The Washington Capitals head into Wednesday’s game at San Jose with a share of first place in the Metropolitan Division.
The Capitals’ 3-1 victory over the Los Angeles Kings on Tuesday night served as their fifth straight win and eighth in the last nine games. Washington is tied with the Carolina Hurricanes for the top spot with 34 points, one point ahead of third-place New Jersey.
The contest with San Jose will be the third of a four-game road trip that began with a 4-1 win over the New York Islanders on Sunday. Tuesday’s game with the Kings kicked off a three-games-in-four-days California trip that concludes back in Southern California on Friday against the Pacific Division-leading Anaheim Ducks.
Anthony Beauvillier scored the go-ahead goal early in the third period, captain Alex Ovechkin had two assists and Logan Thompson made 24 saves as the Capitals completed a regular-season series sweep of the Kings.
Beauvillier, driving down the slot, tapped in a Connor McMichael pass at the end of an odd-man rush that included Ovechkin.
“I just figured I’d jump into the play in case there was a rebound and (McMichael) found me on the backside there and I just put it in,” Beauvillier said.
Aliaksei Protas sealed the win with an empty-netter with 1:42 to go.
“Tomorrow is obviously a quick turnaround, got to go up to San Jose, and then finish (the trip) off in Anaheim,” Beauvillier said. “Obviously playing some really good teams, and to start it off with two wins is massive for us.”
Ovechkin, who has nine goals and eight assists in his last 12 games, became the seventh player in league history to record 800 career road points. He now has 463 goals and 337 assists in 760 career road contests.
San Jose, fourth in the Pacific Division, comes in off a 6-3 victory over the visiting Utah Mammoth on Monday and has won seven of its last eight home games. It’s been quite the turnaround on home ice for the Sharks. Only Colorado (11-0-1) has more home wins than San Jose (9-4-3), which finished with the worst home record in the league (12-27-2) last season.
Tyler Toffoli had two goals and two assists, Will Smith had two goals and an assist and Macklin Celebrini had three assists for San Jose, which led 6-2 midway through the second period.
“The last couple of games we’ve had some really good games, did some really good things,” Toffoli said. “Tonight was nice to get going there in the first, and another big win.”
“I thought we played with the momentum probably better than we have probably all year,” San Jose coach Ryan Warsofsky said. “We pushed the pace and pushed the play a little bit.”
Warsofsky was happy with the way his team responded following a 4-3 loss on Saturday to the Vegas Golden Knights.
“You want to win, you want to play better,” Warsofsky said. “I didn’t think we played bad by any means in Vegas. We just gave up some goals that are very easy to give up, that are preventable. And I thought we did a little bit of that again tonight. Still things for us to work on, but it’s a good effort by us to put six on the board and get two points.”
