The Washington Capitals were riding a two-game win streak coming into tonight after their victorious back-to-back in New York this weekend. Tonight’s game was the second half of a back-to-back for the Tampa Bay Lightning, who secured a win in Boston last night. Unfortunately for the Caps, it looked like they were the team that played last night with the way they came out onto the ice in the first period. Thankfully, they seemed to wake up a bit after the first intermission. After falling behind early, the Caps mounted a comeback in regulation with goals from Aliaksei Protas and Tom Wilson and Jakob Chychrun scored during bonus hockey to secure the two points.
Plus: BREAKING NEWS—the 2025-2026 Washington Capitals have scored a power play goal. Shoutout to Tom Wilson, who scored a beautiful tip-in goal on the man-advantage to tie the game for the Caps in the third period.
Minus: The Caps’ slow start to this game was almost their downfall tonight. Only one team played a full hockey game last night, and by the way they showed up at puck drop you’d have thought it was Washington. They fell behind early after Jake Guentzel scored a goal just 7:06 into the game, and their entire first period was lackluster. Thankfully, they were able to recover and grab the win—courtesy of an OTGWG from Jakob Chychrun.
Star of the Game: Aliaksei Protas and Jakob Chychrun were both strong contenders for this award tonight, but it has to go to Tom Wilson for scoring the team’s first power play goal of the year. Oh, and it was a beauty of a play to boot: