First Period
It did not take the Avs long to post the first goal of the
game, and it would be, fittingly enough given the Caps’ recent woes, a former
Cap to do the damage. At the Caps’ blue
line, Nathan MacKinnon tried to walk around John Carlson, and Carlson snapped
the shaft of his stick trying to defend.
That created a 2-on-1 advantage for the Avs, with Michal Kempny back. MacKinnon was patient enough to wait out
Kempny until the latter went to the ice, and MacKinnon slid the puck across to
Andre Burakovsky at the bottom of the right wing circle for a one-timer that
beat goalie Braden Holtby on the near side to make it 1-0, Colorado, 2:54 into
the game.
The Caps spent the next dozen minutes hanging on against the
speed of the Avalanche, who kept the Caps pinned their own end. Colorado then got the game’s first power play
when T.J. Oshie was sent off at the 16:36 mark for high-sticking. It took the Avalanche less than 30 seconds to
convert the man advantage. Skating down the
right side, MacKinnon left the puck for Mikko Rantanen along the right wing
wall. Rantanen cut to the middle and
shooting across his body, snapped the puck into the top corner over Holtby’s
glove to make it 2-0, 16:05 into the period.
That would be the extent of the scoring, the Caps barely
threatening, and Braden Holtby doing a good job keeping the Caps with a pair
after the first 20 minutes.
-- Colorado out-shot the Caps, 11-8, in the period and
out-attempted them, 21-11.
-- Want to know if the Avs had the puck a lot? Three Caps had three credited hits apiece –
Dmitry Orlov, Radko Gudas, and T.J. Oshie.
-- John Carlson led the Caps with 8:03 in ice time in the
period.
Second Period
Washington went shorthanded for a second time when Lars
Eller was sent to the penalty box for slashing 6:49 into the period. The Caps killed that penalty, allowing a
single shot on goal. Their effort was
rewarded shortly thereafter when they were awarded their first power play of
the evening, Tyson Jost going off for high-sticking at 10:32 of the period. The Caps converted their chance when Nicklas
Backstrom backed across the blue paint to the right of goalie Philipp Grubauer
to put himself in position to accept a pass from Jakub Vrana, who was setting
up along the right wing wall. Vrana’s
pass was right on the tape, and Backstrom merely had to redirect the puck past
the right pad of Grubauer to get the Caps within a goal at the 11:37 mark.
Washington went right back on the power play when Erik
Johnson went to the penalty box for a high-sticking penalty. The Caps were unable to convert, though,
putting one shot on goal in the two minutes.
The march to the penalty boxes continued when the Caps’ Nic
Dowd went off for holding at the 15:47 mark.
It became a 5-on-3 advantage for Colorado when Lars Eller chipped the
puck over the glass for a delay of game penalty at 16:47 of the period. The Caps killed off the 60 seconds of 3-on-5
penalty killing, and then the remaining time of the 4-on-5 situation. They were rewarded with a power play of their
own when Joonas Donskoi was called for slashing at the 18:57 mark. The Caps could not convert the first 63
seconds of the man advantage, and the teams went to the dressing room with the
Avs clinging to their 2-1 lead.
-- Jakub Vrana led the Caps with five shots on goal through
two periods.
-- Nic Dowd was 8-for-9 on faceoffs through 40 minutes. The rest of the team was 8-for-35 (22.9
percent).
-- The teams had 11 shots apiece in the second period; the
Avs had a 17-16 edge in shot attempts.
Third Period
The Caps opened the period on the power play that carried
over from the end of the second period but could not get the equalizer. The Caps tilted the ice in the Avs’ direction
over the next ten minutes and eventually got the home team to take another
penalty, Burakovsky going off for high-sticking at the 11:13 mark.
The Caps had a chance when Grubauer left a rebound laying in
the crease on an Ovechkin shot, but he was able to stymie Vrana’s follow-up
attempt from point-blank range. The Caps
put one past Grubauer, though, when Lars Eller circled in the right wing corner
and fed the puck back to John Carlson at the point. Carlson’s drive was re-directed out of
mid-air by Wilson, down and through Grubauer at the 12:48 mark.
The Caps took their first lead of the game late in the
period. Lars Eller worked the puck free
below the Colorado goal line and fed it out to Nick Jensen at the right
point. Jensen worked the puck back and
forth, getting Gabriel Landeskog moving side to side and opening a shooting
lane. Jensen fired, and T.J. Oshie
redirected the puck past Grubauer’s right pad to give the Caps a 3-2 lead at
the 17:56 mark, a lead the Caps would maintain over the last 2:04 to defeat the
Avalanche.
Other Stuff…
-- The Caps came back from a two-goal deficit for the eighth
time this season, tied with Dallas for most in the league.
-- Braden Holtby kept the Caps in this one. He allowed two
goals on the first nine shots he faced, neither of which could be attributed to
a mistake on his part, but then he slammed the door, stopping the last 25 shots
he faced, many of them from high-danger areas until the Caps started wearing
the Avs down late. It was bizarre that
he did not get a star for the game.
-- The Caps finished the game out-shooting the Avalanche,
38-34 and out-attempting them, 62-54.
-- Jakub Vrana finished with a career high ten shots on goal
to lead the team.
-- That 700th goal for Alex Ovechkin will have to
wait, but he’s close. He had seven shots
on goal and 16 shot attempts.
-- It was a brutal night in the faceoff circle for the
Caps. Nic Dowd finished 9-for-11, but
the rest of the team was 18-for-59 (30.5 percent).
-- The Caps had a
total of 11 power play shots on goal from seven different players in 8:40 of
power play ice time.
-- The Avs came into the game having scored 80 second period
goals, most in the league. The Caps shut
them out, only the sixth team to keep the Avalanche from scoring in the second
period on home ice in 27 games in Denver.
-- This was only the second time in their last ten road
games that the Caps allowed fewer than three goals.
-- John Carlson had a pair of assists to give him 69 points
and bring him to within one point of becoming only the fifth defenseman to post
more than one 70-point season since 2005-2006.
In the end…
For 20 minutes it looked as if this game would go the same
way the game between these teams went in Washington last October when the
Avalanche won, 6-3. But the Caps found
their legs and an attitude in the second period, pushing and keeping the home
team to the outside. The 5-on-3 penalty
kill late in the second period was huge, a classic momentum changer. The Caps, after playing the Avs’ speed game
for the first 30 minutes, forced the home team to play a game more to the Caps’
liking in the third period, and that made all the difference in what might have
been the Caps’ best effort in the new year to date.
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