Flyers Beat Capitals 4-3 in Overtime

Patrick McDermott/NHLI via Getty Images

The Washington Capitals fell to the Philadelphia Flyers 4-3 in overtime on Wednesday night at Verizon Center, ending the team’s home winning streak at 12 games. The Capitals record falls to 35-8-4. The Flyers ended their 3-game losing streak, improving their record to 21-18-8.

Patrick McDermott/NHLI via Getty Images

The Capitals starting lines for tonight’s game:

Offensive Lines:
Ovechkin-Backstrom-Oshie
Burakovsky-Kuznetsov-Williams
Chimera-Johansson-Wilson
Laich-Richards-Latta

Defensive pairs:
Schmidt-Carlson
Alzner-Niskanen
Orlov-Chorney

Jay Beagle missed his 11th straight game due to an injury to his hand he sustained against Buffalo on December 30th. Brooks Orpik missed his 34th straight game since sustaining a lower body injury in Detroit on November 10th. Ryan Stanton and Stanislav Galiev were the healthy scratches for tonight’s game.

QUICK TAKES
The Capitals 8-day lay-off was clearly evident in the first period, as the Caps passing was terrible. Evgeny Kuznetsov made a very careless pass in the Caps defensive zone to gift a second goal to the flyers. Matt Niskanen and Dmitry Orlov were also notably poor with tape-to-tape passes in the first period. The Flyers led 12-6 in shots-on-goal after one period. The Capitals responded in the second period, outshooting and outplaying the Flyers for a majority of the period and tying the game 2-2. The Flyers would add a goal at the end of the period to regain the lead. the third period was essentially even battle, with the game ending in a 3-3 tie. The Flyers would win it quickly in overtime. The Flyers outshot the Caps 32-30 for the game.

The Capitals Tom Wilson was called for the game’s first penalty at 4:48 of the opening frame, and the Flyers would cash-in just six seconds later with a close-range punch-in by Brayden Schenn. This was the Flyers first shot-on-goal.

The Capitals were only able to generate two shots-on-goal in the first ten minutes of the first period. The Flyers would get a second goal at the 11:11 mark on a bad turnover by Evgeny Kuznetsov in the Capitals defensive zone, which was quickly buried in the net by the Flyers Ryan White.

The period would end with the Flyers leading 2-0. The Flyers also led in shots-on-goal 12-6 for the first period.

The second period saw much better passing from the Caps, and greatly improved offensive zone pressure. The Caps would cut the Flyers lead in half on a great play by Andre Burakovsky, who snagged an errant pass and nailed a shot from the top of the slot at 7:39 of the middle frame.

Nicklas Backstrom would tie the game at 8:34 on a nifty feed from T.J. Oshie.

The Flyers would regain the lead with 2:21 left in the second period on a face-off win and quick shot on goal by Jakub Voracek.

The period would end with the Flyers leading 3-2. The Flyers led in shots-on-goal 18-17.

The Capitals would tie the game on Andre Burakosky’s second goal of the game at 3:55 in the third period. Burakovsky received a nice feed from Kuznetsov for the shot from the crease.