The Capitals beat Hurricanes 5-2 on Friday night at Lenovo Center as Alex Tuch scored twice in his Washington debut. Jakob Chychrun added a goal and an assist for the Capitals, who opened the season 1-0-0 against the defending Stanley Cup champions.
How the Capitals beat Hurricanes
Washington scored three times in the first period and led 4-0 in the second before Carolina got on the board. Tuch scored at 6:33 and again at 14:23 of the first, with Cole Hutson’s goal in between at 11:33, per NHL.com.
Chychrun made it 4-0 on the power play 1:36 into the second period. Sebastian Aho answered with a power-play goal at 16:50, but Ryan Leonard scored eight seconds later to restore the four-goal margin. Logan Stankoven added a third-period goal for Carolina.
Top performers
Tuch, 30, joined Washington in a sign-and-trade with Buffalo that NHL.com reported as an eight-year, $84 million contract. Goalie Logan Thompson made 31 saves for the Capitals, while Brandon Bussi stopped 22 shots for Carolina.
Washington missed the playoffs last spring, as we noted in our Capitals playoff miss story, so the fast start is a welcome change.
What it means
The Hurricanes are 0-1-1 after an opening loss to Florida and Friday’s defeat. Carolina entered last spring’s playoffs as the No. 2 seed, as seen in our playoff opener recap, and went on to win the title, but the champions have struggled early.
Before the game, we broke down the matchup in our Capitals vs. Hurricanes preview.
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