Resiliency and patience were the keys to last night's big win for the Capitals.
Sunday night's showdown featured a true chess match in hockey form between the Washington Capitals and the Los Angeles Kings. Both teams have played solid defense all season, and neither team disappointed last night in this regard.
In the end, Washington was able to break through L.A.'s defensive line en route to a 3-1 win.
Aliaksei Protas tallied two, Jakub Vrana added one and Logan Thompson stopped 25 of 26 shots for the victory.
Let's unpack last night's final home game before the holiday break.
Capitals Defensive Line Holds Strong
As I mentioned at the top, both teams feature solid and deep defensive corps that have surrendered the fewest goals per game league-wide. For Los Angeles, this is even more important to their overall game structure, as they are not normally a high-scoring team.
Including Sunday's game, Los Angeles has not allowed more than three goals in a game since its unusual 7-2 loss to the Sharks on Nov. 25. The Kings also sit near the middle of the league in goals per game (3.06) and are comfortable playing tight games.
The Capitals aren't a team to take issue with close games either; they have just put up more goals in a game, with 3.76 goals a night on average, factoring in last night's win.
Sunday was a low-event matchup to start, and it was ultimately matter of making the most of opportunities, which has been a recent theme for D.C. in recent games.
Of late, Washington has tackled more defensively-minded teams, and the win over L.A. was another example. Both teams played a tight-checking and disciplined game of hockey. It wasn't a flashy game — no cartwheel saves in this one — but it was a solid game that the Capitals can use as an example of what they're capable of when they buckle down and play the game the right way.
Discipline Is Key
Circling back to discipline, each team saw exactly one chance on the power play for the same reason, as each team took a delay of game (puck over the glass) penalty in the second period (a penalty I utterly despise), and each team got a PPG out of it.
The Kings don't rank highly in special teams for the most part, but Washington stayed out of the box anyway, not allowing Anze Kopitar and friends to go to work too many times.
The Capitals' power play last night didn't give us a huge sample size to draw from obviously, but they did manage to look fairly organized early on.
After the second unit came out, the flow started to look a bit dishevelled before an errant bounce handed the puck right to Pierre-Luc Dubois, who got a high-slot pass to Jakub Vrana, who took care of the rest and made it 2-1.
The penalty kill on the other hand allowed a rare goal against, although I would not blame either the penalty kill unit or Logan Thompson for the goal; it was a well-placed shot through traffic from Kevin Fiala that beat Thompson on the stick side.
Patience Pays Off, Protas Continues to Flourish
As previously mentioned, it was not a flashy game, even on the offensive side of play. The Capitals managed to wait for well-placed shots and opportunities to get traffic in front of David Rittich.
Aliaksei Protas kicked off the scoring midway through the first period. A failed clear with a broken stick led to a turnover to Pierre-Luc Dubois, who fed the puck to Protas in all alone. He then snapped home his 13th goal of the season and now has goals in back-to-back games.
In the second period, after yielding a tying goal to the Kings, Dubois took advantage of another failed clear by the Kings on the power play and got the puck to Vrana for his sixth of the season and second goal in as many games.
The third period was fairly uneventful offensively, save for Protas' long-range shot into the empty net to seal the deal for D.C..
I've mentioned multiple times throughout this season that the Capitals have played at their best when they stick to patient, opportunistic hockey. Last night is just another example of this.
And let's not overlook the recent play of Aliaksei Protas, who matched the career-high point total he set last year in 45 fewer games and is on pace for 72 points this season.
Spencer Carbery's praise of Protas postgame was glowing, and for good reason; the 23-year-old is one of many Capitals players who has stepped up to fill the offensive void while Alex Ovechkin recovers from a broken leg.
Extra Special for Pierre-Luc Dubois and Matt Roy
Carbery also mentioned postgame that this game held a little extra meaning for Dubois and defensemen Matt Roy, who were both facing the Kings for the first time since finding a new home in Washington. And while Roy didn't factor into the scoresheet, he was stellar defensively, and Dubois had the ultimate revenge game for a center with two primary assists.
For a player like Dubois, who was besieged with controversy throughout his single season with Los Angeles, Sunday seemed to be a game where he got some closure against a former team that simply did not work out for him.
The meaning of the game for Dubois was evident with the enormous smile on his face in the locker room.
"Felt good. A little extra special," Dubois noted.
In the end, all that controversy has been put to rest it seems, as Dubois has made a name for himself on this Capitals roster, and made believers out of many people (myself included).
One More for the Road
Washington will head north for one more tilt against the Boston Bruins tonight before the holiday break.
Boston is never a team to be taken lightly, although the cracks are starting to show and this is a team pretty far removed from that historic season two years ago. Still, players like David Pastrnak and Brad Marchand can never be ignored, and Jeremy Swayman is still a capable goalie.
Boston is 7-2-1 in its last 10 games and has been steadily improving since the ousting of former coach Jim Montgomery.
Washington will need to play another solid, disciplined game in order to secure two more points before Christmas.
Also, a very happy 38th birthday to Capitals living legend T.J. Oshie. I've been a big fan of Oshie's since his Blues days, and since I also wear No. 77 on my beer league teams (except for one) I have been rooting for T.J. for some time. Here's to many more for you, Osh.