{"id":558679,"date":"2026-04-01T18:13:11","date_gmt":"2026-04-01T18:13:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/558679\/"},"modified":"2026-04-01T18:13:11","modified_gmt":"2026-04-01T18:13:11","slug":"no-capitals-player-had-more-points-in-marchs-must-win-games-than-ryan-leonard-he-loves-these-games-thats-just-his-dna-as-a-person-and-as-a-player","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/558679\/","title":{"rendered":"No Capitals player had more points in March\u2019s must-win games than Ryan Leonard: \u2018He loves these games. That\u2019s just his DNA as a person and as a player.\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

Ryan Leonard<\/a> again provided some big-time offense for the Washington Capitals in yet another \u201cmust-win\u201d March game. The 6-4 win over the Philadelphia Flyers came exactly a year after Leonard signed his entry-level contract with the club.<\/p>\n

With two points (1g, 1a) against the Flyers, Leonard tied captain Alex Ovechkin<\/a> for the Capitals\u2019 top scorer in the month with nine points (6g, 3a). Only Ovechkin (7) scored more goals than Leonard among all Caps skaters in March, and only St. Louis Blues winger Jimmy Snuggerud<\/a> (7) scored more goals among all NHL rookies.<\/p>\n

Leonard\u2019s high-scoring month comes after he didn\u2019t record a single point in six February games. Head coach Spencer Carbery says that Leonard stepping up when it matters most is just a natural characteristic of the highly-touted forward\u2019s game.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe loves these games, and you can feel he wants to be out there every other shift,\u201d Carbery said. \u201cThat\u2019s just who he is, his DNA as a person and as a player. He wants the puck on his stick. He wants to go in the shootout. He wants to be out on the power play in every situation.\u201d<\/p>\n

Leonard\u2019s first scoring contribution against the Flyers came with the Capitals on a power play 6:58 into the second period. After Pierre-Luc Dubois<\/a> won an offensive-zone faceoff, Leonard deftly slid the puck to Jakob Chychrun<\/a> for a one-time blast that beat Flyers goaltender Dan Vladar<\/a>.<\/p>\n

With the assist, Leonard jumped past Evgeny Kuznetsov (37) for the 13th-highest scoring rookie season in Capitals franchise history. Leonard\u2019s 39 points (16g, 23a) in 68 games are the most by a Caps rookie since Nicklas Backstrom (69) in 2007-08.<\/p>\n

Leonard scored his own goal in the game as well, 10:39 later on another power play. Dubois carried the puck low in the offensive zone and fed Leonard through a seam in the right faceoff circle for a snap shot that beat Vladar\u2019s glove hand.<\/p>\n

\u201cYeah, I knew Dubie would be able to find a seam, and O took two guys to the net, and Dubie made a great play,\u201d Leonard said postgame.<\/p>\n

Carbery says the goal came as Leonard continues to learn that scoring in the NHL is no easy feat.<\/p>\n

\u201cTonight, he gets a good opportunity, sort of hits [Vladar] in the logo early, and you can see how frustrated he is,\u201d Carbery said. \u201cThat\u2019s where he\u2019s learning, as he goes through, he\u2019s not going to score on every shot. So, whether you score on that shot or not, [you have to] be able to reset and say, \u2018Okay, the next shot I get, it\u2019s a clean slate, and I\u2019m not hung up on something that happened five minutes ago.\u2019<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s worked really hard on that, of just being able to stay in the moment and move on to his next shift and not beat himself up because he missed a scoring chance or missed a breakaway five minutes ago or even a period before.\u201d<\/p>\n

Leonard finished the game with 11:28 of ice time, a goal, an assist, two shots on three attempts, and two individual scoring chances. He is currently tied with Snuggerud for fourth in overall rookie scoring this season.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Ryan Leonard again provided some big-time offense for the Washington Capitals in yet another \u201cmust-win\u201d March game. The…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":558680,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[66],"tags":[385,99],"class_list":{"0":"post-558679","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nhl","8":"tag-nhl","9":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/558679","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=558679"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/558679\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/558680"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=558679"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=558679"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=558679"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}