VANCOUVER — The Washington Capitals were on their feet as the final seconds ticked away, ready and waiting to celebrate the moment the horn sounded at Rogers Arena.
When Washington took control of the puck to snuff out the Vancouver Canucks’ final hope of a late tying goal, the Capitals could feel it. Washington overcame an early deficit to beat the Western Conference-leading Canucks, 2-1, for its second consecutive one-goal win at a critical time of the season.
Goaltender Charlie Lindgren, starting for the eighth time in Washington’s past nine games, stopped 22 of the 23 shots he faced. Casey DeSmith made 22 saves for Vancouver.
A tip-in by Brock Boeser just 1:11 into the game could have set the tone for a difficult night for the Capitals, and Vancouver’s speed threatened to take over the game in the opening minutes. But Washington survived the early onslaught, and by the end of the period, shots were even at six apiece — and the Capitals were no longer in danger of being run out of the building.
“I thought early on, we were a little bit caught off guard by the pace, physicality,” Washington Coach Spencer Carbery said. “You could feel that it was going to be a fast game tonight. You could feel the heaviness of their team. I just felt like it took us probably seven, eight minutes to get comfortable in that, and comfortable is probably the wrong word, but to understand that this is going to be a very quick game. … Once we understood that, we played a phenomenal game.”
The Canucks hadn’t played since Wednesday, while Washington played both Wednesday in Edmonton and Thursday in Seattle, and Vancouver’s extra rest was evident early in the game. But in the second period Friday — two nights after playing what Lindgren called their best period of the year in the middle frame against the Kraken — the Capitals raised their level and turned in another dominant period.
At the 6:01 mark, winger Tom Wilson blasted a one-timer into an open net behind DeSmith after receiving a backhand, no-look pass from winger Ivan Miroshnichenko. Miroshnichenko leaped into Wilson’s arms to celebrate both the goal, which tied the game, and his first assist in the NHL.
Washington kept the pressure on the Canucks after Wilson’s goal and needed just 1:53 to take the lead. From below the goal line, winger T.J. Oshie — playing in his 1,000th career game — fired a pass up to defenseman Alex Alexeyev, who had space at the top of the slot. Alexeyev faked a shot before passing to center Connor McMichael, who found captain Alex Ovechkin at the back post for the go-ahead goal.
Oshie’s status for Saturday’s game was in doubt until the end of warm-ups. He left Washington’s morning skate with an upper-body injury after just a few minutes, and it wasn’t until moments before the game that Oshie felt that he was good to go.
“Obviously, it’s a special night, and you want to play and not make all the tweets and all the congratulations, all that, kind of for nothing and postpone it,” Oshie said. “But I also didn’t want to make the team shorthanded. That would be the worst thing, if I started and couldn’t finish. Once I finally was ready and knew I was ready, it was kind of go time.”
Having Oshie, who has been at the heart and soul of everything Washington does since he joined the Capitals in a trade from the St. Louis Blues in July 2015, in the lineup for a major milestone — and a crucial game for their playoff hopes — gave Washington an extra boost to get the game across the line.
“I could be here all night talking about him, the character, the type of person that he is,” Wilson said. “He makes everybody in this room a better person, a better player. He’s a true warrior. He hasn’t taken a shift off in his entire career.”
“To win like that, it’s in true T.J. Oshie fashion, to win a game like that and play so hard,” Carbery added. “Guys are blocking shots. We’re grinding to get a puck across our blue line to get it out late in the game. Really happy and proud that now he can look back on something, and for all of us, we’ll remember this night for the rest of our lives — and it comes with a win. For what we had to fight for against a real good hockey team on the road, it’s a real memorable night.”
Vancouver’s speed didn’t wane much, if it all, in the third period, but Washington did just enough to hang with the Canucks. Even as Vancouver began to generate momentum from the midpoint of the final period on, the Capitals recovered in transition, had their sticks in shot lanes, blocked shots when necessary and relied upon Lindgren as their backstop when pucks did make it through.
Washington’s defensive effort kept Vancouver from being able to pull DeSmith for an extra attacker until there were less than two minutes left to play. The Capitals remained in the defensive zone for well over 90 seconds, until Ovechkin forced the puck out at the blue line and Washington bought itself a bit of breathing room.
Lindgren made one final save with 10 seconds left to seal a victory that Wilson termed the biggest of the Capitals’ season thus far.
“You look at these games, they’re meaningful hockey,” Wilson said. “They’re playoff-type hockey for us. It’s great experience for everyone in the room. We’re rallying together here. We’re playing well. We’re playing for each other. That’s what it’s all about at this time of year. We keep playing like that, we’ll give ourselves a good chance.”