Washington Capitals take down Flyers

The Washington Capitals defeated the Philadelphia Flyers for the second time this week for their third straight win, the final 5-3 in a game that got scoring from up and down the lineup. They’ll meet again on Saturday night where the Caps look for the sweep.

Alex Ovechkin gave the Caps the lead by pouncing on a turnover. Ivan Provorov made a pass to Ovechkin that would make Nicklas Backstrom jealous and Ovi made him pay at 8:37 for his ninth goal of the season. It was also the 715th goal of his career. He now has scored more goals than Babe Ruth has hit home runs. In hockey he needs just two to tie Phil Esposito for sixth in NHL history.

The Flyers tied the game with a power play goal from Travis Konecny at 11:14. The Caps would answer at 13:10 with Daniel Sprong feeding an up ice pass to Conor Sheary. Sheary scored on the breakaway for his sixth goal of the season.

2-1 good guys would be the score after 20 despite being outshot 11-10.

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Ovechkin wouldn’t be the only person to reach a milestone as John Carlson recorded his 500th point with a goal from the left face off circle on a one time blast. The goal came at 6:58 and was assisted by Jakub Vrana and Evgeny Kuznetsov.

The Caps would make it 4-1 with a goal at 17:33 from Nic Dowd aka Judge Judy. He made a nice move down ice around a defender for the goal. Zdeno Chara and Garnet Hathaway were credited with the assists.

4-1 was the score after two. The Flyers outshot the Caps 8-5.

The Caps and fans everywhere would be in for a frustrating and stressful third period. The Flyers scored a couple to make it a game. First it was Provorov at 1:43 then Scott Laughton at 10:45. It suddenly went from a 4-1 to a 4-3 game and overtime was beckoning. Thankfully Judy was there to save the night.

Dowd came through with an empty net goal to seal the win with 28 seconds left with Ilya Samsonov having the assist. It was Dowd’s fifth goal of the season. Samsonov made 30 saves for a .909 save percentage.

Dowd told the media via Samantha Pell of The Washington Post (subscription required):

“I scored my first goal without taking a shot and scored my second goal from the other end. So, yeah, I think that was probably definitely my longest goal.”

The Caps and Flyers meet again Saturday night at 7 p.m. on NBC Sports Washington.