When the Washington Capitals and the Tampa Bay Lightning
took the ice on Tuesday night at Verizon Center, one might have thought it
would be a battle of goaltenders. Tampa
Bay’s Ben Bishop was among the league leaders in goals against average and save
percentage, and Washington’s Braden Holtby had established himself as the go-to
goaltender for the Caps who had climbed into the top-15 in save percentage
after a slow start.
Things did not quite work out that way. Holtby was chased early, and Bishop was
abused in the middle and late as the Capitals roared back from a 3-0 deficit to defeat the
Lightning, 6-5, in a trick shot competition.
Tampa Bay lit up Holtby for three goals on eight shots in
11:07 of ice time in the first period before he was relieved in favor of
Philipp Grubauer. It was a case of Tampa
Bay taking advantage of the odd play of Mike Green, who took three minor
penalties in the first 9:07, the first two a double minor for hi-sticking. The Lightning scored two power play goals in
those three chances, then added an even-strength goal to make it 3-0.
It might have ended there, but Alex Ovechkin scored late in
the first period on a one-timer that you would have to watch in slow motion to
see the shot. Nicklas Backstrom won a
draw cleanly to Ovechkin, who blasted a shot between the legs of defenseman
Andrej Sustr and past the blocker of goalie Ben Bishop.
Then came the second period.
Backstrom got the Caps back in it with a power play goal at 6:24 when a
loose puck slid through the legs of defenseman Matt Carle and onto the stick of
Backstrom, who beat Bishop high to the glove side to make it 3-2.
After Tyler Johnson restored the Lightning two-goal lead, the
turning point of the game came. Richard
Panik was given a five-minute major penalty for boarding Karl Alzner in front
of the scorer’s bench. Seven seconds
after the penalty was called, it was Ovechkin lulling B.J. Crombeen to sleep on
another power play, jumping past Crombeen on a timing play to convert a pass
from Marcus Johansson to make it 4-3. Two
minutes later, on the same power play, it was Ovechkin again for the hat trick,
one-timing a pass from Mike Green with 72 seconds left in the period to tie the
game at four apiece.
In the third period Ondrej Palat scored when Tyler Johnson
whiffed on a shot in front of Grubauer, and the puck slid to Palat for a
wrister that found the back of the net.
It almost ended that way.
Almost.
With Grubauer pulled for an extra attacker in the last
minute, the Backstrom and Mikhail Grabovski did the hard work in the corner to
win control of the puck and get it out to John Carlson at the left point. Carlson wired the puck across to Ovechkin,
who one-timed the puck through Bishop for his fourth goal and a 5-5 tie.
After a scoreless overtime, it was left to the freestyle
competition. Through four rounds, Eric
Fehr and Mikhail Grabovski scored for the Caps, Nikita Kucherov and Teddy Purcell
for the Bolts. That left it up to Troy
Brouwer for the Caps, who beat Bishop to the glove side and put the pressure on
Ondrej Palat for the Lightning. Grubauer
turned away Palat’s attempt with his blocker, and as the puck slid slowly by
the right post, the Caps’ comeback was complete.
Other stuff…
-- For those of you scoring at home, that makes 48 goals in
Alex Ovechkin’s last 50 games. Since
Ovechkin came into the league in 2005-2006, four-goal games have been accomplished
26 times. Ovechkin is the only player to accomplish the feat three times.
-- Nicklas Backstom had the fourth five-point game of his
career. The four assists he had in this
one gives Backstrom 46 helpers in his last 52 games.
-- The 18 minutes in penalties for Mike Green is a career
high for a single game. He had 20
penalty minutes in 35 games last season.
-- If you look at the possession metrics, it is a story of
two games. The first was the first 11
minutes in which the Lightning scored three goals and held the Caps without a Fenwick event (shot on
goal, missed shot) at 5-on-5 – not 5-on-5 close…5-on-5, period – for the first
ten minutes. After that, however, the
slope of the Fenwick lines were closer (source: extraskater.com)…
-- We said in the prognosto that Marty St. Louis would get
his points. He did. A goal and two assists for The Constant
Irritant. We also said Valtteri Filppula
could not and the Caps still win. He did
not…no points. But geez, everyone else
did for the Lightning. After St. Louis,
nine other Lightning had points. Tyler Johnson
had the biggest night of his career to date with a goal and two assists.
-- The Lightning were 16-2-0 in games in which they scored at
least three goals. The operative word in
that sentence is “were.” Now they are
16-2-1.
-- The Caps broke a streak for Ben Bishop in which he
allowed two or fewer goals in five consecutive games.
-- The points for Backstrom…sweet. But he was also 15-for-22 in the faceoff
circle, 5-for-6 in the offensive end, 7-for-9 in the defensive end.
-- Eric Fehr led the team in hits? Really?
Yup… he had five.
-- The weirdest scoring line on either team’s score sheet
has to be Nate Schmidt’s. In 14 minutes
and change… nothing. No shots, no shot
attempts, no hits, no takeaways, no blocked shots.
It was one helluva comeback, but before we get too giddy, think
on this. Ovechkin had four goals…Backstrom
had five points. Both finished “even”
for the game. The Lightning let the door
swing wide open with the Panik major penalty, and the Caps stormed through
it. Good on them. But it was not the kind of win you want to
point to and say, “they played well.”
The Caps fought furiously to come back, and in one of those instances
when the effort expended has a cost, almost let it slip away again when the
Lightning scored in the third period.
But this was testament to the skill and determination that Alex Ovechkin
and Nicklas Backstrom still have, and on this night it was enough to sustain the Caps and remind fans just how good they remain.
