The Washington Capitals put on a masterclass of a performance over their bitter divisional rivals in the Metropolitan Division with a 4-1 win over the Pittsburgh Penguins on a magical night in the city that saw the local football team in the Commanders advance to the NFC Championship game.
But let's talk about the hockey game. Jakob Chychrun got the scoring started with his 13th goal of the season at 7:42 which was assisted by Aliaksei Protas for his 19th and Nic Dowd for his seventh. 1-0 was the score after one.
In the second Aliaksei Protas would then add his 19th goal of the season as Pierre-Luc Dubois helped him out for his 28th assist while Connor McMichael tacked on his 16th at 12:08.
In the third period Bryan Rust struck for the Penguins at 11:29 in their only goal of the contest. By then nobody didn't care. Pierre-Luc Dubois put it away with a power play goal at 17:50 for his eighth of the season that was set up by McMichael for his 17th.
Brandon Duhaime put it away even further with an empty net goal for his sixth of the season at 18:30. Tom Wilson had his 15th assist of the season in what was his 800th career NHL game. Dowd added his eighth.
This was a big revenge win for the Capitals as they fell to the Penguins in the first meeting 4-2 on Nov. 8. Now the season series will shift to Pittsburgh with the next matchup between the two teams on Feb. 22 then they'll meet on April 17 in the regular season finale.
Washington had the edge in shots on goal 32-19 in the contest and on the face off dot 54.7 percent to the Penguins 45.3 percent. Washington connected on the power play once on four tries while the Penguins went 0 for 2 on the man advantage. Caps had the edge in hits 27-17 and in blocked shots 17-14. Logan Thompson would stop 18 of those 19 shots to get the win. His save percentage on the night clocked out at .947.
Washington will have the day off on Sunday. They'll return to practice on Monday at 11 a.m. mountain time and will face off against the Edmonton Oilers on Tuesday night from Rogers Place up in Canada. If you live on the east coast, puck drop is at 9 p.m. on Monumental Sports Network Tuesday night.