The Washington Capitals headed up north for the quick trip to Philadelphia and faced off against the Flyers on Wednesday night. The Metropolitan Division battle was a must-win for the Caps if they wanted to keep their ever-decreasing playoff qualification odds alive.
Ryan Leonard opened the scoring with a power-play snipe from the top of the left faceoff circle. Travis Konecny tied the game in the second period, and Trevor Zegras put the Flyers ahead by one. Jamie Drsydale extended that lead with a four-on-four goal in the third. Owen Tippett hit the empty net.
Flyers beat Capitals 4-1.
- Pretty even first period at five-on-five, but there was a whole lot of special teams time that broke up any flow in the game. I think the Capitals started the game stronger, but then all of the penalties muddied the waters, and they let the Flyers finish the period a little stronger. You’ll take that 1-0 road lead after 20 minutes, though.
- Ryan Leonard gave them that lead with a sick snipe on the power play, his 13th goal of the season. Leonard is now riding a four-game point streak (3g, 1a) and has goals in back-to-back games. He now has 34 points (13g, 21a) in 59 games this season, while Matvei Michkov has 33 points (16g, 17a) in 63 games for the Flyers.
- Timothy Liljegren made his Capitals debut and almost immediately went to the penalty box in the first period. Outside of that, I thought he looked really solid. I would really like to see him reunited with Rasmus Sandin, as that pairing was ace for the Toronto Maple Leafs. He played most of his minutes in this game with Martin Fehervary.
- More of the same in the second period, but unfortunately, the Flyers seemed to get all the bounces. Travis Konecny tied the game with a shot that was going wide, but Logan Thompson deflected it into his own skates and into the net. Then some signals got crossed in the offensive zone, which led to an odd-man rush that Trevor Zegras finished off.
- Tom Wilson threw a gigantic, clean hit that stunned Konecny, who tried to shy away from the contact. Tell your kids to watch that clip for what not to do when you’re about to get hit.
- The Capitals had Matt Roy wearing an “A” on his sweater as one of the alternate captains for this game. I think that’s a little interesting given it’s just his second season with the Caps. I honestly thought Martin Fehervary would be ahead of him, but I also know next to nothing about the true locker room dynamics.
- Cole Hutson won’t be making his way to DC just yet, as the high-scoring prospect notched two points (1g, 1a) to help push Boston University to the quarterfinals of the Hockey East tournament. BU will play again at the end of this week to see if they can extend their season once more.
- The Capitals turned up the pressure in the third but couldn’t buy a goal and didn’t get anything from their power play. Story of the season.
- I thought Rasmus Sandin looked phenomenal with the puck on his stick, but he passed up on like five shots that he really needed to take.
- If you want a positive from this loss, this game did a great job of making sure the Capitals pick in front of the Flyers in the draft this summer. Philadelphia is going to win just as much as the Capitals this season, aka nothing, so you’ll take that.
The Capitals will be right back in action on the road again tomorrow night. They’ll visit the white-hot Buffalo Sabres, who have been scoring goals for fun lately.
