Washington opened the scoring mid-way through the first
period on a nice play by Tom Wilson and Jason Chimera. Wilson carried the puck into the Nashville
zone and faded to the right wing wall.
As he was doing so, Chimera headed for the net. Wilson fed the puck in front as Chimera was
closing. Getting his stick on the ice
with Shea Weber hounding him from behind, Chimera redirected the puck under
goalie Pekka Rinne 12:02 into the period.
That is how the first period ended, and one might have
expected that it was just prelude to a low-scoring game. Storm clouds started gathering, though, early
in the period when the Predators turned the puck over at the Caps’ blue
line. John Carlson tapped the puck out
of the zone where Marcus Johansson collected it, starting a 3-on-2 rush. Johansson skated down the right side with
Chimera in the middle and Wilson on the left side in a flip of roles among the
third liners. Johansson skipped a pass
past Chimera and to Wilson on the far side, who whacked a one-timer past Rinne
to make it 2-0 at the 4:55 mark.
Then the Capitals went a bit weird. Two too-man-men-on-the-ice penalties taken in
the space of 1:56 mid-way through the period gave Nashville two power
plays. The Caps killed off one and
almost skated off the second, but Filip Forsberg scored on a sneaky snap shot from
the left wing circle past goalie Braden Holtby, and the Predators halved the
lead 14:42 into the period.
That would be it for the scoring in the second period, but
the teams turned on the red light frequently in the third frame. Justin Williams started the third period
scoring five minutes into the period when he worked his way to the top of the
crease, took a feed from Evgeny Kuznetsov, and took a pair of whacks at it
before slipping the puck under Rinne’s left arm as the goalie was down.
Barely three minutes later the Caps had a three-goal
lead. Karl Alzner took a pass from
Justin Williams and fired a shot at the Nashville net. Rinne got his left pad on it and kicked it
out to the right wing faceoff circle.
Williams collected the puck and fired, but Rinne got across to stop the
shot. The puck popped up to Rinne’s
right and as it dropped to the ice, Marcus Johansson swept it past Rinne to
make it 4-1 at the 8:03 mark.
The Predators then made things interesting with a pair of
goals just over two minutes apart. Roman
Josi sent a drive from the left point that was deflected in front past Holtby
to make it 4-2 at the 9:49 mark. Then
Forsberg scored his second of the game when he redirected a Mattias Ekholm
drive from the left point past Holtby at 12:00.
The Caps and Holtby closed the door after that though. When Ekholm took a tripping penalty with 1:23
left, the Caps converted the power play chance on an empty net goal by Alex
Ovechkin for the final 5-3 margin.
Other stuff…
-- Five goals scored by the Caps is the most they ever
recorded in Nashville. Twice they scored
four goals, once in a 4-2 win on February 12, 2000, the other in a 4-2 win on
March 18, 2008.
-- The goal by Alex Ovechkin was his ninth in his past 11
games and was his 506th of his career. Think of it as the “New Brunswick Area Code”
goal.
-- Marcus Johansson celebrated his return to the ice in fine
fashion. A goal and two assists gave him
his second three-point game of the season, the other coming on December 20th
in a 7-3 win over the New York Rangers.
As it is, Johansson’s three-point night makes him 9-9-18, plus-6, in his
last 15 games.
-- Tom Wilson had his fourth multi-point game of the season
(1-1-2), giving him 17 points on the season tying a career best set last
season. Justin Williams also had a
multi-point game (1-1-2), his ninth of the season.
-- The Caps wore down the Predators in one respect: shot
attempts at evens. The Caps were
out-attempted, 13-11, in the first period at 5-on-5, but the Caps won the last
two periods, 11-10 and 18-13.
-- The two bench minors for too many men on the ice doubled
the number of bench minors for which the Caps have been called this season.
-- Did Tom Wilson get credit for the most hits for the Caps
in this game? No. Alex Ovechkin? Nope?
It was Matt Niskanen (four).
-- Michael Latta had an odd score sheet entry. In nine shifts and 6:49 of ice time he had no
marks of any kind on his line of the score sheet.
-- Andre Burakovsky recorded an assist on Williams’ goal
giving him points in eight straight games (6-4-10) and in 10 of his last 11
contests (6-8-14).
-- The Caps finally got the power play monkey off their
back, even if it was credited as an empty net goal. They had been 0-for-19 over five games plus
59 minutes of this contest.
Other stuff…
A win is a win is a win, and this win gave the Caps 39, the
first club to win that many in their first 52 games in the modern era. But there were some disturbing things. Braden Holtby allowing three goals is an odd
thing (the 13th time in 43 appearances). Then there was the defensive pair of John
Carlson and Nate Schmidt, who had a rough time at even strength (Carlson was a
Corsi- minus-13, Schmidt a minus-11).
Then again, Shea Weber had a hard night for Nashville (a Corsi minus-13,
numbers from war-on-ice.com). But there
are the Caps with 30 more wins than they have losses in regulation. Only one team in franchise history finished a
season with 30 or more wins than they had losses in regulation, the 2009-2010
Caps (54-15-13) that won the President’s Trophy.
