Alex Tuch scored two first-period goals in his first game with the Washington Capitals, allowing them to coast to a season-opening 5-2 victory against the Carolina Hurricanes on Friday night at Raleigh, N.C.
Cole Hutson, Jakob Chychrun and Ryan Leonard also scored for the Capitals, who opened their schedule three nights after some other teams in the NHL.
Dylan Strome and Pierre-Luc Dubois each had two assists for Washington while Alex Ovechkin, beginning his 22nd season, added an assist.
Goalie Logan Thompson stopped 31 shots.
Sebastian Aho and Logan Stankoven scored for Carolina, which needed nearly 102 minutes of game time to put the puck in the net at the onset of its title defense. Hurricanes goalie Brandon Bussi, playing for the second time this week, made 22 saves.
The defending champion Hurricanes, who lost 1-0 in overtime to the visiting Florida Panthers on Tuesday, haven’t yet found traction.
This was a much more free-flowing game than Tuesday night but that didn’t benefit the Hurricanes.
Tuch, who was acquired in a June trade with the Buffalo Sabres, scored 6:33 into the game on a wrist shot. After Hutson’s goal five minutes later, Tuch’s second goal on a back-handed delivery gave Washington a 3-0 lead 14:23 into the game.
After Chychrun’s goal early in the second period, the Capitals held a 4-0 lead until Aho scored Carolina’s first goal of the season with 3:10 remaining in the second period. There wasn’t any momentum for the Hurricanes from that.
Washington responded eight seconds later with Leonard’s goal to restore its four-goal advantage.
Ovechkin’s assist on Tuch’s goal gave the veteran winger 759 career assists, just three shy of Nicklas Backstrom’s franchise record.
Stankoven had the only third-period goal for either team.
The Hurricanes more than doubled their number of shots on goal from the Florida game, from 15 to 33.
–Field Level Media
