The Minnesota Wild came to DC for their sole visit of the season on Thursday night. The Capitals tried to make what is likely Marc-Andre Fleury’s final career game in Washington a bad one for one of hockey’s goaltending greats.
Tom Wilson opened the scoring, jamming a rebound past Fleury. Ryan Hartman scored his first goal in 20 games to tie the game. Charlie Lindgren handed Yakov Trenin a shorthanded goal on a silver platter to give Minnesota the lead after 20 minutes.
Alex Ovechkin tied the game with a power-play goal. A newly-toothless Martin Fehervary gave Washington the lead back early in the third period. Marco Rossi tied the game again off his own rebound.
Nothing in overtime so here are your first shootout bullets of the season.
- Strome did not put the biscuit in the basket.
- Zuccarello did not put the biscuit in the basket.
- Dubois did not put the biscuit in the basket.
- Boldy put the biscuit in the basket.
- Ovechkin did not put the biscuit in the basket.
Wild beat Capitals 4-3 (SO).
- I thought the Capitals were pretty fantastic in the first period and should have come out with a lead. Unfortunately, sometimes you don’t get what you deserve in the NHL. Washington doubled up on Minnesota in shot attempts, 24-12, through 20 minutes.
- Okay, so, maybe Charlie Lindgren should just stop handling the puck more than he needs to? That’s two pretty unforgivable, unforced errors already this season.
- Tom Wilson potted his 15th goal of the season to get the Capitals on the board. He is the fourth Capitals player to hit the 15-goal mark this season, joining Alex Ovechkin (17), Connor McMichael (16), and Aliaksei Protas (16). Wilson is on pace for a career-best 32 goals this year.
- Far less good in the second period, but the result was better, proving again what I said in the first bullet. Lindgren more than made up for his early error as the Wild created three five-on-five high-danger chances, and the Caps managed a big ole goose egg in that category.
- Alex Ovechkin scored another goal. The 39-year-old, who just missed 16 games with a broken leg, is still on pace to score 54 goals this season. Sometimes you just have to plainly state things like this to fully grasp how insane that is.
- Martin Fehervary’s poor face has been a stick magnet recently. After getting bonked in the jaw by Tom Wilson on Tuesday, the Wild’s Marat Khusnutdinov chopped one of Fehervary’s front teeth in half in this game.
- What a wild World Juniors for Capitals prospects. Ryan Leonard and Eriks Mateiko starred earlier on Thursday, both scoring two goals for Team USA and Team Latvia respectively. Leonard got booed by the Canadian crowd when accepting the player of the game honors and said he loved it postgame. Can’t wait for him to throw on a Capitals sweater.
- Really, really rough third period. The Capitals are not playing great hockey at the moment. Washington was out-chanced 13-2 at five-on-five in the final frame.
- Fehervary traded half of his tooth for his first goal of the season. Major thanks to Travis Dermott who sent his own goaltender flying before the puck went in.
- Shootouts should not be a thing anymore.
The Capitals will host the New York Rangers next on Saturday afternoon. The matchup will be nationally televised on ABC.
