Shorty Wanna Ride – A night after they met for the first of four times this season, the Caps and Flyers will clash again on Wednesday night in Washington. The Caps prevailed by a 4-1 count in Tuesday’s front end of the home-and-home set of back-to-backs, earning their fourth straight victory. Philadelphia fell for the fifth straight game (0-4-1).

For the first time in its franchise history, the Caps opened the scoring of the game with a pair of shorthanded goals – from Nic Dowd and Andrew Mangiapane – and that turned out to be all the offense they would need.

According to naturalstattrick.com, Washington is second in the NHL in shorthanded possession numbers, and it has generated eight shorthanded scoring chances, tied for second most in the League (Philadelphia leads with 10). The Caps haven’t been known as a team that pushes the envelope while shorthanded; they’ve had three seasons in this century in which they managed two shorthanded goals all season.

“Our [penalty kill] forecheck has done a real good job at denying entries, like we’ve talked about at various points of the preseason and early in the season,” says Caps coach Spencer Carbery. “And I think too, some of the speed there, like [Aliaksei] Protas has generated quite a few good looks there, and it was nice to capitalize. Both penalty kills generated a little bit [more] – probably too much – than both teams would like, but we were able to capitalize in two of those situations, huge goals by Dowder and Mange.”

Those goals helped extend the Caps’ winning streak to four. On the other side of the coin, the Flyers are seeking to halt an early season slide, because early season slides often get magnified. Philadelphia played well for most of Tuesday’s game, but the Flyers definitely lacked finish; some of their best looks at the net missed the mark.

“I think the biggest key is there is a frustration level, right,” said Flyers’ coach Jon Tortorella afterwards. “They want to play well; they want to win a hockey game. They want to score a goal in the home building.

“You can’t let the frustration turn into cheating. You can’t forget about your structure as we’re going through this. It’s kind of doubled up since it’s the start of the year and we’re in this jam, so there’s more pressure. But we just have to play the way we’re supposed to play within our structure. Hopefully, we get some good things to happen, and we just gain our confidence, little by little.”

Keep On Pushing – Through the first 15 games of last season, Washington defensemen combined to score just one goal, and they accumulated 20 assists for a total of 21 points, a paltry average of just 1.4 points per night from the back end.

Things got better by season’s end, but the Caps’ defense still underachieved offensively last season, in comparison to the team’s recent history. The 2023-24 Caps finished the season with 20 goals and 135 points, totals they exceeded in both of the pandemic-abbreviated seasons. Last season’s average of 1.65 points per game from the back end was the team’s lowest since 2010-11 (1.48), John Carlson’s first full NHL season.

John Carlson and Jakob Chychrun both scored for Washington in Tuesday’s game against the Flyers, and Martin Fehervary chipped in with an assist. Through five games thus far this season, the Caps’ blueline has amassed four goals and 13 points, an average of 2.6 points per game.

Even prior to Tuesday night’s offensive outburst, it’s been obvious that Caps defensemen have been more assertive offensively.

“I think the [defense] has been a huge part of our offensive – whatever you want to call it – resurgence, or ability to score, or produce quality scoring chances at a higher rate this year,” says Carbery. “And it comes in a lot of different ways, whether that’s moving the puck out of our zone and getting us through the neutral zone, or in the offensive zone, or adding a rush element as a fourth and fifth guy into the zone.

“All of those elements, I feel like they’ve checked the box of helping us become a more threatening offensive team. And then there is our ability to get shots through as well; I noticed that a lot, we’re doing a way better job of finding shot lanes. When we don’t have a lane, make a good decision with it.”

Carbery also notes the importance of making good decisions and placements with those high to low pucks, given Philadelphia’s identity as a top shot-blocking team.

“We can’t be putting pucks into shin pads,” says the Caps’ coach. “And that will come up tonight as one of the best shot blocking teams in the National Hockey League is Philly. There’s two parts to it; you’re killing your shift, and you’re fueling their transition when you ring it off a guy’s shin pads. And so I feel like our has done a real good job of being selective there and finding shot lanes when they’re there, and when they’re not, just reset it, and let us go to work again.”

