Heading into Saturday night’s game, Warren Foegele had five goals and eight points in 11 career games against the Washington Capitals including both the regular and postseasons.
He now has seven goals and 12 points in 12 career games against the Capitals as his four-point night helped the Hurricanes snap a three-game losing skid and beat the league’s best team 6-4 at PNC Arena.
“It’s always competitive playing against these guys,” Foegele said. “We don’t like them, they don’t like us. It’s that simple.”
Foegele didn’t have a comment on why he always plays big against the Capitals, but teammate Lucas Wallmark tried to offer an idea.
“He likes to play against the Caps,” said Wallmark. “It’s tight games out there and I think he’s the kind of player who steps up when it’s tighter.”
Right off the opening draw, both teams seemed eager and raring to go. The Capitals buzzed early, but timely saves from Petr Mrazek kept the team in it.
Tilting the table, the Hurricanes then started generating offensive pressure and eventually forced the Capitals into committing not one, but two avoidable penalties. The first came as Travis Boyd broke his stick and tried to take Brett Pesce’s at the point and the second came halfway through the first penalty where Nick Jensen tripped up Martin Necas as he blew past him.
With the two-man advantage, the Canes struggled to get anything going, but as the first penalty was set to expire, Carolina gained the zone on a neutral zone faceoff win. With Ryan Dzingel controlling the puck, he passed it up to Nino Niederreiter, who spun and found Wallmark alone at the far circle. Wallmark hammered it home, extending his own point streak to six games, as Boyd was unable to rejoin the play.
“He fills in,” said head coach Rod Brind’Amour on Wallmark. “When there is a leak, he plugs it. Whatever we ask him to do, whether it’s kill penalties or getting power-play goals, or playing against the best lines, whatever, he’s capable of doing all of it.”
Pressure and chances passed back and forth for the rest of the first, but each team held stalwart throughout the remainder of the period.
However, at the onset of the second, Carolina cashed in again. Off another faceoff win, the Canes managed to establish a 2-on-1 rush led by Jordan Staal and Foegele where Staal found Foegele with a pass and he didn’t miss, extending the lead to two only eight seconds into the period.
A few minutes later, the Capitals finally got on the board as a puck over-encumbered Jake Gardiner, springing a rush the other way. Nic Dowd kept the puck and fired it past Mrazek.
While it looked as if the Capitals were going to grab another, suffocating the Canes with offensive pressure, Foegele stripped the puck off of Jensen and raced down the ice. Foegele sauced the puck past Alex Ovechkin and right to Dougie Hamilton, who was joining the rush, and he rifled it past Washington netminder Braden Holtby.
“I took enough shots lately, so it was nice to see one go in,” Hamilton said on his goal.
Hamilton leads the league in shots by a defenseman (152) and had been held without a goal in his last five games despite lighting the lamp so often at the start of the season.
Washington closed the gap again as Ovechkin blasted a searing one-timer past Mrazek from his office to pass Teemu Selane for third-most power-play goals in NHL history (256) and only 18 away from first (274).
The Capitals got another crack at the power play a few minutes later, but it wasn’t Washington who scored.
After establishing the offensive zone, Foegele caused chaos in the crease and managed to push home his second of the night and third shorthanded goal of the season to re-extend the Hurricanes’ lead.
Washington would score another power-play goal to again bring it within one with Evgeny Kuznetsov dangling past three red sweaters and shooting it five-hole through Mrazek, but the Canes weren’t going to let that slide.
Only 1:20 later, the Canes struck back, taking three different players and attempts to cash in. First, Dzingel skated it into the zone but lost the puck trying to split the defenders. Then, Erik Haula picked it up and shot it, but it hit a Washington player. Finally, Necas collected the loose puck, stickhandled around Holtby and deposited the puck into the net.
The Hurricanes weathered the Capitals’ storm through the remainder of the period and eventually after biding time, struck back. With the goalie pulled, Ovechkin carried the puck out of the Washington zone but decided to lay a cross check on Foegele and let the puck go.
Andrei Svechnikov picked it up and skated it down the ice, with a quick glance behind him looking for Foegele to try and get him a hat trick, but with the Caps pressing, Svechnikov made the right decision and shot it in.
The Capitals picked up one more with a little over a minute remaining as a seemingly harmless point shot from Radko Gudas found its way through traffic, but Washington by then had accepted its fate.
The Hurricanes had fallen to fifth in the Metropolitan Division before the win tonight, but the win only moves them one point ahead of the Flyers with no games in hand on any team.
“We needed a win desperately and Washington’s got a huge cushion,” Brind’Amour said. “We needed to be the desperate team and we needed a team that needed to win.”
The win marked the Canes first in three games and first home win since Dec. 7. The Canes now have six more games on their season-long seven-game homestand and look to build on the win.
“We have a great opportunity here to get some points and hopefully we can keep building on this game here and I think we will do that,” said Wallmark.
Canes left winger Warren Foegele celebrates with his team versus the Captials on Saturday, Dec. 28, 2019 at PNC Arena. Foegele had two goals and three points in the 6-4 win.
