Through their first six games, the Washington Capitals have been offensive when it comes to opposing defenses.
The Metropolitan Division club matched its season high with six goals in the last outing and will look to continue the puck-shooting prowess when it travels to face the Tampa Bay Lightning on Saturday night.
Coach Spencer Carbery’s high-scoring bunch has tallied 16 times in the past three matches, including back-to-back, home-and-home victories over the Philadelphia Flyers, 4-1 Tuesday and 6-3 Wednesday.
The floodgates opened in the two-day series’ second matchup, with the Capitals getting a goal from Nic Dowd and a pair from Connor McMichael in a 4:27 span for a 4-0 lead over the Flyers.
Washington added a pair of empty-net markers, including superstar captain Alex Ovechkin’s 855th of his career, in a 6-3 triumph. Ovechkin is 40 goals from breaking Wayne Gretzky’s NHL record.
Through Thursday’s games, the Capitals rank third in goals scored with an average of 4.33 per game, trailing the New York Rangers (4.57) and undefeated Winnipeg Jets (4.43).
Carbery said the third period of the second game after Philadelphia made it 4-3 on rookie Matvei Michkov’s power-play goal was a fine test of the Capitals’ stamina and competitiveness.
“They started to push and got a little reckless,” Carbery said after Washington’s fifth consecutive win. “When I say reckless, I mean now they’re just full go. They’re not worried about what they give up at one end. They’re just worried about getting the puck back.
“That gave us a lot of issues and you could tell we were absolutely gassed, physically and mentally. Give our guys a lot of credit being able to dig in in the third period.”
After losing for the first time on home ice Thursday night, a 4-2 setback to the streaking Minnesota Wild, the Lightning will try to regroup a bit against the Capitals.
Coach Jon Cooper saw Tampa Bay tie it, lead but then succumb late in the match on goals by Matt Boldy and Kirill Kaprizov (empty-netter).
While the Lightning evened out the special teams with a short-handed tally from Brandon Hagel but surrendered a game-winning, power-play goal to Boldy, the team’s bench boss pointed to penalties: Four by his team to just one by the Wild, who had none Tuesday at the Florida Panthers.
“You can’t just look at this game and say it’s the PK’s fault, the PK scored a shorty,” Cooper said of his club, which is 1-3-0 in a stretch of four games in six days. “The problem is, we took four penalties again and they took one … you’re just stressing the game out.
“I think in four power plays they might have had two scoring chances. That was it.”
However, Cooper liked the Lightning’s play and said the game was decided in a four-minute span when his team was in its defensive end too much.
“There’s a reason (the Wild) haven’t lost in regulation,” Cooper said. “I thought it was two good hockey teams. … The boys tried. It wasn’t an effort game, it was a little more of a frustration game.”
The Lightning have won five of the last nine regular-season matches between the Eastern Conference powers but have dropped two straight and went 1-2-0 against the Capitals last season.
–Field Level Media