For more than 50 minutes the teams battled back and forth
without a goal to show for it. As the
clock ticked down toward the five-minute mark in regulation, the teams were
fighting for the puck in the corner to the right of Detroit goaltender Jimmy
Howard. Tom Wilson tried to send tht
puck out from below the goal line, but it ended up on the stick of Tomas Tatar,
who tried to backhand it off the side wall and out of the zone. The puck made only so far as Dmitry
Orlov. From the left point, Orlov sent a
drive to the net that Howard stopped, but the rebound came out to the low slot
where Jay Beagle was waiting. From one
knee, Beagle snapped a shot under the glove of the diving Howard, and the Caps
had the only goal they would need.
Other stuff…
-- Braden Holtby secured his first shutout of the season by
stopping all 25 shots he saw. In his
last eight appearances, Holtby is 7-1-0, 1.53, .942, and now one shutout.
-- After a brief hiccup in which they allowed 34 and 38
shots on goal in consecutive games, the Caps allowing the Red Wings just 25
shots on goal was the third straight game holding an opponent to fewer than 30
shots.
-- Last season, the Caps beat the Red Wings, 2-1, in
overtime in Game 17 of the season to go 12-4-1.
With last night’s 1-0 win over the Red Wings in Game 17, the Caps are
11-4-2, just one point off last year’s pace.
-- Lars Eller lasted
one shift. T.J. Oshie lasted three. Andre Burakovsky skated seven shifts. All sustained upper body injuries that took
them out of the game, leaving the Caps having to use just nine forwards for
more than two periods.
-- Even with the three forwards out, Alex Ovechkin skated
just 19 minutes. That didn’t keep him
from posting nine shot attempts (four shots on goal) and dishing out four hits.
-- There was a subtle change on the blue line in ice
time. Matt Niskanen got 3:45 in power
play ice time; John Carlson got 1:35.
-- Speaking of hits, anyone have “Nicklas Backstrom” leading
the team? Well, he did, with five.
-- Brett Connolly, not thought of as an especially physical
forward, had four credited hits in 15 minutes of ice time with no shots on
goal. The 15 minutes and changed was
more than three minutes more than his previous high in ice time this season.
-- With the game-winning goal in this game and an assist in
the previous game against Pittsburgh, Jay Beagle is almost half way (4-4-8) to
his career highs in goals, assists, and points in a season (10-10-20 in 62
games 2014-2015) after just 17 games.
-- Evgeny Kuznetsov wins the buffet coupon after last night’s
game. No points, but he had two shots on
goal, six shot attempts (two other blocked, two misses), two hits, three
giveaways, two takeaways, a blocked shot, and he took 14 faceoffs (3-for-14).
In the end…
This could have been a letdown game after the big win
against the Penguins on Wednesday. The
Caps caught something of a break facing a team struggling to score goals, but
they still managed to grind out a win when their own scorers were having
problems. And then there were the
injuries to Eller, Oshie, and Burakovsky that took out much of the scoring
punch that the Caps have on hand. A
timely goal and some stout goaltending gave the Caps what they needed when the
other pieces were missing. That’s what makes
for a good win on a tough night.
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