The Eastern Conference-leading Washington Capitals will play host to the floundering Philadelphia Flyers on Thursday.
The Capitals (45-15-8, 98 points) have won seven of their past eight contests, with their latest win coming on Tuesday when they took down the Detroit Red Wings 4-1 on the road.
Logan Thompson made 23 saves in the victory, as he won his fifth straight start and allowed just a single goal for the second game in a row.
Dylan Strome had a goal and an assist and Aliaksei Protas tallied a pair of assists in the victory, while Tom Wilson found the back of the net for the 30th time this season.
Wilson is just the third player in NHL history to have played at least 800 regular-season games before recording his first 30-goal season.
His prior career best came back in 2021-22 when he tallied 24 goals across 78 appearances.
“We’re a big chunk of the games into the season and we’re playing well,” Wilson said following the contest. “It’s the most important time of the year. We’ve put ourselves in a good spot here. We’ve just got to stay dialed in and make sure we’re playing our best hockey over the next month plus.”
Alex Ovechkin remains just eight goals away from breaking Wayne Gretzky’s NHL record of 894 goals.
In his career, Ovechkin has 51 goals in 77 games against the Flyers, tied for his second most against any franchise.
The Russian sniper has lit the lamp in four of the previous five meetings, with Washington coming out on top in each of those five clashes.
The Flyers (28-33-8, 64 points), on the other hand, have been trending in the opposite direction of late, dropping two straight and seven of their past eight.
After falling 5-0 to the Carolina Hurricanes on Saturday, the Flyers followed that up with their second consecutive shutout loss when they were blanked 2-0 by Andrei Vasilevskiy and the Tampa Bay Lightning on Monday.
Despite the loss, Flyers coach John Tortorella spoke highly of his team’s effort against the Lightning.
“We were patient, something we needed to be, I thought (Ivan Fedotov) played really well. … The goaltending was good. I thought we played hard. I thought we checked really well and the patience level was good. We just needed someone to score a goal.”
The Flyers were let down by their power play, which was 0-for-5 on the night, including a four-minute man advantage during the second period.
“We’ve got to score a goal,” Tortorella said about his Flyers’ squad which has produced just 12 goals during this eight-game stretch.
“The four-minute penalty … it’s not good enough. We needed a play off our power play, and we didn’t get it.”
The Flyers’ man advantage is a combined 0-23 over their past nine outings. Meanwhile, the Capitals have allowed just two power-play goals over their past seven games (18 penalty kills).
Despite their success in the win column, the Capitals’ power play has been suffering much of the same fate as the Flyers of late.
Washington has failed to convert during each of the past six games (0-11), and just twice over their last nine contests (2 of 22).
Thursday’s matchup will be the second of a five-game road trip for the Flyers, before they return home for three more games to close out the month.
–Field Level Media
