Since coming to the nation’s capital, head coach Peter Laviolette has been very hard to please. Saturday, he seemed almost giddy than some other post-game press conferences after a Capitals win.
“I thought we played a strong game,” Laviolette said. “It was really good from the start. Everybody seemed to be on point. We were skating harder, competing much better, sharper execution, you know, different ball game.”
The Caps dominated the Philadelphia Flyers to a 6-3 win at the Wells Fargo Center. The win moves Washington’s record to 29-12-4 with 62 points atop the MassMutual East Division. The Caps are three points ahead of second-place Pittsburgh, which beat Buffalo 3-2. Both the Penguins and the third-place Islanders have a game in hand against Washington.
The Capitals got contributions from every line.
Alex Ovechkin opened the scoring 3:38 seconds into the first period blasting a slap shot past Flyers goalie Alex Lyon. Philadelphia tied the game with one second left in the period as Ivan Provorov beat Ilya Samsonov.
Washington regained the lead in the opening seconds of period number two as Dmitry Orlov scored his 9th goal of the season. Orlov’s goal was one of four defensemen John Carlson assisted.
“I just think that every game means so much,” Carlson said. “Just the importance each night teams are going to be battling for something different.” “We can’t expect since we’re playing good just to come out and have the same performance without that extra effort and attention to detail, and I think that was what was missing.”
After James Van Riemsdyk tied the game at 2, Ovechkin gave the Caps the lead again with his second goal. The goal was his 24th of the season and 730th of his career. He is now one goal behind Marcel Dionne on the all-time list.
“When everybody’s touching the puck, it’s hard to defend just one person. Other guys are really capable of scoring goals, so it leads to more opportunity and opens other things up,” Laviolette said.
Evgeny Kuznetsov scored his 9th goal of the season to put Washington ahead for good 4-2. Conor Sheary and Anthony Mantha added goals in the final. For Mantha, it was the third straight game he’s scored since coming to Washington at the trade deadline.
“I think, for the most part, everyone up and down the lineup everyone played a pretty hard game tonight,” said T.J. Oshie. “You could see it by our puck possession, by our shots on net, and by the goals on the board.”