concerned about Ovechkin’s lack of scoring, taking on some of the blame for not being able to set him up well enough.
“He’s been getting chances,” he said. “We’ve had four or five chances each of the games and just haven’t really been putting them in the right spots for him to bury them. But luckily off the faceoff, it kind of went right in his favorite spot there and he just put it home. So I don’t think he was pressing at all. I think (it was) just matter of time before he gets one.”
Midway through the period, Strome added his second goal of the night, this time assisted by linemate Anthony Beauvillier. Wild goaltender Filip Gustavsson stopped the initial shot on goal, but Strome caught his own rebound and hit paydirt.
Strome’s final point of the night came via a secondary assist on Tom Wilson’s late-game power play goal.
Carbery highlighted the team’s success at going for rebounds in his postgame press conference, and Strome confirmed it’s been a regular topic of conversation among the team in recent days.
“We talked about that a lot the last week or so, just not just having one chance and then being done,” Strome said. “I thought tonight, every time we felt like we got a chance, we were getting the rebounds and continuing play. I think all four lines had had some really good shifts in the O-zone and some guys get rewarded.”
The first line’s stellar night came as the Capitals debuted their new Screaming Eagle jerseys, continuing the pattern of Ovechkin finding success while wearing the logo. If you ask Strome, the Caps should keep the new look around.
“I think we should wear them a lot,” he said. “We should keep going with them.”
Washington will return to Capital One Arena — albeit sans Screagle — to face the Vancouver Canucks on Sunday afternoon.
