JUNKIES: Nic Dowd dishes on his second period goal, Caps' five-game win streak
We have a winner for Nic Dowd’s walk-up music this season…and not far-fetched for the kid from Alabama, to choose the most iconic song written about his home state by one Lynyrd Skynyrd!
“I grew up there until I was 15, I went to high school there for a year and then I went to boarding school in Indiana, Culver Academy in Indiana for three years,” Dowd said. “I went to junior hockey for a couple of years, a couple of different places, and then made my way to Saint Cloud.”
Where Dowd was last night was in the thick of a wild second period that saw the Caps take a 4-0 lead on Philly, only for the Flyers to come back to make it 4-2 very quickly, almost make it 4-3 in the second before getting there in the third, before a pair of empty-netters gave Washington a 6-3 win.
Dowd’s goal was the first of three in the second, and came just as he got out of the box after the Caps killed off his holding penalty to open the period.
“I was pretty fortunate; I took a penalty there to start the start the second, which is never good, but the fellas did a good job killing it off, and then I was just kind of fortunate to get out there and join the rush,” Dowd said. “Sandin made a really, really nice play to the middle, he was kind of low playing forward and leading the rush, so I kinda took a peek around and it ended up well. Was really just trying to back out of there and cover for him while he had a chance to get back, and the puck just kind of followed him and then he was able to kind of find me open in the slot, and I think we took advantage of some tired power play guys who had been out there.”
But as Dowd said, the worst lead in hockey is a four-goal lead, and the Flyers turned it on in the back 30.
“Not every game is gonna be your best full 60-minute game. You’d like it to be in a perfect world, but I think last night, we played probably 35 to 40 good minutes, and Philly played 30 or 40, and it just went back and forth a little bit,” Dowd said. “They’re a good team with guys that can score, but Logan Thompson bailed us out a ton when we needed it, and gave us a chance to win the game. We had a good start and second period, so you have to take some positives out of that.”
And, of course, playing back-to-back games against the same opponent means that things can get both comfortable and chippy, especially with a division rival, toward the end of the back-end, but the Caps were ready for it all on their home ice.
“There wasn't really anything that kind of carried over from Tuesday night's game into Wednesday night's game, in my opinion, but it can happen sometimes when a game’s tight,” Dowd said. “You want to win every game, but it’s nice to win the first part of the back-to-back in their building, knowing that you can come back to our building and use the home crowd. But, you know, veteran teams will be prepared; we knew Philly was gonna have their best last night, and I think we did a good job of recognizing that last night.”
