Playing at home, Washington toppled a Philadelphia side that ranks above them and had been on a tear, prevailing in a night packed with goals.
The opener came off the stick of Tom Wilson, who was playing game number 900 in his career; he beat the netminder from the top of the slot with Sanheim screening. Soon after, Ovechkin notched his 30th of the campaign, jamming home a loose puck after Matt Roy charged the crease.
The visitors struck twice in short order to open the second and squared things up. Sanheim got the first, initially whistled down for interference on the goalie before the review let it stand. Grundstrom then knotted it at two by reading a bouncing puck and pouncing.
That appeared to jolt the home side awake. Jakob Chychrun, who was marking his birthday, hammered home one with the man advantage, and then Leonard closed the middle stanza with yet another power-play tally, something this group rarely manages twice in a frame.
A lone shift after the second intermission, Christian Dvorak drew the Flyers to within one off an odd-man rush. It didn't matter much, though: a tidy McMichael feed sprang Ovechkin, who pushed the margin back to two.
A long heave redirected by Denver Barkey kept the Flyers breathing, yet Wilson found the empty net to put the game away.
A Caps victory.
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- Washington wrestled with the same scoring drought, mostly during the opening 20 minutes, yet the floodgates opened once they solved Dan Vladar. Shaky netminding tends to produce entertaining hockey, and this one delivered.
- I'd assumed Travis Sanheim's goal was coming off the board, since to my eye it looked like Christian Dvorak's stick had clipped the Caps' goaltender Logan Thompson, yet the replay revealed Martin Fehervary had caused the contact. The right verdict, and I doubt it'll add much fuel to the never-ending fight over goalie interference.
Tom Wilson, feted by the Capitals with a video tribute for his 900th NHL contest, struck for the night's opening goal.
- Wilson laced them up for regular-season game No. 900 in a Caps jersey. I've piled up countless notes (measured in megabytes rather than reams) grumbling over how poorly he got deployed in his rookie year with Adam Oates running the bench and insisting he had more to give. Even the most starry-eyed take from my 2013 self couldn't have foreseen the caliber of competitor and leader he's grown into. He buried a goal, threw his body around, and glared.
- That entire sequence ahead of Wilson's marker was outstanding. Sandin and Lapierre each absorbed contact to push the puck forward.
- On a side note, I dug into the numbers: across this campaign the Caps remain in positive territory on second-period goal differential.
- Two restraining minors went against Cole Hutson, and from roughly the halfway point of the third he seemed to ride the pine.
- The 40-year-old Ovechkin found twine a pair of times, his 30th plus 31st of the year. Supposedly only six games are left before he hangs them up.
- On the strength of goals by Leonard, who uncorked a beauty, and Chychrun, which feels automatic from him these days, the famed Washington man-advantage has now scored across three games in a row after slogging through that crucial dry stretch of eight.
- A quick word of praise for Trevor Zegras. The man is so rough, so irritating, so everywhere. Hockey is better with players of his kind. My guess is he's miserable in Philadelphia. Excellent. His happiness isn't my concern; I only want the theatrics to continue.
it is kampfmas #joebsuitofthenight — RMNB (@rmnb.bsky.social) 2026-03-31T22:59:06.013Z
An unattributed line floats around that goes more or less this way: somewhere in your early years, there was a final occasion when you headed outdoors to play alongside the kids you grew up with, and none of you had any idea.
You get the idea. Look: whether that closing moment lies just ahead or has already gone by, I couldn't tell you, but my plan is to stay in the moment and cherish every one of them until then.
That next occasion might land Thursday, over in New Jersey, and I won't be sitting out a single shift.