Capitals Defense Shuts Down The Golden Knights In First Win Of The Season

The Washington Capitals were looking for their first win of the season after dropping their season opener to New Jersey. It wasn't going to get easier as a tough team from Las Vegas was coming to town. Here's what went down.

15:40 left: First really good chance of the game comes from Vegas. The Stone line creates a little chaos in front of the net. Logan Thompson sprawls and keeps the puck out of the net.

14 minutes left: Mangiapane forces a turnover on the forecheck and finds Jakub Vrana in the slot. 1-0 Capitals. Welcome back Vrana!

11 minutes left: Kind of a slower start. Washington has the best chance of the game which resulted in a goal. But other than that just a couple of half chances from distance. Not much from Vegas either. Just the scramble in front that Thompson has had to worry about.

6 minutes left: Capitals have forced turnovers from Whitecloud on Veges. He was the DMan that Mangiapane ripped off then fed Vrana for the goal. This most recent shift they forced two more turnovers that resulted in at least one chance for and extended zone time.

3:30 left: Strome gets a terrific chance and somehow misses what looked like an empty net. Great passing. Hague ends up deflecting the shot. Capitals take a penalty fifteen seconds later. Remember this sequence of plays potentially.

2:10 left: Vegas power play goal. Olofsson. Great passing. Tie game.

1:25 left: Now Vegas takes a penalty. Roy to the box for tripping.

End of the first: The Capitals had a few chances on the power play. Ovechkin got a hold of a couple of pucks, but neither goes in. The old guy out there can still obliterate pucks. Washington takes 33 seconds of power play time into the second period.

Start of the second: Tom Wilson draws a tripping penalty right at the start. 17 seconds of 5v3 time.

17:45 left: Power plays end. Capitals get more what I call half chances. Shots are coming from far out but Washington doing well getting some deflections and traffic in front. McNabb now to the box and Caps go right back to the man advantage.

17 minutes left: Strome to Wilson for a power play goal and a 2-1 lead. Heck of a feed by Strome from behind the goal. Vegas netminder Hill had no idea where the puck was until the goal horn went off.

14:45 left: Ovechkin now finds Protas for a goal. 3-1. That's 700 career helpers from Ovechkin. 6th player ever to join to 700-700 club.

13:45 left: Capitals opening the floodgates here. 4-1 Chychrun gets his first in a Caps sweater. Some nice passing between Dowd and Chychrun on a mini 2 on 1.

12:45 left: Eichel all alone next to the net, he had time to take a nap before putting that puck in. Now 4-2 Capitals.

11 minutes left: Vrana with another good chance on the rush. The puck went through the crease on the rebound. Easily could have been 5-2 there, but no dice. Vegas also looks energized by their most recent goal.

8:30 left: Dowd with a nice defensive play, the Capitals go the other way and get two or three chances in tight. The 4th line has had some chances in this one.

5:45 left: Stone gets a breakaway but can't get it to go in. Long pass from Vegas goal line beats all the Caps and Stone was in alone. Capitals get called for a trip about 30 seconds later. Vegas power play. Duhaime gets the trip.

3 minutes left: Took Vegas about 70 seconds to finally get in and set up, but they got a couple of chances after they finally did get set up. Thompson with a nice save on Olofsson after a cross ice pass.

2 minutes left: Holtz now gets a breakaway chance. But Thompson gloves the shot. van Riemsdyk got caught flat footed it looked like.

1:05 left: Hard shot from the point bounces off the end boards and Strome looked like he had a lay up but couldn't get it to go. Might have been bouncing and hard to settle. Very good shift from that Capitals top line.

End of the 2nd: Score is 4-2. Both teams looked a lot better offensively. Washington was clearly the better team though.

3rd period

19 minutes left: Not a good sequence for Dubois. Fanned on shot or pass right on the blue line then held a Vegas player on the rush. Early third period power play for Vegas.

16:50 left: Pretty good penalty kill by the Capitals. Just one tough shot from Holtz on the rush about halfway through the power play. Not much else.

14:30 left: Vegas back to the power play. Duhaime gets a high stick call. Bad penalty.

12:45 left: Capitals PK turning into a story in this game. Two big third period kills with giving up next to nothing. No shots against on the most recent PK.

9:50 left: First time I've noticed the Capitals second line of 24-80-43. McMichael got a nice chance off a nice little pass from Dubois. Good save by Hill.

7:10 left: Strome steals the puck and gets it to Ovechkin who does a nice toe drag and forces a save from Hill. He's had several chances to score tonight. None yet.

5:45 left: McIlRath gets hit by Olofsson and it's Olofsson that gets the worst of it. Looked to be shaken up. Skates off on his own power.

5:33 left: Dubois fires a pass from the corner and Wilson gets a tip on it. Very nice stop by Hill. Still 4-2.

3 minutes left: It does not look like Vegas is down two goals. They are not getting anything. Very nice job on defense to close this one out by the Caps.

1:30 left: Empty net now for Vegas. Barbashev gets a great one timer chance and Thompson denies him. Then another on Hertl a few seconds later. Both great left pad saves.

Game Over: 4-2 Capitals win. That was a great game by the Capitals. Offense was able to get some goals and generate chances. But more impressive to me was the defense. Vegas had trouble generating much basically all night. They got next to nothing for the third period. Very, very nice win and performance vs a good team in the Golden Knights.