Their season has been a bumpy road to this point, but the Washington Capitals continue to prove their resilience.
Fresh off a roller-coaster victory, the Capitals hope to ride the momentum into Wednesday’s road game with the Philadelphia Flyers.
Washington had lost three straight games before posting a 7-3 triumph over the visiting Calgary Flames on Monday. The Capitals appeared as if they would skate to a comfortable victory, as they led 3-0 after one period. However, the Flames tied it with three second-period goals before Washington erupted for four goals in the final 10 minutes of the third period.
“It felt like every single period was the complete opposite from the last,” said Capitals forward Connor McMichael, who scored twice to snap a seven-game goalless drought. “And we weren’t happy with how the second went, as you can tell, and I think it motivated us to come out in the third and dominate.”
Justin Sourdif had a goal and two assists and Hendrix Lapierre chipped in with a goal and an assist for Washington, which had not scored more than four goals in a game since late January.
“It’s a resilient group,” Capitals coach Spencer Carbery said. “Even though we’ve had our struggles and our moments through the year that haven’t gone as planned, you still can’t question the character of our group as a whole. They genuinely want to do the right things, and care and play hard and compete.”
Philadelphia is coming off a 6-2 home defeat against the New York Rangers on Monday. Dan Vladar allowed six goals on 24 shots, but his teammates refused to blame their goaltender after the lopsided setback.
“I think mentally we weren’t sharp,” Flyers captain Sean Couturier said. “We gave up a lot of quality chances and they capitalized on us.”
Matvei Michkov and Couturier scored for Philadelphia, which had won four of its previous five games. The Flyers allowed the Rangers to score three times with the power play as their slim playoff hopes took another hit.
“(The issue was) not protecting the middle of ice, which is something we always talk about,” Philadelphia coach Rick Tocchet said. “We’ve done a good job since the (Olympic) break, but tonight, there’s guys that have to stop in the slot and you’ve got to protect the middle, and we’ve got to box out better. How many goals (did they get), six? And how many were from the middle of the slot or in front of our net? That’s the game.”
The Flyers enter Tuesday’s action seven points back of the Boston Bruins for the second wild-card position, while the Capitals are five points back. Both Philadelphia (19 games remaining) and Washington (17) need to get hot down the stretch in order to reach the postseason.
This is the third of four meetings between the teams this season.
The Flyers posted a 4-2 home win on Feb. 3 behind Jamie Drysdale’s tie-breaking power-play goal with under six minutes remaining. The Capitals got revenge on Feb. 25 with a 3-1 home victory as Trevor van Riemsdyk similarly scored the go-ahead goal with under six minutes left.
Washington has won seven of its last eight games against Philadelphia.
