The Washington Capitals are up 2-0 in the first round of the best of seven series against the Montreal Canadiens thanks to a 3-1 win in Game 2 at Capital One Arena.
Washington up 2-0 with Game 3 Friday
Logan Thompson made 25 saves in net including some acrobatic highlight reel ones. On the offensive side Connor McMichael had two goals.
The first period was scoreless as the Caps led in shots 9-4. In the second period at 1:16 Christian Dvorak put the Canadiens up 1-0. Connor McMichael would answer at 3:47 with a backhanded shot set up by Taylor Raddysh where McMichael followed his own rebound for the score.
At 4:47 Dylan Strome doubled the lead with a slam dunk up front. Anthony Beauvillier and Ryan Leonard had the assists. 2-1 was the score after two periods with the Caps leading in shots 18-8.
At 19:58 McMichael sealed the game with an empty net goal. Pierre-Luc Dubois and Tom Wilson had the assists.
"I thought (Ryan Leonard) made a great play over to 'Beau', then Beau went right under the (defenseman's) stick. Sometimes you can catch a goalie by surprise. I felt like it was a pretty hard pass. Just got lucky it came right back to my stick. He's a big goalie. He gets that pretty quickly," said Dylan Strome.
Caps were outshot 14-5 in the third period but Thompson stopped everything in the first and third periods. Caps led in shots overall 32-26.
"That was the 'L' that we saw for call it 40 games or whatever he was playing at the beginning of the year where you could feel the confidence. You could feel the building with the energy with each save. It felt like he just got bigger and bigger and bigger. He was tested. He made some huge saves in that third period to keep us in front. "Spencer Carbery
Logan Thompson added, "We knew they were going to come out in the third just like they did last game. It's easy to get into it when you make those saves. You're definitely right back in the game. It could easily swing the other way if a couple of those go in and you're fighting it, right?"
Next up is Game 3 on Friday night at 7 p.m. as the series shifts to Montreal on Monumental Sports Network, TNT, truTV and MAX.