Washington beat Carolina 5-2, and the game was effectively over by the first intermission. The Capitals scored three times in the opening period and led 3-0 after 20 minutes without needing anything from the back half of the night.
Alex Tuch opened it in the seventh minute off a feed from Alex Ovechkin, Cole Hutson made it 0-2 at 12 with Ilya Protas assisting, and Tuch struck again at 15 from Tom Wilson. Jakob Chychrun pushed it to 0-4 two minutes into the second, and when Sebastian Aho finally answered at 37, Ryan Leonard restored the four-goal cushion in the same minute for 1-5. Logan Stankoven's goal at 51, set up by William Carrier, closed it to 2-5.
Tuch's two goals were the separator, and Dylan Strome's pair of assists — on Chychrun's goal and Leonard's — made him the connective tissue on the two that put it away. Carolina won the third period 1-0, which tells you how little the final 20 minutes mattered.