The Washington Capitals would win a 3-1 thriller against against the Toronto Maple Leafs to establish a new franchise mark and kick off their back to back road Canada trip.
Both teams went scoreless after one but not without a slew of penalties. First it was Oliver Ekman-Larsson high sticking Tom Wilson at 8:29. Jakob Chychrun responded by hooking William Nylander at 11:15. Pntus Holmberg responded by tripping Aliaksei Protas at 13:37 then John Carlson got whistled for interference against Mitch Marner at 13:58. Both teams went a combined 0 for 2 on the power play in the opening 20.
Off a shot from Matt Roy a minute and six seconds into the middle stanza, Nic Dowd camped out in front of the net and struck for his eighth goal of the season. For Roy, it was his fifth apple of the season.
John Tavares tied it at 11:31 with his 12th of he season off a feed from Chris Tanev on a backhanded shot. That would be the score after two periods as the Maple Leafs had the edge in shos 9-7. There was one penalty in the second when Nicolas robertson cross checked Ivan Miroshnichenko at 18:35 to carry over into the third period.
In the third period Ekman Larsson was at it again slashing Jakob Chychrun at 3:19. Caps came up empty but got a huge even strength goal from Connor McMichael for his 15th of the season at 9:51 on a wrist shot in front of the net set up by Pierre-Luc Dubois for his 14th assist of the season. Caps would then get an even bigger save from Charlie Lindgren to preserve the lead.
Aliaksei Protas would put it away with an empty net goal for his ninth of the season at 19:03. It was set up by Dowd with his third goal of the season as well as Tom Wilson with his 11th of the year.
The win extendd the Caps point streak to six. It also pushed their road winning streak to eight games in a row setting a new franchsie mark for the longest winning streak. They have outscored the opposition 42-18 during this streak. Lindgren stopped 20 of 21 shots including all seven faced in the third period to earn his third straight victory. Chuck's six road wins this year rank tied for fourth among all goaltenders.
The Caps have a quick turnaround at 7 p.m. at the Bell Centre in Montreal. You can catch the game on Monumental Sports Network 2.