Agencies/Philadelphia

The Washington Capitals showed they can do just fine without Alex Ovechkin. With their captain and leading scorer at home nursing an injury, the Capitals put together their best offensive effort of the season in a 7-0 rout of the Philadelphia Flyers on Friday.
Joel Ward scored three goals for his first NHL hat trick in the fight-filled outburst.
Ward’s linemate, Jason Chimera, added a goal and three assists, and Nicklas Backstrom and Mikhail Grabovski each had three points as the Capitals (6-7) won for the first time this season when Ovechkin didn’t score a goal.
Ovechkin didn’t make the trip to Philadelphia because of an upper-body injury.
‘’When (Chimera) and I talked in the warmup, I said, ‘Gee, I feel pretty good today,’’’ Ward said. ‘’He kind of looked at me and said the same thing.
‘’We’ve just been rolling. (Chimera) has been flying and getting some big goals for us.’’
Washington had been 0-4 when Ovechkin, who entered Friday second in the league with 10 goals, didn’t score.
‘’We worked as a team,’’ Backstrom said. ‘’We scored on our chances. That’s what you have to do, especially when you have a good goal-scorer out of the lineup.
‘’Lots of guys stepped up, and that’s exactly what we needed.’’
Elsewhere, Ben Bishop recorded his second shutout in as many games against Carolina while Steven Stamkos and Victor Hedman scored as Tampa Bay continued its mastery of the Hurricanes at PNC Arena with a 3-0 victory.
The Lightning has started 9-4, beating its former Southeast Division rival for the eighth time in the last nine visits to Raleigh. Bishop stopped 31 shots en route to his fourth career shutout.
Meanwhile, the Hurricanes (4-6-3) continue to struggle on offense, losing their fourth straight after starting the season 4-2-3. During the skid the Canes have been outscored 13-4.
The Pittsburgh Penguins registered three goals in less than five minutes in the second period to roll to a 4-2 victory over Metropolitan Division opponents the Columbus Blue Jackets.
The two teams will face-off again on Saturday in Columbus.
The Penguins got on the board first at 7:11 of the first, just six seconds into their first power-play opportunity of the night.
Chris Kunitz’s early goal pushed his scoring streak to three.
Sidney Crosby picked up the secondary assist to extend his lead in the NHL scoring race and his scoring streak against Columbus to six consecutive games.
Fleury made 37 saves to earn his league-leading 10th victory.
The St. Louis Blues routed the Florida Panthers for the second time this season, with a 4-0 win.
The Blues beat the Panthers 7-0 last month. In that game, Jaroslav Halak got the shutout and improved his career record against Florida to 8-1, posting a 0.75 goals-against-average in his past four games against Florida.