Things got started quickly when former Capital Alexander
Semin celebrated his first return to Verizon Center in a visitor’s uniform by
scoring just 41 seconds into the game.
The scoring play began when Jay Harrison fired a shot at Caps goalie
Michal Neuvirth. He made the initial
save, but did not control the rebound.
Eric Staal took a swing at it, but fired it into Neuvirth’s pads. The puck bounced out to Neuivrth’s right
where Semin was waiting to flip the puck over Neuvirth to put the Canes on the
board.
Near the midway point of the period, Jason Chimera and
Anthony Stewart got tangled up fighting for a puck along the wall. The fighting for the puck became just a fight
in short order with both players landing punches. Although the fight might have been considered
a draw, it seemed to change the momentum in the Caps’ direction. Roman Hamrlik capitalized on the change in
momentum in the 12th minute of the period. Mike Ribeiro and Wojtek Wolski moved the puck
back and forth along the wall. When
Carolina tried a two-man press on Wolski, the Caps winger slid the puck out to
Hamrlik at the blue line. Hamrlik sent a
slap shot at the Carolina net that eluded goalie Cam Ward, who was screened on
the play.
Carolina took the lead back early in the second period. With Roman Hamrlik off for interference, Eric
Staal found Jussi Jokinen from low in the right wing faceoff circle with a pass
into the high slot between the Caps’ defense.
Jokinen one-timed the puck into the net before Neuvirth could react to
the shot.
Not three minutes later, the Caps struck. Matt Hendricks
took a shot from the left wing circle that hit Jay Beagle’s skate on the way
through, the puck deflecting through Cam Ward’s pads. Ward argued the goal, and the referees went
to video review. After a short pause,
the goal was upheld, and the Caps had tied the game.
Carolina took their third lead of the game 11 minutes in
when Alexander Semin scored his second goal of the contest. It was a vintage Semin play that started when
he walked out from the left wing wall, curled around Joel Ward, froze
defenseman Dmitry Orlov with a faked shot, then took another step before
wristing the puck on the long side past Neuvirth.
The second Semin goal might have restored some momentum for Carolina, but it was frittered away when Joe Corvo took a tripping penalty at 14:43. Just 12 seconds later, Alex Ovechkin one-timed a pass from Mike Green past Ward’s blocker, and the game was tied at three apiece. That is how things stood going into the second intermission, although there was some extracurricular activity late in the period when Beagle and Tuomo Ruutu dropped their gloves and were sent off for fighting.
Carolina made it three for three in early-period scoring
when they took another lead in the fourth minute of the third period. It was Alexander Semin again, this time
snapping a rebound of a Jay Harrison shot past Neuvirth to complete the hat trick.
Not to be outdone, Alex Ovechkin knotted the game for a
fourth time after Drayson Bowman was sent to the penalty box for tripping. Ovechkin was on the receiving end of a give
and go from the left wing corner, taking a pass from Nicklas Backstrom and
finding a seam between Carolina defenders.
From the edge of the left wing circle Ovechkin caught Ward overplaying a
shot to the long side and snapped a shot past Ward’s blocker and inside the
near post to tie the game.
With just over two minutes left in regulation it would be
Ovechkin one last time. Inexplicably, he
caught the Hurricanes napping on defense as the Caps were emerging from their
zone. It started when Michal Neuvirth
left the puck behind his own net for Nicklas Backstrom who started out slowly
toward the Carolina end. As he reached
his blue line he sent a pass up the middle to Ovechkin knifing between the
Carolina defensemen. Ovechkin took the
pass in stride and skated in alone on Ward, where he snapped the puck over Ward’s
glove to complete his own hat trick.
Ovechkin’s third goal gave the Caps their first lead of the
contest, but the excitement was not over.
Carolina pulled Cam Ward with just over a minute remaining, and they
succeeded in pinning the Caps in their own end with pressure. Neuvirth was up to the challenge, but a shot
from Joe Corvo with under ten seconds left started a flurry of events in front
of the Caps goalie. Corvo’s shot was
deflected in front of Neuvirth and hit the post to his left. The puck caromed over to Eric Staal who tried
to one-time it past Neuvirth. He did not
get a solid connection, though, and the puck slid slowly toward the clot of
bodies in front. Jussi Jokinen took a
swing at it, but not enough to get the puck cleanly past Neuvirth. The trouble was, Neuvirth did not stop the
puck cleanly, either. Neuvirth reached
back to try to cover it, but the puck slid over the goal line before he could
get his catching glove on it and as the final horn sounded.
The call on the ice was a goal, but the referees skated to
the phone immediately to confer with the war room in Toronto. It was a lengthy delay, the fans in Verizon
Center chanting “no goal” while the video was being reviewed. Finally, referee Kelly Sutherland skated out
and announced that the puck had indeed crossed the line completely but that it
had not done so before the clock expired.
The Caps escaped with a 5-4 come-from-behind win.
Notes: Alex Ovechkin’s hat trick was his second of the
season, his first coming in Game 3, a 6-1 win over Florida on October 15th…
Semin’s hat trick was his first multi-goal game since December 28th
of last season and his first hat trick since February 16, 2011 in a 7-6 Caps win
at Anaheim.
Capitals 5 – Hurricanes 4