After dropping two straight overtime contests to the Pittsburgh Penguins on the road, the Washington Capitals looked to return to their winning ways on home ice. Before the game started, there was already some adversity facing the boys in red.
Alex Ovechkin, Evgeny Kuznetsov, Dmitry Orlov, and Ilya Samsonov were absent and in quarantine after Samsonov tested positive for the coronavirus.
The Sabres took a 1-0 lead at 12:33 with a goal from Eric Staal. The Caps would tie it with Nicklas Backstrom cleaning up a rebound off the pads of Linus Ullmark. It was Backstrom’s third goal of the season. Tom Wilson and Brenden Dillon had the helpes. 1-1 would be the score after the opening 20 with the Caps leading in shots 11-7.
The Caps took the lead at 4:14 in the second period. John Carlson fed the puck to Jakub Vrana, who whiffed a centering pass to Nic Dowd. Dowd launched a one timer rocket into the net for his second goal of the season.
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The Sabres tied it at 10:43 with a goal from Dylan Cozens. The Caps retook the lead at 13:07. Zdeno Chara got a pass from T.J. Oshie and launched a shot from downtown. Vrana was there to rebound it in for his third goal in five games.
The Sabres wouldn’t go away quietly as Riley Sheahan tied it at 13:49. The Sabres led in shots in the second period 14-10. To make things more stressful, Wilson left the game and headed to the tunnel with what appeared to be a lower body injury. We’ll know more on the severity of it later today.
Nobody scored in the third period as the Caps led in shots 7-6. The Caps also got four shots in overtime but didn’t score as the game would require a shootout.
In the skills challenge, Oshie, Backstrom and Vrana got stopped while Vitek Vanecek made some saves on the other side robbing Jack Eichel, Taylor Hall, and Cozens. Carlson would break through with a goal right up the five hole. On the other end, Vanecek stopped Sam Reinhart to seal the win.
This wasn’t the prettiest of games for the Caps but they got the two points and that’s all that matters. Peter Laviolette told the media after the game per Mike Vogel of WashingtonCaps.com:
"“It was great. We talked about it; it’s adversity, and sometimes when you’re faced with adversity, those are the sweetest wins. Those are the ones where you have to overcome some obstacles. We felt good about the lineup. We certainly missed the guys that aren’t in there, but it was a really good win, a really good, hard-fought win for us.”"
The Caps will look for another win to sweep a two game series from the Sabres for the second time in as many weeks. Puck drop on Sunday afternoon is at 3 p.m.