While Alex Ovechkin generates most of the attention for Washington, the Capitals’ third line was the difference in a 2-1 victory over the Los Angeles Kings on Wednesday night.
Anthony Mantha and Connor McMichael each had a goal and an assist and Aliaksei Protas added two assists to help Washington rebound from a 2-1 loss at San Jose on Monday night.
“Best line by far, not even close. They carried us offensively,” Capitals coach Spencer Carbery said. “They were on for the first goal against which I was wasn’t happy about. They turned it around and quickly generated a scoring chance on the next shift.”
Charlie Lindgren stopped 37 shots as the Capitals snapped the Kings’ winning streak at five games.
Arthur Kaliyev scored for Los Angeles and Cam Talbot made 13 saves. The Kings lost for the first time in regulation this season when scoring first, dropping to 11-1-1.
McMichael scored the go-ahead goal with 90 seconds remaining in the second period when he batted the puck out of the air and into the net after Talbot made a pad save on a shot by Mantha.
“Mantha had a good little chance out of the corner there. I just went to the net and I saw it just hanging in the air. So just tried to get my stick on it and it went in,” said McMichael, who had his second multi-point game of the season.
Anze Kopitar appeared to tie it at 2 with 8:30 left in the third with a one-timer from the right faceoff circle, but Washington was successful in a challenge when Los Angeles was ruled offside.
Kaliyev extended his points streak to three games when he played Andreas Englund’s shot off the boards and put it past Lindgren at 9:04 of the first period. Kaliyev has five goals this season — two in the past three games.
Mantha had his third multi-point game of the season to tie Ovechkin and Dylan Strome for the team lead. He evened it at 12:12 of the first, taking McMichael’s feed and finishing off a 2-on-1 rush for his fourth of the season.
“I think we’ve been playing good connected hockey,” Mantha said about the line. “We’re all supporting each other. We’re creating plays where we’re hard on the pucks in the offensive zone and it creates good things.”
