In Washington, DC< Ilya Samsonov made 29 saves and the capitals defeated the Philadelphia Flyers, 6-1, on Tuesday night.
Conor Sheary had a goal for the Washington Capitals
New comer, Anthony Mantha struck for a goal and two points in the win.
“Obviously when a team comes to get you, you want to look the best you can, and I think tonight was just a step forward for myself and kind of calmed the nerves a little bit,” Mantha said. “Have a good first game, and then just try and build confidence for the following games.”
Sean Couturier scored lone goal for the Flyers.
“Tonight, I think the PK didn’t get the job done, and it’s tough for the momentum of a game when they’re 2-for-2 (on the power play) in the first,” Couturier said. “We’ve got to be better than that in that area of the game. But all around, too, we need to be much better, solid. It’s tough. It’s not fun this year, I guess.”
Philadelphia dropped 19-17-6 and two points behind the New York Rangers.
“Obviously, I didn’t like at all the way we came out,” Flyers head coach Alain Vigneault said. “Not the way you give yourself a chance against such a strong opponent. It wasn’t good enough. We put ourselves in a hole.”
Connor Sheary staked the Caps to a 1-0 lead in the opening frame.
“We’re coming out in the first five minutes of the game and striking hard, something that we’ve struggled with sometimes throughout the year, and then we’re finishing the game with a lot of good attitude,” Washington’s Nick Jensen said. “So those are two things that we’ve kind of gone up and down with throughout the season, and I think we saw a complete game the last three games.”
Couturier tied it before the Capitals responded with five unanswered goals.
Tom Wilson and Nicklas Backstrom scored a goal each and two points on the night.
“Guys are moving the puck pretty quick. I think all options are in play,” Washington head coach Peter Laviolette said. “You see that man in the middle open up quite a bit. The shots from the point. I think once you start, if the far side gets taken away, you have to find opportunities on the interior, and I think that the guys have done a really good job of that.”
Alex Ovechkin scored his 727th NHL goal.
Carl Hagelin scored before the end of the first period to give the Caps a 4-1 lead.
Brian Elliott made 26 saves in the loss.
“I think we got beat kind of all over the ice in basically every category,” Elliott said. “So they played a good game, and we didn’t.”
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