Head coach Adam Oates shook things up a bit for the Caps,
inserting Jack Hillen on the blue line for his first start, giving Jeff Schultz
his second start of the season (those two replacing Dmitry Orlov and John
Erskine), and sitting Marcus Johansson in favor of Wojtek Wolski. Calgary made a change of their own, giving
Leland Irving his first start of the season in goal spelling Miikka Kiprusoff.
Washington came out sluggish to open the contest, playing
the first half of the first period primarily in its own end. Calgary, however, was tied for 24th
in scoring last season for a reason. The
Flames were unable to take advantage of Washington’s inability to generate any
momentum coming out of their own end, but got some help when Matt Hendricks was
sent off for cross-checking at 9:41.
Calgary converted the power play when Jarome Iginla muscled
in close and stuffed the puck past Caps goalie Braden Holtby. The Caps had their own chance on the power
play when defenseman Chris Butler was whistled for holding. The Caps could not manage so much as a shot
of goal on their power play, a shortcoming that would cost them when the Flames
added a second goal shortly after the penalty expired. Hillen tried to clear the puck from the Caps’
zone, but Jay Bouwmeester managed to glove it down and then pass the puck to
Curtis Glencross for a lay-up from Holtby’s left. That ended the scoring in the first 20
minutes, the Flames holding a 2-0 lead.
The second period settled into a pattern of action largely
limited to the neutral zone. Neither
team mounted much offense, even when presented with opportunities on the power
play. The teams exchanged a pair of
unproductive power plays on their way to the 40-minute mark, at which point the
score remained 2-0 in favor of Calgary.
Early in the third period the Caps were charged with their
fourth minor penalty of the contest, a tripping penalty to Mathieu
Perreault. Calgary was sloppy in
executing its power play, though, and the Flames found themselves chasing the
puck down into their own end with frequency.
The artlessness with which they were handling the puck bit them when
Mark Giordano tried to send the puck cross-ice and found only Troy Brouwer’s
stick. Brouwer deflected the pass into
the neutral zone and beat Giordano to it.
There was nothing left between Brouwer and the Calgary net but open
ice. A deke and a shot later, the Caps
had halved the deficit with their first shorthanded goal of the season.
The goal seemed to spark the Caps, who tilted the ice to the
Flames end. What they were not able to
do, however, was to deposit the puck over the goal line. The circle of justice came back on itself
late in the period, though, when Joey Crabb fought off two Flames along the
boards to slide the puck to Perreault in the right wing faceoff circle. Perreault spun around at the dot and fired a
shot that surprised Irving and sailed past him on the far side, just inside the
post, to tie the game with less than four minutes left in regulation. Jack Hillen got the second assist on the goal
to make it three-for-three in players who spent time in the penalty box in this
contest.
Neither team could muster much in the way of scoring chances
in the last few minutes of regulation, and the game went to an extra five
minutes. The Caps had a chance early on
in overtime, but Wojtek Wolski’s deflection of a John Carlson drive hit the
post and caromed out. It would be the
best and last chance the Caps would have in the extra frame. With the clock approaching one minute in
overtime Mark Giordano found Alex Tanguay at the edge of the left wing circle
for a shot. Braden Holtby fought it off,
but the rebound found its way to the stick of Jarome Iginla to Holtby’s
left. Iginla had an open net to shoot
at, and he did not miss, burying the puck and the Caps’ chances for a comeback
in the back of the net for the final 3-2 margin.
Flames 3 – Capitals 2 (OT)
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