Fans might be forgiven for thinking that the playoffs
started in February, because it had that kind of feel to it when the Washington
Capitals defeated the Pittsburgh Penguins, 3-1, at Consol Energy Center on
Tuesday night.
The first period looked as if it would end scoreless, then the Penguins' Blake
Comeau took a tripping penalty on Nicklas Backstrom to put the Caps on a power
play late in the period. As the penalty
was about to expire, the Penguins got lazy.
They managed to chip the puck out of their own end and again to the red
line, which gave them the false security that they could make a line
change. But Joel Ward chipped the puck
back toward the Penguin end, and Alex Ovechkin was there to pick it up as the
Penguins were sorting out the place cards as to who should be on the ice. Ovechkin broke in alone on goalie Marc-Andre
Fleury, deked him to the ice, and lifted a backhander that hit the center bar
in the goal and bounced out. It made for
a brief moment when it appeared it might not have been a goal, but a goal it
was, and the Caps had a 1-0 lead at the first intermission.
In the second period the Penguins struck back early when
Steve Downie batted home a loose puck at the top of the crease. It would be all the scoring there would be
until the late in the third period. The
March of the Penguins (to the penalty box) that began 58 seconds into the
period with penalties to Maxim Lapierre and Steve Downie would end with Chris
Kunitz taking a boarding penalty and then Kris Letang taking a slashing penalty
11 seconds later to put the Caps on a 5-on-3 power play with 4:45 left.
Nicklas Backstrom took over from there. It started with a shot by Alex Ovechkin that
was muffled in front. Troy Brouwer took a whack at it, but Marc-Andre Fleury directed the puck to the corner to his left. Ovechkin ran the loose puck down at the right
wing boards and fed Backstrom in the corner.
From there, Backstrom scanned his options and dialed up a pass across
the top of the crease to Joel Ward on the far side of the ice to Fleury’s
right. Ward one-timed the puck past
Fleury from a severe angle, and the Caps had a 2-1 lead with just 4:13 left in
regulation.
The Caps had to kill a penalty late when Brooks Laich was
sent off for goalie interference, and the Penguins brought Fleury to the bench
to make it a 6-on-4 power play. The Penguins
struggled to gain entry into the Caps zone, and with a clot of players fighting
for a loose puck at the Capitals’ blue line, John Carlson grabbed it and
flicked it the length of the ice for the empty net goal with 11.4 seconds left
to give the Caps the 3-1 win.
Other stuff…
-- There were eight power plays combined in this game, five
for the Caps and three for the Penguins.
There could have been more…many more.
Nineteen penalties were called, and there could have been more…many
more. This was not a game that the NHL
should use as a teaching device for new officials, because frankly, Kevin
Pollock and Justin St. Pierre were awful.
They lost control of the game in the second period and it bubbled over
into the third period when 12 of the game’s 19 penalties were called.
-- Fortunately for the Caps, it was the Penguins who melted
down on their own ice, taking 11 penalties overall and eight of them in the
third period, including two misconducts.
It should hardly have been surprising, given that the Penguins came into
the game with the second most penalty minutes per game in the league. By the time the game was over, after adding
41 penalty minutes to their season total, they had the top spot to themselves.
-- How even was this game?
It was 1-1 on the scoreboard until the 56th minute of the
contest. Each team had 33 shots on goal;
the Penguins had a slim 58-55 edge in shot attempts. The teams split 52 faceoffs right down the
middle.
-- Braden Holtby is now 3-0-0 against the Penguins with a
GAA of 0.33, a save percentage of .989, and two shutouts. When Steve Downie scored in the second period
it broke a streak of 155:38 of shutout hockey pitched by Holtby against the
Penguins.
-- Alex Ovechkin’s goal and assist give him 19 multi-point
games this season, tying him with Nicklas Backstrom for the league lead. Backstrom, who had an assist on the
game-winning goal, and Ovechkin now rank tied for second and tied for fourth,
respectively, in points. Backstrom
extended his league lead in assists with his 44th helper. Ovechkin’s goal gave him 37 on the season,
tops in the league, and 17 power play goals, also best in the league. He and Backstrom are tied for third in total
power play scoring.
-- One might think that the official scorer was borrowed
from the Steelers. A total of 86 hits
were credited to the two teams, 50 to the Penguins and 36 to the Capitals. Nine players were credited with five or more
hits, three for the Caps (Troy Brouwer, Tom Wilson, and Brooks Orpik) and six
for the Penguins.
-- A somewhat odd stat in this game… three defensemen for
the Caps did not have so much as a single shot attempt: Matt Kiskanen, Karl Alzner,
and Brooks Orpik. Jay Beagle made it
four skaters for the Caps without a shot attempt. He did have the only takeaway credited to the
Caps, though.
-- John Carlson’s goal was the first shorthanded goal by a
Capitals defenseman since Mike Green scored a shortie against the Florida
Panthers (the game-winning goal) in a 3-1 win on February 7, 2009. It was the sixth of what would be an eight
game goal streak for Green, an NHL record for defensemen.
-- Eric Fehr won all four draws he took against Evgeni
Malkin, sending Malkin to a 5-for-14 night in the circle.
-- The win gave the Caps 16 road wins this season. All of last season the Caps had 17 road wins.
In the end…
The Capitals won the season series outright from the
Penguins for the first time since 2010-2011, when they went 3-0-1. The odd part of that is that in 2010-2011 the
Caps also won three games by shutting out the Penguins twice and allowing one
goal in the other win. In this game
there were some things revealed.
One, the Penguins seem to be desperately trying to mask a
lack of depth, especially among their forwards, though chippy play. Steve Downie (who was expelled for not
playing well with others), Maxim Lapierre, Chris Kunitz (who is not the 35-goal
scorer he was last season), and defenseman Robert Bortuzzo all were whistled
for infractions in this game. It is not
a matter with which they are unfamiliar.
Two, the Caps showed an ability to exhibit equal parts spine
and patience dealing with the Penguins’ hijinks. Alex Ovechkin’s slash of Kris Letang’s skate
that sent the defenseman tumbling into the boards probably should have been a
penalty, but the Penguins’ response was disproportionate to the offense, one
that lasted pretty much the rest of the game.
The Caps took it, to a point, and eventually made the Penguins pay,
breaking through against what has been a Penguin strength, its penalty kill.
Three, Braden Holtby appears to be in the Penguins’
heads. Having failed to find a way to
solve him with offensive playmaking in the first two games this season, they
took to just being offensive by jostling him early and often in an attempt to
throw the goalie off his focus. If begs
the question, with Plan A and Plan B failing, what’s Plan C?
The teams have one regular season meeting remaining, that
coming next Wednesday in Washington. Can’t
wait, can you?