Nic Dowd and Andrew Mangiapane scored shorthanded goals in the first period, Charlie Lindgren made 17 saves and the Washington Capitals won their fourth straight game since losing the opener with a 4-1 victory over the Philadelphia Flyers on Tuesday night.
Alex Ovechkin went scoreless one game after coming within 40 goals of Wayne Gretzky’s all-time goal scoring record. Ovechkin, playing in his 1,431st game, still has 854 career goals. Jakob Chychrun and John Carlson also scored goals for the Capitals.
Travis Sanheim scored for Philadelphia, which lost for the fifth time in a row. The Flyers were shut out 3-0 in their home opener on Saturday, going scoreless in the first two periods.
Dowd scored on a backhander and fired high over Sam Ersson just 3:49 into the match. Mangiapane’s wrister on Philadelphia’s power play made it a two-goal game with 4:53 left in the first. After Sanheim pulled Philadelphia within 2-1 34 seconds into the third, Carlson answered for Washington 64 seconds later.
Capitals: Tom Wilson cooled after scoring in each of Washington’s first four games, but Washington continued its early-season surge.
Flyers: Flyers rookie Matvei Michkov, the No. 7 pick in the 2023 draft, played for the first time against fellow countryman Ovechkin, one of his idols. Michkov had an assist on Sanheim’s score.
Dylan McIlrath and Nic Deslauriers faced off in a heavyweight bout four and a half minutes into the match. Both players suffered heavy blows, with Deslauriers suffering a cut under his left eye and McIlrath heading to the dressing room after the fight.
Dylan Strome, who led the Capitals with 67 points last season, has points in every game this season after assisting Carlson’s scoring. He has three goals and five assists.
The teams complete the home-and-home in Washington on Wednesday evening.