My Rival – Many of the Caps’ group of new faces got their first taste of the Caps-Flyers rivalry last night in Philadelphia when Washington defeated the Flyers for the 100th time in franchise history (100-112-19-12), and a couple of them discussed the experience afterwards.

Chychrun’s dad Jeff was a second-round pick of the Flyers in 1984, and he debuted in the black and orange on Dec. 2, 1986 in Philly against St. Louis. The elder Chychrun played 199 of his 262 career NHL games with the Flyers; he led all NHL rookie defensemen with a plus-11 rating in 1988-89 but his career was shortened because of injuries. He also piled up 742 PIM in his NHL career.

“It’s great,” says Jakob Chychrun of the Caps-Flyers rivalry. “It’s obviously a very passionate city here, and it’s a fun place to come and play. My dad always raved about his time here, so it’s nice to come in and get a couple of points. I spent a little bit of time in the penalty box there, and everybody was saying they were getting flashbacks, because my pops spent a lot of time there as well.”

Before joining the Caps this season, Andrew Mangiapane had only played for the Calgary Flames, where he was intimately familiar with the “Battle of Alberta” rivalry between the Flames and the Edmonton Oilers.

“You can see that there’s some tension there; it’s a rivalry, a division rivalry,” says Mangiapane. “And I’m sure it’s going to build [Wednesday]; that’s what happens on these back-to-backs. So we’ve got to be ready to play because they’re going to be bringing it all.”

In The Nets – Logan Thompson gets the net for Washington tonight as the Caps continue with their early season rotation of Thompson and Charlie Lindgren, who stopped 17 shots on Tuesday night to improve to 4-0-2 lifetime against Philadelphia.

Thompson made his Caps debut just over a week ago, defeating Vegas last Tuesday night in DC. He won his second start on Saturday in New Jersey and will be looking to make it three straight tonight against Philadelphia. On the season, Thompson is 2-0-0 with a 3.41 GAA and an .877 save pct.

Lifetime against the Flyers, Thompson is 1-0-1 in two appearances – both starts – with a 2.98 GAA and a .909 save pct.

Ivan Fedotov is the Philadelphia starter tonight. The 27-year-old was Philly’s seventh-round choice (188th overall) in the 2015 NHL Draft, and he made his NHL debut late last season, getting into three games, and starting one.

Tonight, Fedotov makes his third start of the young season. He is 0-2-0 with a 6.09 GAA and an .818 save pct. in an obviously small sample size. Lifetime in the NHL, he is 0-3-1 with a 5.46 GAA and an .815 save pct.

All Lined Up – Here’s how the Capitals and Flyers lined up for Tuesday night’s game in Philly. The Caps are going with the same lineup – except for in goal – while Philadelphia will insert Tyson Foerster into the lineup for Bobby Brink tonight, as well as starting a different netminder.

WASHINGTON

Forwards

21-Protas, 17-Strome, 8-Ovechkin

24-McMichael, 80-Dubois, 43-Wilson

88-Mangiapane, 29-Lapierre, 13-Vrana

22-Duhaime, 26-Dowd, 16-Raddysh

Defensemen

6-Chychrun, 74-Carlson

42-Fehervary, 52-McIlrath

38-Sandin, 57-van Riemsdyk

Goaltenders

48-Thompson

79-Lindgren

Extras

15-Milano

27-Alexeyev

Out/Injured

3-Roy (lower body)

19-Backstrom (hip)

77-Oshie (back)

PHILADELPHIA

Forwards

21-Laughton, 48-Frost, 11-Konecny

74-Tippett, 14-Couturier, 39-Michkov

86-Farabee, 25-Poehling, 10-Brink

44-Deslauriers, 27-Cates, 19-Hathaway

Defensemen

8-York, 6-Sanheim

5-Zamula, 55-Ristolainen

24-Seeler, 9-Drysdale

Goaltenders

33-Ersson

82-Fedotov

Extras

17-Luchanko

71-Foerster

77-Johnson

Out/Injured

94-Ellis (back)