The Washington Capitals look to match a season-high five-game winning streak on Tuesday night when they host top overall draft pick Macklin Celebrini, Will Smith and the youthful San Jose Sharks.
The Capitals, who won five in a row from Oct. 15-23, followed up a 4-1 victory over the Florida Panthers on Nov. 25 with three straight one-goal decisions.
Taylor Raddysh’s tip-in with 6:06 remaining in the third period served as the go-ahead goal in Washington’s 6-5 win over the New Jersey Devils on Saturday.
Defenseman Jakob Chychrun remained hot for the Capitals by scoring a goal on the power play, extending his point streak to four games (three goals, four assists).
“(Lars Eller had) a great break-in. Finds Chych, who’s on fire right now,” forward Pierre-Luc Dubois said, per the Washington Post. “We’ve got to keep finding Chych. That helps. But after that, we just keep moving the puck. It’s never easy (for the penalty killers) when it can come from anybody.”
A potent power play has aided the Capitals, who scored three times with the man advantage in the second period versus the Devils to improve to 8-for-18 over the last five games. The 44.4 percent conversion rate is even more impressive given Washington has been without superstar captain Alex Ovechkin (fractured left fibula) during that span.
“There was a lot of ebbs and flows and swings in the game, momentum and emotionally for players and coaches on both sides,” Capitals coach Spencer Carbery said. “For the power play to get us that lead before the second intermission, they stepped up huge.”
Washington’s power play has elevated from dead last in the NHL at one point in the season to 14th (22.7 percent) prior to Monday’s games.
Ovechkin won’t be back for Tuesday’s game, but on Monday he skated for the first time since breaking his leg — just two weeks after the injury occurred.
The Sharks have answered their third losing skid of at least three games by winning three of their last four contests. San Jose built upon an 8-5 home victory over the Kraken on Friday by earning a 4-2 win in Seattle the following night to kick off its six-game road trip.
Smith scored in both contests versus the Kraken to extend his goal streak to three games and his point streak to four (three goals, four assists).
“(Smith) gets more and more comfortable every time he plays,” Sharks coach Ryan Warsofsky said. “Obviously, (the NHL) is a faster game, a team gets really vertical quickly … there’s obviously some things he’ll need to continue to improve on, but I thought he looked comfortable.”
Smith is in his rookie year with the Sharks, having been selected fourth overall in the 2023 draft and spending one season at Boston College before making the jump.
Celebrini notched an assist to extend his point streak to four games (four goals, three assists). The 18-year-old, the first overall pick of the 2024 draft, was named the NHL Rookie of the Month for November after totaling seven goals — including three game-winning tallies — and 12 points.
Celebrini was the first member of the Sharks to receive the honor since Tomas Hertl in October 2013.
Mikael Granlund leads San Jose in goals (10), assists (18) and points (28).
–Field Level Media
