The Washington Capitals made their way west for a Tuesday night matchup with the Anaheim Ducks, the first of three games in a row against Californian teams. The Ducks were looking for revenge after the Caps shut them out 3-0 at Capital One Arena in January.
Dylan Strome opened the scoring against his brother’s team with a nifty backhand finish. Jacob Trouba, yes, he’s on the Ducks, and scored a goal to tie the game. Drew Helleson fired a seeing-eye shot past Logan Thompston to give Anaheim the lead. Aliaksei Protas beat Lukas Dostal in the closing minutes of the first frame.
Pierre-Luc Dubois guided home a feed from Matt Roy to put the Caps back in front. Pavel Mintyukov tied things up again early in the third. Protas struck again just 31 seconds later. Frank Vatrano tied the game again-again before Nic Dowd put Washington back on top. Anthony Beauvillier scored his first goal as a member of the Caps and Protas finished off his first-career hat trick with an empty netter.
Capitals beat Ducks 7-4!
- Dylan Strome scored just two minutes into the first period and everyone was like, “Wow, they didn’t start terribly this time.” Then the Capitals stopped doing everything they were doing and gave up two goals immediately after and we were all like, “We stayed up for this?”. The middle portion of the first was not great, but they really got their game in order and dominated the final 6-7 minutes. Good to see, but, like, could they just not do the whole falling asleep for long portions of periods thing?
- Aliaksei Protas scored his first career hat trick because he can do no wrong and is the most underrated player in the league. I’m still a little confused how the guy with 28 goals gets zero power-play time. He should be on the ice whenever the Caps can get him on the ice. So cool to see Ovi feed him to cap it off.
- Remember when the Ducks were “Mighty” and wore purple and that was a ton better than whatever they are now? I do. Bring back the eggplant and teal.
10 pm caps game pic.twitter.com/XOBw6h43Pa
— Lauren⋆｡ﾟ👻 (@sp00kycaps) March 12, 2025
- Pretty great second period from the Capitals. I didn’t love how they took their foot off the gas a little after retaking the lead but they navigated Anaheim’s push well enough.
- Pierre-Luc Dubois potted his 17th goal of the season and had three points (1g, 2a) in the game. Matt Roy provided the primary assist, giving both former Los Angeles Kings nice nights right before they make their first return trip to LA on Thursday. I would bet PLD doesn’t get a warm reception, so I hope he nets a hat trick.
- Logan Thompson drew a slashing penalty and then his teammates repaid the favor by forcing him to make several great shorthanded stops. Alex Killorn is going to see his glove in his nightmares tonight. Not Thompson’s best game overall, though. Maybe would want two of those goals back.
- If you had to pick who the actual best player was on the Mighty Ducks in the movies, the answer is definitely Adam Banks, right? What a set of hands on that kid.
— noah (@capsboybebop) March 12, 2025
- The third period was wild and I would bet the Capitals’ coaching staff hated it. However, great fun to watch even past midnight for all of us.
- Three assists for Alex Ovechkin but no goals. The chase moves to LA. Ovi has 12 goals in 27 career games against the Kings.
- Tom Wilson took a deflected puck right to the grill late in the game. He was bleeding but made his way off the ice seemingly not too distressed. Poor guy has a puck magnet in his face this year.
- Great to see Anthony Beauvillier score his first goal with the Caps. Great speed and a beautiful finish.
First of three on the west coast #JoeBSuitOfTheNight pic.twitter.com/IvOinEB600
— RMNB (@rmnb) March 12, 2025
Next up, the Capitals will make a quick trip to see the Kings on Thursday night. They could see old pal Darcy Kuemper in net for LA.
