The Washington Capitals took on the Colorado Avalanche last night in what was expected to be a big test for one of the hottest teams to storm out of the gates in the Eastern Conference. That hot team passed the test with flying colors in the form of a 5-2 win.
Parker Kelly struck first for the Avalanche two minutes into the game. The Caps answered with a power play goal from downtown from Jakub Vrana for his third goal of the season. Pierre-Luc Dubois and Alex Ovechkin assisted on the power play strike and it came at 4:25.
Connor McMichael gave the Caps the lead with his 11th goal of the season at 7:48 with Tom Wilson and Trevor van Riemsdyk assisting. McMichael would then strike again in the second period at 1:53 on a backhander for his team leading 12th goal of the season.
Nikolai Kovalenko struck at 4:03 and that would be as close as the Avs would get. Jakob Chychrun struck with a wrister at 9:21 of the second for his fouth goal of the season with the play created by PLD. Rasmus Sandin would score an empty net goal with Dylan Strome and John Carlson assisting at 19:57. It would be Sandin's third goal of the season.
Shots were square at five in the opening period. The Avalanche led in shots 9-8 in he second period while the Caps had the edge 7-5 in the third. It all added up to a 20-19 edge in shots overall by the Caps. Charlie Lindgren made 17 stops in goal for an .895 save percentage in the win. The Capitals completely shut down Nathan MacKinnon. Last year he had four goals in that building. This year? No shots on goal and zero points.
Spencer Carbery told the media via Mike Vogel of WashCaps.com:
"I thought we did a phenomenal job with their top players, especially the forwards. I felt like (Avs' defenseman Cale) Makar got us a few times and Chucky (Lindgren) bailed us out. But forward wise, I thought we did a real good job limiting time and space, not giving them the speed through the neutral zone and their ability to attack and put us in tough spots off the rush and then defensively when they did get to some of those sequences against, you know, US versus their top line. Real nice job. "Spencer Carbery
Next up for the Capitals on their road trip is a Sunday night matchup against the Vegas Golden Knights at 8 p.m. eastern on Monumental Sports Network as well as NHL Network.