‘Better But Not At Our Best Yet’: What Capitals Said After 3rd Straight Win

WASHINGTON — Over the last 10 days, the Washington Capitals believe they’re a different team, and on Friday, they showed that they’re potentially ready to turn the corner

Washington got huge showing from Charlie Lindgren, Anthony Mantha, Alex Ovechkin and more as the Capitals pulled off a 4-1 win over the Seattle Kraken for their first three-game winning streak of the season.

Here’s what the team had to say about the result and recent trend:

Charlie Lindgren

On getting the win and Washington’s recent play: “We’ve just played amazing hockey,” Lindgren said. “Honestly, I think it’s been fun to play goal for this team all year long, but especially last few games, we’ve been playing incredible. (We) can’t get complacent, we just got to keep fighting, keep on going to work.”

Lars Eller

On the three-game winning streak: “It feels really good. It’s been a long time coming for us. I think we saw some positives a lot of encouraging stuff today. I don’t think we played our best game, but we played a good game. Good enough to win. And you know, sometimes, I think if you want to be a team that makes the playoffs, you got to find a way to win the games where you’re also not playing your best every night.”

On the Capitals’ turnaround of late: “I just think we’re playing better. We’re putting together better 60-minute efforts. Sometimes, it’s not our best, but we’re more consistent when we’re playing. I think we talked about Jersey, we played the right way, but we didn’t get rewarded. in Seattle we did a lot of good things but ended up on the wrong side for … we’re playing better hockey overall with and without the puck. But we’re not at our best yet. Still think we’re able to score more goals at 5-on-5 than we have, and when we start doing that, we’ll see how good we really are.”

On Ovechkin’s third straight empty-net goal: “We were all a little bit surprised he only had [52] in his career. Felt like he has more. BUt you know, goal scorers score goals in a lot of ways. You have to be in the right spot at the right time.”

Anthony Mantha

On Washington’s hot streak and if the Capitals are ready to turn corner: “I think we’re right there. I think we’ve been playing good. We just need to keep pushing a little bit more and like I said as the confidence comes around for this group of guys, I think anything can happen.”

Marcus Johansson

On the power play’s success: “It’s been good. I feel like we’re growing as a power-play group. I think Osh got back, it’s been great, and it’s been winning some games for us and getting us back into games and all that. So I feel like power play has done a good job. There were a few tonight that I thought was a little bit sloppy. But we got a big goal, and that got us right back into the game. And we got to keep building off that.”

On momentum: “Every win gives you a little bit of confidence, and it gets the group going. So even though we were down 1-0 tonight, I don’t think it changed anybody’s mindset or anything different within our group, which is good. We kept playing, and that’s the way it needs to be.”