Caps ground Flyers | Pro Hockey News

PHILADELPHIA – The Washington Capitals fell behind Sunday night on a first period goal from the Flyers’ Joel Farabee.

Travis Konecny #11 of the Philadelphia Flyers battles for the puck against Zdeno Chara #33, Nick Jensen #3, and ?Ilya Samsonov #30 of the Washington Capitals

After that one goal, Ilya Samsonov settled down and made 36 saves in a 3-1 win for the Caps.

“I thought he played a really strong game,” Capitals head coach Peter Laviolette said. “I thought he had some really big saves, backdoor saves, saves that you hope your goaltender makes. But they are tough, and you know they are tough, but he made them all night. I thought he played a really good game.”

Washington’s offense opened up in the middle frame with goals from Alex Ovechkin and Dmitry Orlov.

Joel Farabee #86 of the Philadelphia Flyers skates in looking for the rebound from Goalie Ilya Samsonov #30 of the Washington Capitals

Nick Jensen pushed the lead to 3-1 in the third period.

“It started with [Zdeno] Chara making a great defensive play on the blue line and then he took two guys out of the play with some physicality,” Jensen said. “That allowed me to get up in the play and then from there, [Nicklas] Backstrom is a playmaker, he made plays and then just hit me wide open and I had it all day to take a shot.”

The Flyers dropped to 12-7-3.

“I liked the way we came out. We came out with good energy, making a lot of the right plays,” Flyers head coach Alain Vigneault said. “We knew that they were going to have a push in the second period, they did. … Guys competed and we’ll regroup here, reenergize and get ready for the next game (against the Buffalo Sabres on Tuesday).”

Carter Hart made 24 saves in the loss.

“We need to score one eventually and get the killer instinct of taking over the game,” the Flyers’ Sean Couturier said. “Power play, you can win games, and penalty kill, you can lose them, and right now we’re losing that kind of battle, that aspect of the game.”