First Period
It was a wild first period, but hardly surprising for two
teams who give up goals recently as if they could claim them as charitable
deductions. Joe Pavelski opened the
scoring off a faceoff win in the offensive zone, gathering a rebound of a Brent
Burns drive to the net and backhanding it past goalie Braden Holtby just 12
seconds into the game. It was a sign of
things to come.
Alex Ovechkin tied the game mid-way through the period on a
power play when he jumped on a loose puck to the right of goalie Martin Jones,
pulled the puck off his backhand to his forehand, and chipped it past Jones at
the 10:41 mark. And the deluge was on…
Andre Burakovsky scored 90 seconds after Ovechkin when he
altered his skating line to give him shooting room through a defender and
wristed the puck through Jones… Tomas Hertl tied the game barely two minutes
later, converting a nifty passing play among Joe Thornton, Joe Pavelski and
himself…T.J. Oshie scored less than a minute after Hertl to restore the lead,
taking a backhand centering feed from Ovechkin, deking Jones to the ice, and
slipping the puck past Jones’ right pad…
…and the first period finally came to an end, the Caps
ahead, 3-2.
- San Jose had a 24-21 edge in shot attempts and a 15-14 edge
in shots on goal.
- T.J. Oshie led the Caps with four shots on goal in the first
period.
Second Period
And the rains came once more…
….Evander Kane tied the game once more just 52 second in as
a power play expired… Evgeny Kuznetsov put the Caps in front again two minutes
later by being patient, collecting a loose puck at the goal line to Jones’
right, pulling it back for a shooting angle, and snapping a tough-angle shot
past a lunging Jones,,, Ovechkin gave the Caps a two-goal lead less than three
minutes later by waiting until he could use two Sharks as a screen and snapping
a shot past Jones just 5:41 into the period.
The damage… the two clubs combined for seven goals (the Caps
with five) over a 15:00 span across the first and second periods. But it was not over…
Just after a Caps power play expired, a turnover led to a
not one…not two… but a THREE-on-0 break for the Sharks, Logan Couture
converting with a backhand between Holtby’s pads 14:39 into the period to make
it 5-4. And quiet settled over the land
for the second intermission.
- Six different Caps
had points in the second period (Kuznetsov and Ovechkin with goals; Vrana,
Wilson, Backstrom, and Oshie with assists).
- Dmitrij Jaskin was
the only Capital without a shot attempt through two periods.
Third Period
The teams traded goals less than five minutes apart to open
the third period. Ovechkin completing the
hat trick 5:52 into the period when he took a cross-ice feed from Jakub Vrana
and swept the puck from the left wing circle past Jones. Hertl got the Sharks back to within a goal on
a replay of the first period power play goal he scored, this one off superb
passing to set it up from Logan Couture and Joe Pavelski at the 10:02 mark. But it was not over…not nearly.
Evander Kane tied the game with one second left in regulation
when he got free on the weak side, camped at the far post to Holtby’s
left. Pavelski threw the puck at the
net, and it squeezed through to Kane, who swatted it in to force overtime.
Overtime
Hertl got the hat trick, snapping a shot under Holtby’s
right arm and into the far side of the net 1:48 into the extra frame, and the
Caps left a point they seemed sure to have earned on the table. Caps fans hope that point won’t matter in
April.
Other stuff…
- This was the 334th
multi-point game of Alex Ovechkin’s career, 18th on the all-time
list and third among active players (Joe Thornton: 380, and Sidney Crosby: 350). It was his 105th career game with
three or more points, breaking a tie with Doug Gilmour for 16th
all-time and tying him with Peter Forsberg for 15th on the all-time
list. He trails only Crosby (133) and
Thornton (110) among active players. It
was his 26th four-point game, tied with Forsberg and Eric Lindros
for 18th-place all-time and third among active players (Thornton:
28; Crosby: 31).
- Ovechkin’s hat
trick was his 23rd of his career, breaking a tie with Teemu Selanne
for third place all-time. He leads all
active players (Eric Staal: 14).
- T.J. Oshie also had
a multi-point game, his 44th as a Capital, breaking a three-way tie
for 25th all-time with Sylvain Cote and Scott Stevens. It was his 14th three-point game
as a Capital, 19th on the all-time franchise list.
- Andre Burakovsky’s
goal broke a personal 14-game streak without one.
- The last time that
the Caps allowed seven or more goals in consecutive games… October 7-8, 2005
(Ovechkin’s second and third career games). A pair of losses to the Atlanta
Thrashers on consecutive nights, 7-3 and 8-1.
- Nicklas Backstrom
had a pair of assists, his 226th career multi-point game, second in
franchise history and tied with Jason Spezza for eighth place among active
players.
- That’s three times
in four games that the Caps allowed seven or more games.
- The Caps allowed 43
shots on goal, the highest total for an opponent since Montreal recorded 44 in
a 5-4 overtime win for the Caps on November 19th.
- Evgeny Kuznetsov
had a goal and an assist, his first two-point game since January 6th
and only his second since December 11th.
- Until this season,
Braden Holtby had not allowed seven goals in a game. This was the second time this season in which
he did. The first one also ended in
overtime, a 7-6 loss to Pittsburgh on October 4th, the second game
of the season.
In the end…
The Caps are a mess in their own end. They cannot score enough to spackle over all
the holes on defense and in goal. It is
arguably the worst sustained defense/goaltending performance over a series of
games since the earliest games of the Ovechkin era, when the Caps just didn’t
have much talent. This team does not
have that excuse. Scoring 11 goals in
consecutive games and getting one standings point out of it might be an
aberration, but it doesn’t matter. It
has to end, and end soon, or this is going to be one long, frustrating winter.
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