Breaking down the Capitals dominant win over the Hurricanes

The Washington Capitals needed to play a full 60 minute game sooner rather than later. Last night they did exactly that in a 4-0 rout of the Carolina Hurricanes, finally rewarding the paying customers at Capital One Arena with a win. It snapped a five game home losing streak and it was very important for the Caps to start the penultimate month of the regular season strong.

The power play is beginning to click. That was what got the Caps on the board at 18:33 in he first period on a gliding wrist shot from Evgeny Kuznetsov for his 16th goal of the season, continuing his revenge tour in front of a national TV audience. The Caps led in shots 8-6 and 1-0 after one.

The Caps doubled their lead at 8:30 when Garnet Hathaway passed to Conor Sheary then Sheary went around the net and fed Martin Fehervary with a backdoor pass as he crashed the net for his fourth goal of the season.

At 15:05, Alex Ovechkin scored a power play goal from the office. John Carlson and T.J. Oshie had the helpers and for Ovechkin it was his 33rd of the season. He needs to average 33 goals or more to catch Wayne Gretzky. One year into his five year contract he’s done that. One down, four to go.

3-0 was the score after two periods with the Caps leading in shots 16-13. In the final minute of the game with 58 seconds left a shot from Dmitry Orlov from downtown gave us free McNuggets. It was Orlov’s eighth of the season and Sheary and Justin Schultz had the assists.

4-0 would be the final score. The Hurricanes outshot the Caps 17-9 in the final period but couldn’t get any pucks past Vitek Vanecek as he recorded his fifth shutout of his career. The Hurricanes outshot the Caps 36-33 and Vanecek stopped all 36 of them.

Fans initially thought Orlov’s goal was deflected in by Anthony Mantha. Even though it wasn’t it was good to see him back. 

“Mentally felt awesome. It was a long four months, little over four months, so just getting ready for a game felt good. Then stepping on the ice for warmups, you see the fans for the first time in quite some time.”

The Capitals will look to continue this momentum as they host the Seattle Kraken on Saturday night at 7 p.m.