Didn’t take the Washington Capitals long to find the top spot in the Metropolitan Division.
The Caps wo their second game of the new season, 2-1, over the New York Islanders on Long Island.
Ilya Samsonov made 25 saves to win his NHL debut effort.
“I feel great,” the 22-year-old goalie said. “It’s my first win in the NHL. [I was] maybe just a little bit nervous. Everybody helped me. It was a very good game.”
The offense came from Jakub Vrana and T.J. Oshie.
“It’s early and we’re learning, but I think the guys have adjusted well to how we want to play the game this year,” Oshie said. “We’ve got some great goaltending; good job by [Samsonov] tonight in his debut. That was really big. It’s a long season, but it feels like this year we’re pretty excited to get started. The boys are playing hard and playing for each other, and it’s a good start for a long year.”
Devon Toews scored the Isles lone goal.
“All in all, it’s a 2-1 hockey game, we just weren’t able to get that extra one and tie it up,” Islanders captain Anders Lee said. “They did a good job, I thought, really stepping up and eliminating a lot of our opportunities. For the most part, I thought we did a pretty good job doing that to them. They got the power-play goal.”
[WATCH: All Capitals vs. Islanders highlights]
Semyon Varlamov made 26 saves in his debut with the Isles.
“They were the better team in the third, plain and simple,” Islanders head coach Barry Trotz said after the loss.”They got on us, we tried to slow things down a bit on our back end, and some of our decisions weren’t good, and they’re a good transition team. They had their gaps, they stayed on top of us. … They pulled away from us in the third.”
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