Charlie Lindgren stops 35 shots as Capitals blank Golden Knights

Field Level Media|published: Tue 14th November, 22:30 2023

Nov 14, 2023; Washington, District of Columbia, USA; Washington Capitals center Dylan Strome (17) celebrates with teammates after scoring a goal against the Vegas Golden Knights in the first period at Capital One Arena. credits: Geoff Burke-USA TODAY Sports

Charlie Lindgren made 35 saves for his first shutout of the season and the Washington Capitals won their third straight game, 3-0, over the visiting Vegas Golden Knights on Tuesday night.

Dylan Strome, Connor McMichael and Beck Malenstyn scored goals for Washington, which improved to 7-1-1 over its last nine games.

It was the third career shutout for Lindgren and first since Feb. 26, 2018 while playing for Montreal at Philadelphia. Lindgren handed Vegas its first shutout loss since Feb. 27, 2023 at Colorado.

Logan Thompson made 28 saves for Vegas, which lost for the third time in four games and also had a five-game winning streak against Washington snapped.

Vegas, playing the first game of a five-game eastern road trip that included a stop at the White House on Monday, where they were honored by President Biden for winning their first Stanley Cup last June, had several excellent chances to take an early lead, including clean breakaways by Ivan Barbashev and William Karlsson less than a minute apart that Lindgren turned away. Mark Stone also hit the post with another shot.

The Capitals took a 1-0 lead at the 16:39 mark of the first period when Strome finished an odd-man rush with a wrist shot from bottom of the left circle that beat Thompson on his blocker side for his seventh goal of the season.

Lindgren stopped Jack Eichel's backhand try on another breakaway early in the second period. Washington, which entered the game with a six-game drought for power-play goals, failed to convert on a five-minute power play in the middle of the period after Vegas forward Paul Cotter picked up a match penalty and game misconduct for hitting Evgeni Kuznetsov in the head with his shoulder with a check by the goal line.

Lindgren stopped Karlsson's backhand try on another breakaway just before the end of the period.

Vegas pulled Thompson for an extra attacker with 2:10 remaining and McMichael sealed the win with an empty-netter with 48.1 seconds left. Malenstyn added another goal 16 seconds later after stealing the puck from Zach Whitecloud near the Golden Knights' blue line and beating Thompson with a wrist shot.

—Field Level Media

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