Ryan Leonard and Tom Wilson scored two goals each to help the Capital outlast the Edmonton Oilers 7-4 on Wednesday night in a barnburner of a hockey game at Capital One Arena. Each of Leonard’s goals came of an excellent individual effort – with primary feeds from Connor McMichael – while both of Wilson’s were late empty-net goals that relieved the relentless pressure the Oilers were putting on the Caps in a late bid for a tying tally.
As he did so frequently last season, Logan Thompson simply refused to give up a goal that would put his team behind, and that was no easy feat against the high-octane Oilers attack, featuring the likes of Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl. In the aftermath of earning his eighth win of the season, Thompson was asked whether he enjoys playing in such games.
“Not against them, no,” came the reply. “It’s the Globetrotters; they’re just making plays. My ass was on fire. That was a hard game. But credit to them, and credit to the guys; we stuck with it. I’m just happy to get the two points and happy to come away with the win tonight.”
With P-L Dubois out of the Washington lineup until sometime in the back half of the season, it’s been a challenge for the Caps to fill the hole left by the splendid two-way center’s absence from the lineup. In Monday night’s game against Los Angeles, Caps coach Spencer Carbery moved Nic Dowd up to the third line as a means of trying to mitigate that Dubois hole.
Dowd skated 19:21 – his highest single-game total in nearly two years – and the Caps eked out a 2-1 win over the Pacific Division-leading Kings. The Caps were looking forward to running those same lines out against Edmonton on Wednesday in the homestand finale, but alas, Dowd was injured late in Wednesday’s morning skate and Carbery and the Caps were left to assemble the best lineup they could manage, without both Dubois and Dowd.
That meant Connor McMichael was back to the center position, and the only one of the four lines from the Los Angeles game that remained the same was Justin Sourdif’s line, with Aliaksei Protas and Tom Wilson. That’s the trio that started the scoring at 2:17 of what was a high event first period.
From the top of the paint, Protas buried a bump from Sourdif to lift Washington to an early lead.
Less than four minutes later, Caps captain Alex Ovechkin notched his fifth goal in eight games and No. 904 for his career, tipping home a Jakob Chychrun shot from the left point at 6:04 to double his team’s early lead.
Just 61 seconds later, Edmonton blueliner Darnell Nurse cranked a left-point one-timer past Thompson to make it a 2-1 game.
Shortly after the midpoint of the period, McMichael made a play along the way at the Oilers line, sending Leonard into Edmonton ice. From there, Leonard found some middle ice, patiently lined up a shot and fired it past Edmonton netminder Stuart Skinner to restore the two-goal lead at 10:34.
“I was just trying to make a read and take ice where I can, and shoot it when I see the net,” says Leonard.
Once again, the Oilers responded quickly. Nurse struck again from the left point at 12:17 to make it a 3-2 contest, and the Caps needed to snuff out an Edmonton power play late in the first to carry that lead into the middle frame.
Skinner made saves on Brandon Duhaime, Sonny Milano and Ethen Frank in the back half of the first to keep his team close, and he stopped John Carlson early in the second, after a sublime seam pass from Dylan Strome gave the Caps blueliner a good look from in tight.
Meanwhile, Thompson made an excellent stop on Matt Savoie in a 1-on-1 situation to preserve the Washington lead. The Caps kept buzzing and pushing in the offensive zone, but it was the McMichael-Leonard duo that eventually got the lead back to two.
McMichael made a good defensive play to nudge the puck out of the Washington end, pushing a headman pass for Leonard as he did, and putting the rookie winger in a 1-on-1 situation with Edmonton defenseman Evan Bouchard.
Leonard protected the puck and used his lower body strength to keep Bouchard at bay while cutting to the cage, then quickly went to his backhand and beat Skinner to make it a 4-2 game at 11:49.
“[The Oilers] were caught pretty low, and I saw Mikey win the puck battle, and I tried to use my speed to the advantage,” recounts Leonard. “I just tried to get inside on their defenseman and take it to the back post.”
Edmonton had the Caps on the ropes in the back half of the second, and it had another power play opportunity that was prefaced by a lengthy spell of 6-on-5 delayed penalty play with Skinner on the bench for an extra attacker.
Getting out of the second period with that two-goal lead proved to be crucial for the Caps when Edmonton’s David Tomasek again cut the lead to a single goal, 4-3 at 2:41 of the third.
Just under four minutes later, the resilient Caps struck again, netting perhaps the biggest goal of the night. Under siege in their own end, Ovechkin got hold of the puck and threw it toward the line where Strome and Anthony Beauvillier were able to tame in and tear off on a 2-on-1 rush with the former carrying down the right side and the latter driving the net. Strome dished a perfect backhand feed to Beauvillier, who converted at 6:37 to make it a 5-3 game, once again giving Thompson a bit of breathing room.
And again, that goal became critical when the third time was the charm for the Edmonton power play. Draisaitl struck on a one-timer from down low on the right side at 7:47, just after Thompson denied his bid from a similar spot.
For the rest of the third, the Caps did much more surviving than thriving; they were outshot 16-5 in the third, and the last two Washington shots were Wilson’s twin empty-netters. Given the amount of time the Oilers spent in Washington’s end in the third, the Caps’ ability to limit them to just Tomasek’s goal and Draisaitl’s power-play marker.
“I think it just takes a little bit to get comfortable with what's going on and how Edmonton plays,” says Carbery, “and how important when you get the puck in the defensive zone, that is such an important puck, because if you give them a second opportunity or can't get off the ice, it becomes a real problem.
“I thought in the first we were just okay with that, but we get out with a healthy lead. Second, [we were] much better, much better. And they end up with nine minutes in the offensive zone, but … we didn't give up [much]. For nine minutes in the offensive zone, you would expect that you were under siege and you gave up a lot of quality looks.
“I didn't feel like it was a crazy amount of high danger looks that they got third period. You expect them to press a little bit. I would have liked to have kept that at that a two-goal game once we grab a hold of that game, to try to keep that at that. But they're good hockey team, so you know they're going to push.”
