New Capitals season, old names in the goal column as Caps beat Sabres in opener

By Samantha Pell,

BUFFALO — Entering an NHL season packed with questions amid a raging pandemic, the Washington Capitals — at least for one night — felt a sense of normalcy.

Thursday’s season-opening 6-4 win over the Buffalo Sabres at an empty KeyBank Center included many of the elements Capitals watchers have grown accustomed to in recent years — a pair of nifty assists from captain Alex Ovechkin, an early goal from Nicklas Backstrom, a three-point night from T.J. Oshie, an impressive strike from John Carlson.

Add a goal from Brenden Dillon, a gifted breakaway score from Jakub Vrana and an empty-netter from Garnet Hathaway, and the result was not only the first victory of Coach Peter Laviolette’s tenure in Washington but also a win that helped further erase the memory of the team’s dismal stay in the 2020 postseason bubble in Toronto.

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“For our guys to come out and play well and take control of the game the way we did, I was really happy about that,” Laviolette said. “But it’s not just me with the first game. There’s a lot of guys in that room, a lot of players and coaches and video coaches, and there’s been some additions to the team. So I’m really happy for everybody. You want to start the season the right way, and we were able to do that.”

It was a strong start to the abbreviated 56-game schedule, but it was just that — a starting point. The Capitals won’t have to wait long to maintain their momentum: They play the Sabres again Friday before traveling to Pittsburgh for a two-game set to complete a four-game trip to start the season.

Because of coronavirus concerns and travel restrictions, Washington will play games only against the seven opponents in the newly formed East division, facing each team eight times. The majority of games on the road are two-game sets, which almost seem like mini playoff series.

Four of the Capitals’ games against the Sabres will come in the season’s first 10 days, and players and coaches already have seen tempers get short.

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“We’ll probably get sick of them a little bit, and they’ll get sick of us,” Washington’s Tom Wilson said before Thursday’s game. “I think that’s great. A lot of the teams that are in our division, that’s already a rivalry. With Buffalo, we haven’t seen them as much as the others, but we think they’ll have a good team this year and we have to be ready for it.”

The Capitals enter with high expectations, a veteran team in win-now mode with an experienced coach at the helm. They looked the part of a contender early Thursday, taking a 4-1 lead midway into the second period after Dillon scored on a pass from Lars Eller.

The Sabres created some tense moments in the third period, twice cutting the margin to one goal.

“When we were playing bad, it was almost like we were resorting back to plays from the past and maybe trying to do too much,” Carlson said. “Since [Laviolette’s] been here, we’ve simplified a lot, and when we executed that in game, I felt like we were bringing it pretty good.”

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Buffalo opened the final frame with Jake McCabe’s one-timer only 20 seconds in, trimming the lead to 4-3. Vrana scored 26 seconds later after Eric Staal turned the puck over in front of his net.

“First of all, it’s hockey. It could happen to anyone,” Vrana said about the gifted turnover. “It just ended up on my stick. . . . I was obviously happy to get on the board. . . . I felt like it gave us a little energy.”

After the Sabres pulled their goalie, Victor Olofsson scored a six-on-five goal with 1:54 left to again make it a one-goal game. Hathaway then closed the scoring with a strike into an empty net that covered nearly three-quarters of the ice with 1:03 remaining, ending the suspense.

Other than the scoring breakdowns in the final frame, the only other major glaring error by the Capitals in the third was Nic Dowd’s high hit on Staal. Staal immediately went down the tunnel. Dowd’s play was one that usually merits a second look by NHL Player Safety. It will have to determine whether the head was the main point of contact, which could result in a suspension.

The Capitals came out firing. Ovechkin had two primary assists in the first 11 minutes, the first for Backstrom and the second for Oshie on the power play.

Ovechkin has 11 goals and nine assists in 16 career season-opening games.

Washington continued to capitalize in the second period, with tallies from Carlson and Dillon. Carlson’s snipe off the rush came off a breakdown by the Sabres at 7:05 of the second period. The 2020 Norris Trophy runner-up finished the night with one goal and one assist.

Dillon’s goal from the point gave Washington a 4-1 lead at 13:23 of the second and was his first as a Capital.

“Just from the first day of training camp I think our message for us on the back end and even for the forwards is to get more pucks on net,” Dillon said. “We had a couple other chances for most of the game on the back end. We were getting pucks through and trying to create some second-chance opportunities and on that one just a big faceoff win and trying to get it on net there.”

Tobias Rieder cut the Sabres’ deficit to 4-2 with a slick wraparound past Ilya Samsonov with 1:14 left in the second period before the back-and-forth third frame. Thursday was Samsonov’s first game in 10 months after his offseason injury did not allow him to play in the postseason.

It was also Samsonov’s first victory as a full-time starter in the NHL. He took over the crease for longtime netminder Braden Holtby, who signed with the Vancouver Canucks in the offseason and won his first game with his new team Wednesday night.

The 23-year-old Russian had 22 saves on 26 shots on the night, including a couple of crucial ones late in the third to preserve the victory.