Caps ride ‘best 3rd period of the year’ to complete comeback originally appeared on NBC Sports Washington
WASHINGTON — When the Capitals entered their locker room for the second intermission of Monday’s game against the Vancouver Canucks, there were plenty of reasons to be pessimistic down 4-2 in a game that had seen several fluky goals find the back of the net.
Instead, the Capitals (2-2-0) rallied to score four unanswered in the third period to beat the Canucks (0-3-0) by a tally of 6-4 behind strong efforts from several star players. In the third period alone, Alex Ovechkin, Evgeny Kuznetsov and John Carlson all recorded multiple points.
“Crazy one, crazy,” head coach Peter Laviolette said in his postgame press conference. “Pretty even game to start. It was low chance on both sides first period…We find ourselves down going into the third period and turning the puck over too much and it keeps us from playing fast and getting into their end. And I thought in the third period we straightened out and played a really good third period — maybe our best third period of the year and our best offensive period of the year. We were on the attacking and we were pushing the whole time.”
The Capitals began the third period the same way they began the first two — scoring a goal in the first two minutes. Washington went to the power play and lit the lamp 10 seconds later when Dylan Strome corralled a loose punk that deflected off Canucks goalie Thatcher Demko and got just enough stick behind it to push it through.
Strome with his first regular season goal as a Capital and the good guys are within one!!!
That PP been cookin’ ♨️ pic.twitter.com/y1D5j3XKIe
— NBC Sports Capitals (@NBCSCapitals) October 18, 2022
“Gave them a few too many chances in the second, kinda let our foot off the gas,” Strome said. “Then, there’s a lot of veterans in here, talked about it, knew what we had to do in the third and found a way to come back.”
It was Strome’s first goal as a member of the Capitals and Washington’s second power play score of the night, an encouraging sign after the team struggled to generate scoring chances with the man advantage over its first two games.
The Capitals took hold of that momentum and didn’t let go, controlling the puck for most of the third period as they held Vancouver to just four shots on goal the rest of the way. They used all that time in the offensive zone to tie the game midway through the period.
Kuznetsov dug the puck out of the corner and fired a centering pass to Ovechkin, who passed it over to Carlson in the right circle. It was a tight angle, but the defenseman fired a shot over the head of a helpless Demko to make it 4-4.
“I think I was looking for Kuzy coming out of the corner for the most part, so I think that kind of at least made [Demko] lean a little bit because he’s pretty big,” Carlson said. “Not the easiest shot to make on a huge goaltender like that. Looking for someone coming off the backside first and then shooting it second.”
Four minutes later, Ovechkin and Kuznetsov once again orchestrated some efficient passing on a vertical play up the ice that resulted in Conor Sheary — who was playing on the top line in the place of the injured Connor Brown — tapping in the go-ahead goal.
Not only did the Capitals hold on, but they extended their lead to 6-4 with an insurance goal by none other than Ovechkin. The franchise legend recorded his 159th career multi-goal game, passing Brett Hull for the second most in NHL history behind only Wayne Gretzky (189). Kuznetsov also recorded his third assist of the period on the play, marking the 19th time in his career that he recorded that many helpers in a contest.
“I guess it’s only a matter of time before it starts to cash in,” Laviolette said of the Capitals’ stars breaking out in Monday’s game. “They’ve had chances and looks, but at the end of the day it’s about results and they got going in a big way in the third. Early on, too, in the year, that’s a good way to win a hockey game.”
