Charlie Lindgren stopped all 22 shots he faced in his first return to action since Jan. 10 for his first shutout of the season. Alex Ovechkin scored late in the game with an empty net goal and is now 20 goals away from passing Wayne Gretzky for number NHL goal scorer of all time
The Washington Capitals earned a 3-0 win on Thursday night over the Seattle Kraken. It was Charlie Lindgren's first shutout of the season in his first game back since Jan. 10 as he stopped all 22 shots he faced. Caps outshot the Kraken 32-22 overall.
The first period was scoreless as the Caps outshot the Kraken 15-9. In the second, Aliaksei Protas got his 20th goal of the season at 4:36 off a feed from Pierre-Luc Dubois with his 30th assist of the season. Then Ethen Frank broke away for his third goal of the season at 18:05 to double the Caps lead to 2-0 which would be their lead after two periods. Washington outshot Seattle 9-4 in the second period.
In the third the Caps were outshot 9-8 but had the final laugh out west. Alex Ovechkin put the game away at 16:32 with an empty net goal for his 22nd of the season. Trevor van Riemsdyk had his 14th helper while Jakob Chychrun tacked on his 19th assist. It was Ovechkin's 22nd of the season.
With the goal it was the 875th of Ovechkin's storied career. He's now 19 away from tying and 20 away from passing Wayne Gretzky for the number one goal scoring record in NHL history. And a friendly reminder that he's doing all of this in his 20th season at the age of 39.
With the Protas goal earlier in the game, Washington is the fourth team this season with three 20 goal scorers. The other two are Ovi and Tom Wilson.
Washington held the edge in face off percentage 61.5 percent to 38.5 percent. They were out hit 16-8 but had the edge in blocked shots 22-8. Givaways were even at 21 as were takaways at seven. There was one penalty the entire game when Taylor Raddysh was whistled for tripping Ryker Evans. The Kraken went 0 for 1 on that lone power play.
This was just another complete team game performance by the Capitals. Lindgren was showing shades of last season and it'll only help build his confidence as this was his first game back from injury. It's a good hockey situation here in the grand old sports town of D.C. (so far) and the Caps look to continue their insane momentum to shock the NHL world. But maybe it's not so much of a shock right now.
Next up for the Caps is a Saturday night matchup with the Vancouver Canucks with a 10 p.m. puck drop over on the east coast on Monumental Sports Network 2. You can also listen to the game on 106.7 The Fan and Caps Radio 24/7.
