It is not often you can turn a hockey game off after the first goal, but so far during this Washington Capitals season, the first goal will tell you who wins. Going into Friday night’s game against the Toronto Maple Leafs, the team that scored the first goal had won 18 of the previous 24 games.
Jakob Chychrun‘s late third period goal bucked that trend to give the Caps the lead, en route to a 4-2 win.
“I thought we still played well for most of the game. Especially in the O-zone. I thought we generated a lot,” Chychrun said. “It’s important not to get frustrated when goals aren’t going in.”
The Capitals allowed the first goal of the game, and then a second one early in the middle period. Entering the game, they were 1-5-1 when allowing the first goal and suddenly found themselves in a 2-0 hole before the game was half over.
“I thought it was a perfect team game from us,” Thompson said. “Woll was keeping them in it. Credit to the guys, we stuck to the game plan. Keep doing the right things, not cheat, and it worked out tonight.”
The Caps thought they had scored the first goal of the game just 40 seconds into the contest. After stopping the initial shot, Toronto goalie Joseph Woll could not squeeze the puck and it trickled through his legs. Dylan Strome and Anthony Beauvillier then poked the puck over the line, but the goal was immediately and emphatically waived off. After review, the call of “no goal” was upheld as it was ruled the play had been stopped.
Capitals head coach Spencer Carbery said the goal being waived off “got us on tilt” and that the team needed to get back to playing the way it needed to play “even if pucks don’t go in.”
After falling behind 2-0, the Caps turned up the heat and even held Toronto without a shot on goal for nearly 15 minutes, but could not cut the deficit. After peppering Woll all game, Connor McMichael got the Caps on the board.
The goal ignited Capital One Arena and the team, as the Caps pushed for what had been an elusive equalizer. The goal came from Beauvillier off a pass from Alex Ovechkin with under seven minutes left.
Following Chychrun’s heroics, Tom Wilson capped off the night with an empty net goal with one second on the clock. It was Wilson’s second point of the night after recording the secondary assist on the McMichael goal.
With a tight eastern conference, Carbery knows that every point is valuable and comebacks like tonight will be needed throughout the season.
“If you don’t get your game in order quickly, and accumulate points and get playing at a high level, even though it’s November, you can fall behind quickly,” Carbery said. “All of a sudden you can be looking up and have 12 teams in front of you. That’s a problem.”