Charlie Lindgren had just injured himself at the end of overtime, stretching out to make a save on a last-second shot by defenseman Moritz Seider. As the ailing goaltender wobbled back near the bench ahead of the decisive shootout, he told backup Clay Stevenson, who was preparing to go into the 3-3 game, that he would tough it out for the skills competition.
As the goaltending crisis was happening to his right, Capitals head coach Spencer Carbery conferred with his assistants about who would be in the team’s shootout lineup and go up against the Detroit Red Wings’ top three shooters. The head coach of each team must write down their choices on a piece of paper and hand it to a referee before the shootout begins. In his earpiece, he kept hearing the same message over and over.
“Dowd, Dowd, Dowd’s gotta be in our top 3!” Carbery recalled.
From the outside, Nic Dowd would be a perplexing choice. The Capitals’ 35-year-old checking-line center is a defensive-shutdown forward whose career high in goals is 14, set last season. Dowd has lit the lamp just 87 times in his 629 career games, and he had never scored a shootout goal coming into the evening. He’s known more for his acumen in the faceoff dot than his playmaking ability near the net.
But on this night, Carbery was willing to experiment and have an open mind. The Capitals had previously lost all 5 of their games decided in a shootout, and in dreadful fashion. They were in the final game of a poor road trip, where they had lost 4 of 5 games and 6 of their last 7 overall. Dowd also had something else going for him. During his first shift of the game, he landed two big hits before double-pumping and scoring from the left circle, finding paydirt for just the third time this season. If there was a night to pick him, tonight was the night.
Plus, behind the scenes, the players had been working on their shootout attempts, and Dowd began finding a rhythm with a certain finish.
“We worked on it in practice,” Dylan Strome said. “He has a move that he likes.”
Despite never picking him before, Carbery relented after the team’s goaltending coach for the last eight seasons strongly encouraged him to give the veteran a chance.
“I’ve got to give credit to Scottie Murray,” Carbery said. “He’s been advocating for Dowder. [Nic] has been working on a shootout move… So we went with Dowd.”
The Red Wings shot first, and Lucas Raymond scored easily on a still-laboring Lindgren five-hole. Dylan Strome answered immediately, faking a shot and then finishing on his backhand past Red Wings goaltender John Gibson. Patrick Kane, who broke the all-time points record for an American-born forward earlier in the night, scored easily near the net. Capitals heralded rookie, Ryan Leonard, went next, skating down the left wing before curling to the middle of the ice and hitting the far side of the net. In the top of the third round, Dylan Larkin deked Lindgren out of position but rang his backhand off the crossbar, setting up Dowd’s heroics.
The Capitals’ centerman skated to the net quickly at first, but then put on the brakes, utilizing Evgeny Kuznetsov’s slo-mo approach. As Dowd handled the puck and deked side to side, he then suddenly reached forward on his backhand and beat Gibson easily, securing a huge victory.
“He gets us our first shootout win of the season,” Carbery said smiling.
As the Capitals celebrated in a big pile of humanity, they eventually turned their attention to their injured goaltender and carried him off the Little Caesars Arena ice to the locker room.
“I was proud of the guys, the resiliency there,” Carbery said. “We cough up the two-goal lead. Get to overtime, not much going on for either team in overtime. Not much of a Grade-A on either side. Chuckie, you could tell, was hurt on that last one; he got banged up on that last sequence of overtime. So he’s battling through trying to make saves in the shootout. They put us behind the 8-ball in the shootout. Those are tough shots because you know you have to score, so Stromer, Leno to step up in those moments and keep us even in the shootout and give us a chance. Those are big, big goals in pressure moments.”
According to Dowd, the attempt was his second career try in the shootout — NHL.com disagrees saying it’s his third — and “his first” since his rookie season in the NHL while a member of the Los Angeles Kings a decade ago.
“My other one came 10 years ago in my second game of my career in Winnipeg,” Dowd said. “I blasted it over the net, and we lost.”
Dowd’s big moment against Detroit came after watching the prior 43 shootouts from the Capitals bench. And it was all thanks to some hard work at practice and the urging of the team’s unheralded goaltending coach.
