The Washington Capitals and the Montreal Canadiens met on
Thursday night in a battle of two of the hottest, if not the outright best
teams in the Eastern Conference.
Washington entered the contest on a five-game winning streak, and the
Canadiens took the ice with points in six consecutive games. At the final horn it was the Capitals
extending their winning streak to six games with a 3-2 win.
The Caps got on the board first, early in the first
period. It was a classic instance of
forechecking pressure in the Montreal zone that created the opportunity. Michael Latta consested Nathan Beaulieu
behind the Montreal net, and Beaulieu gave up the puck along the boards. Brooks Laich pinched in along the wall, and
with three Canadiens surrounding him, he found Tom Wilson circling through the
left wing faceoff circle. Wilson took
the pass, turned, and snapped a shot past goalie Mike Condon at the 2:26 mark.
The goal held up into the second period, but the Canadiens
knotted the game mid-way through the period.
Lars Eller scored from in tight just two seconds after a Montreal power
play expired. The tie lasted into the
final minute of the second period when T.J. Oshie scored an odd goal. The play started with the Caps entering the
Canadien zone on a 3-on-2 rush, Nicklas Backstrom carrying the puck down the middle. After gaining the zone, Backstrom slid the
puck off to his right to Oshie, who wristed a long-range shot off Condon’s
blocker. The puck popped up into the
air, Condon losing track of it. It fell
and deflected off Condon’s right elbow into the net. After a brief discussion of whether a Capital
redirected the puck with a high stick, the goal stood, and the Caps had a 2-1
lead going into the second intermission.
Montreal tied the game early in the third period. With the Caps on a power play, the Montreal
penalty killers caught the Caps – Oshie and John Carlson, specifically – in the
unfortunate position of trying to get into position as a battle for the puck
was being waged along the wall. As both
Oshie and Carlson turned into their respective positions, the puck sprang free,
and Paul Byron fed Brian Flynn exiting the zone. Flynn was already several strides ahead of
Oshie and Carlson, and Backstrom was still too far off along the wall, giving
him and opening to head off on a breakaway.
He skated in, deked goalie Braden Holtby, and tucked the puck around
Holtby’s extended left pad.
Six minutes later, Oshie struck again. It was a simple play that few players could
make. Alex Ovechkin collected the puck
along the left wing wall and sent it up to Karl Alzner at the left point. Alzner fired the puck toward the net, and
Oshie, from the inside of the left wing circle, redirected the puck out of
mid-air and off the post to give the Caps a 3-2 lead that they would hold for
their sixth straight win.
Other stuff…
-- The six-game winning streak for the Caps is their longest
since an eight-game streak late in the 2012-2013 season (April 2 – 16).
-- Holtby extended a pair of personal streaks in this
game. He ran his personal winning streak
overall to eight games, a career best, during which he has a goals against
average of 1.85 and a save percentage of .935.
He also extended his streak of games without a loss in regulation time
to Montreal to nine (7-0-2, 1.40, .949, two shutouts).
-- The Caps extended their streak of games without a
regulation loss at Bell Centre to 12 (10-0-2).
Their last loss in regulation time in Montreal was on January 10, 2009,
a 5-4 decision.
-- T.J. Oshie’s two-goal night was his first multi-goal game
as a Capital. It was his first
multi-point game since October 23rd in which he had two assists in a
7-4 win over the Edmonton Oilers.
-- The shorthanded goal by Brian Flynn was the first shorthanded
goal allowed by the Caps this season.
There are only three teams left that have not allowed a shorthanded goal
– Edmonton Oilers, Columbus Blue Jackets, and Pittsburgh Penguins.
-- Tom Wilson’s goal gave him goals in consecutive games for
the first time in his career, not to mention they are the first two goals he
has this season.
-- With an assist, Alex Ovechkin has points in four straight
games. It also means he has points in 17 and goals in 12 of the 23 games in
which he has played. Through 23 games
last season he had goals in 8 and points in 11 of the first 23 games he
played. In both years he had 12 goals in
his first 23 games.
-- With an assist, Nicklas Backstrom extended his
points-scoring streak to four games, a season high for him.
-- Evgeny Kuznetsov had a quiet night – one shot attempt
(shot on goal), no points, in 17 minutes and change. That makes consecutive games without a point
for Kuznetsov, the first time that has happened since he opened the season
without a point in his first two games.
-- John Carlson had an interesting game… seven shot attempts
(no points), six giveaways and seven blocked shots. Add in the minor penalty he took, and it was
a study in frenzied activity with little to show for it.
In the end…
It would be tempting to say that the Caps just keep doing
what they do, but what they have been doing lately is a bit disturbing, and it
was in full color in this game. Montreal
recorded 56 shot attempts at 5-on-5 to 33 for the Caps, a Corsi-for percentage
of 37.1 for the Caps that is their worst for a single game this season (numbers from war-on-ice.com). Teams don’t win on the basis of a PDO of
115.2. Well, they do, but it is not
something they can sustain. This game
was a case of goalie Braden Holtby stealing one right out of the hands of the
Canadiens. The Caps need to have more
balanced effort than that if they are to extend their winning streak much
further.
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