Pittsburgh Penguins (5-4-4 14pts) v. Washington Capitals (8-2-4 20pts)
Game Recap:
In Washington for a cup of coffee, the Capitals would play host to the Pittsburgh Penguins for their Hockey Fights Cancer night. In the first period the Pens would get on the powerplay early on as Daniel Sprong would get called for holding, but it would be the Caps taking advantage as Tom Wilson would feed Martin Fehervary for the shorthanded tally to give the Caps the 1-0 lead. Then moments after taking the one goal lead Conor Sheary would draw a penalty against Kasperi Kapanen, but the Caps would be unable to capitalize on the extra man advantage. Later in the period the Caps would strike again as Alex Ovechkin would feed Garnet Hathaway for his third pf the season to grow the Caps lead to two. However in the final 80 seconds of the period Jake Guentzel would strike to get eh Pens on the board and cut the Caps lead to one.
In the second period it would only take 12 seconds before a penalty would be called as the rookie Connor McMichael would get called for hooking to put the Pens on their second powerplay of the game. However, the Caps would apply the pressure and kill off the penalty to give themselves some momentum and lead to a great scoring opportunity for Carl Hagelin, but Tristan Jarry would be up to the task to keep the Pens only down by one. With the Caps continuing to apply the pressure Jeff Carter would get called for slashing, and with the powerplay the Caps would generate some really solid scoring chances, but were unable to capitalize on the powerplay. Then late in the period Lars Eller would feed Daniel Sprong for a bomb to give allow the Caps to retake their two goal lead, and then Conor Sheary would strike to grow the Caps lead to three as they take the 4-1 lead over the Pens into the second intermission.
Then in the third period the Capitals would continue to dominate the Penguins as they’re consistent forechecking would result in Evgeny Kuznetsov netting one from the slot to grow the Caps lead to four in the first five minutes of the period. The Pens would get close to getting another one past Vitek Vanecek, but it was all post to keep the Caps up by four. Midway through the third frustrations were starting to brew for the returning Sidney Crosby as he would go after Kuznetsov with some cross checks that would send him to the box for two minutes. This penalty after Crosby would throw Martin Fehervary roughly to the ice, which wasn’t called. On the powerplay the Caps would only need ten seconds to score as Kuznetsov would breakout Tom Wilson who would slid it between Jarry’s legs to give the Caps a dominating 6-1 victory over the Penguins.
Lineups:
Pittsburgh Penguins:
Jake Guentzel — Sidney Crosby — Bryan Rust
Jason Zucker — Jeff Carter — Kasperi Kapanen
Danton Heinen — Teddy Blueger — Brock McGinn
Evan Rodrigues — Brian Boyle — Zach Aston-Reese
Kris Letang — Brian Dumoulin
John Marino — Marcus Pettersson
Chad Ruhwedel — Mike Matheson
Tristan Jarry
Casey DeSmith
Scratched: Sam Lafferty, Mark Friedman
Injured: Evgeni Malkin (knee)
Washington Capitals:
Alex Ovechkin — Evgeny Kuznetsov — Tom Wilson
Conor Sheary — Connor McMichael — Daniel Sprong
Axel Jonsson-Fjallby — Lars Eller — Garnet Hathaway
Carl Hagelin — Aliaksei Protas — Brett Leason
Martin Fehervary — John Carlson
Dmitry Orlov — Nick Jensen
Trevor van Riemsdyk — Justin Schultz
Vitek Vanecek
Ilya Samsonov
Scratched: Dennis Cholowski, Matt Irwin
Injured: Nicklas Backstrom (hip), T.J. Oshie (lower body), Anthony Mantha (upper body), Nic Dowd (lower body)
First Period:
WAS Penalty – 3:08 – Daniel Sprong 2 minutes for Holding
WAS SHG – 4:25 – Martin Fehervary (2) from Tom Wilson (9) and Garnet Hathaway (1)
PIT Penalty – 5:28 – Kasperi Kapanen 2 minutes for Hooking
WAS Goal – 14:05 – Garnet Hathaway (3) from Alex Ovechkin (13) and Trevor van Riemsdyk (6)
PIT Goal – 18:40 – Jake Guentzel (4) from Kris Letang (8) and Mike Matheson (5)
| End of First | PIT – 1 | WAS – 2 |
| Shots | 8 | 9 |
| Faceoff Wins | 6 | 8 |
| Hits | 8 | 10 |
| Powerplay | 0/1 | 0/1 |
Second Period:
WAS Penalty – :12 – Connor McMichael 2 minutes for Hooking
PIT Penalty – 5:26 – Jeff Carter 2 minutes for Slashing
WAS Goal – 16:11 – Daniel Sprong (3) from Lars Eller (7) and Conor Sheary (4)
WAS Goal – 18:36 – Conor Sheary (3) from Connor McMichael (4) and Daniel Sprong (2)
| End of Second | PIT – 1 | WAS – 4 |
| Shots | 17 | 23 |
| Faceoff Wins | 17 | 14 |
| Hits | 13 | 17 |
| Powerplay | 0/2 | 0/2 |
Third Period:
WAS Goal – 4:43 – Evgeny Kuznetsov (6) from Alex Ovechkin (14)
PIT Penalty – 9:15 – Sidney Crosby 2 minutes for Cross Checking
WAS PPG – 9:35 – Tom Wilson (4) from Evgeny Kuznetsov (14) and John Carlson (7)
| End of Third | PIT – 1 | WAS – 6 |
| Shots | 25 | 32 |
| Faceoff Wins | 25 | 24 |
| Hits | 19 | 26 |
| Powerplay | 0/2 | 1/3 |
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