Having dropped their last two games on the road, the Caps returned home last night to face the Carolina Hurricanes – a team that beat them earlier this season by a 4-2 score. So a better effort was needed all around to snap the skid and get a little revenge on their Metro rivals.
This time around, they got it – and the highlight of the game also happened to be a pivotal moment in the team’s eventual win.
Up 1-0 courtesy of a late first-period goal by Aliaksei Protas, the Caps faced a pushback by the Hurricanes in the second, fueled by some sustained power-play time for Carolina early in the frame. The Caps killed off a carryover minor from the first period to Tom Wilson and then a delay-of-game penalty taken by Jakob Chychrun a few minutes later.
Once they were back at even strength, the Caps got some chances on Carolina Pyotr Kochetkov – who made some decent saves in his own right – before the Canes broke up ice on a fast-developing two-on-one. The puck ended up on Tyson Jost’s stick, and he had a wide open shot at the net…except the Outlaw said no, and did so with flair:
A legitimately awesome – and pretty fun to watch – save by Charlie Lindgren, to be sure, but it also kept it a one-goal game, setting the stage for the eventual game-winner by Jakub Vrana just a few minutes later.
Great job by Lindgren, who was battling some sort of bug and apparently puking in between periods, to help his team secure a huge two points (and doing more than enough for us to forgive the one goal he did give up, which, considering some of the saves he made was…yikes). And a great job by the team to put together a gutsy win against a tough opponent.