A strong start to the season is nothing new for the Vegas Golden Knights, while the Washington Capitals once again must try to rebound from losing their opener.
The Golden Knights are aiming for a second straight 4-0-0 start when they visit the Capitals on Tuesday night.
For a third consecutive season, Vegas has won its first three games. In 2023-34, the Golden Knights opened with seven straight victories amid an 11-0-1 start.
This season, Vegas’ offense has been hot out of the gate, totaling 15 goals and going 3-for-9 on the power play. Jack Eichel leads the way with seven points and is one of nine Golden Knights with at least two points through three games.
“We’ve been getting good looks,” veteran Tomas Hertl, who scored the go-ahead power-play goal in Sunday’s 3-1 victory over Anaheim, told NHL.com.
Vegas’ early success all came at home. Now the club takes to the road for its first three away contests.
“Having three at home right away, you want to take advantage of that,” said Golden Knights forward Brett Howden, who notched his second goal of the season on Sunday.
“We’ve been building our game each period we’ve played,” he added. “We’re feeling confident about ourselves, but there’s still a ways to go. It’s a good sign, and now going out on the road you want to continue that and carry on.”
Though the Golden Knights lost to Washington in five games of the 2018 Stanley Cup Final in their inaugural campaign, they’re 9-3-0 in the all-time regular-season series.
Ex-Capital Ilya Samsonov made 22 saves in his Vegas debut Sunday. However, he could give way to Adin Hill, who hopes to be sharper after yielding seven goals on 54 shots faced in the Golden Knights’ first two contests.
For a third consecutive season, Washington dropped its season opener. John Carlson scored the first goal of the night and added an assist Saturday against New Jersey, but the Capitals trailed 4-2 after two periods and couldn’t dig out of that hole en route to a 5-3 defeat.
“We did some good things. We did some bad things,” said veteran Capitals forward Tom Wilson, who also scored Saturday. “(It was the) first game, so we’ll take what we can from it and regroup.”
Washington star Alex Ovechkin recorded an assist to open his 20th NHL season Saturday. Including the playoffs, Ovechkin has eight goals with four assists during 16 games versus Vegas.
Washington’s Charlie Lindgren stopped 28 of 32 shots against the Devils, but former Golden Knight Logan Thompson could face his former club while also making his Capitals debut Tuesday.
Acquired in a summer trade by Washington, Thompson went 56-32-11 with a 2.67 goals-against average and a .912 save percentage over 103 games spanning the previous four seasons with Vegas. However, Thompson is looking for a fresh start in Washington after essentially sharing the net with Hill over the past 1 1/2 seasons.
“I just have a lot of excitement,” Thompson told The Hockey News. “I couldn’t be happier to be here.”
Eichel has five goals with 13 assists in 21 career games against the Capitals.
–Field Level Media