Washington started the scoring early in the first when Andre
Burakovsky picked the puck off Brett Ritchie’s stick between the hash marks and
ripped a shot past goalie Kari Lehtonen at the 2:17 mark.
Dallas evened things up four minutes later when Adam
Cracknell redirected a Jordie Benn drive up and over the shoulder of goalie
Philipp Grubauer. The teams took that
1-1 score to their respective locker rooms after 20 minutes, and then Dallas took
the lead when Patrick Eaves put a rebound of a Patrik Nemeth backhand through
Grubauer at the 6:47 mark of the second period.
The Stars opened up a two-goal lead with a late power play
strike. After nudging Grubauer out of the way and taking a stand at the post to
Grubauer’s left, Jamie Benn swept in a loose puck lying just outside the goal
line after a redirect by Eaves hit the pipe.
At the 15:59 mark, it was 3-1.
The two-goal lead…the most dangerous in hockey. And so it came to pass for the Stars as they
took two early penalties in the third period that let the visitors back into
the game. After Curtis McKenzie took a
slashing penalty at the 2:15 mark to put the Caps on their first power play,
the Caps worked the puck around the perimeter, Matt Niskanen eventually feeding
Alex Ovechkin for a one timer from the left wing circle. Goalie Kari Lehtonen got a piece of it, but
not a big enough piece as the puck leaked through and tumbled over the goal
line to make it 3-2 at the 3:18 mark.
Then, Antoine Roussel took a high-sticking penalty at the
3:49 mark, to bring out the power play again.
This time, the Caps worked the puck around the right side of the
formation, Marcus Johansson feeding Nicklas Backstrom at the right point from
the goal line. Backstrom sent the puck
across to Niskanen at the top of the zone, and Niskanen’s one-timer was
redirected from between the hash marks by T.J. Oshie to tie the game at the
5:26 mark.
Neither team could solve the other’s netminder in the last 14
minutes and change, leaving things for the five-minute overtime. The Caps needed just 19 seconds of it to
settle things. It started and ended with
a doggone nice sequence. Jay Beagle won
the faceoff to open the extra period, and Evgeny Kuznetsov collected the puck
in his own end. Racing up the right
side, he gained the Stars’ zone and curled through the right wing circle. He wrapped a pass around defenseman Esa
Lindell to Beagle coming down the middle.
From the top of the crease, Beagle swept the puck past defenseman John
Klingberg and under Lehtonen to end it in the blink of an eye for the 4-3 win.
Other stuff…
-- The Beagle Magic continues. The game-winner in overtime was Beagle’s
tenth career game-winning goal. It also
makes the Caps 31-5-1 in the 37 career games win which Beagle scored a goal and
61-6-7 in 74 career games in which he recorded a point.
-- Alex Ovechkin scored his 204th career power
play goal, tying Wayne Gretzky for 15th all-time in the NHL. His next power play goal will tie Joe Sakic
for 14th place on that list.
-- Andre Burakovsky scored the Caps’ first goal for the
fourth consecutive game, the first time a Capital scored the team’s first goal
in four straight games in team history.
-- The Caps allowed a first period goal for the first time
since the Toronto Maple Leafs scored three first period goals in a 6-5 Caps
overtime win on January 3rd.
The Caps had gone eight straight games without allowing a first period
goal.
-- Nineteen seconds is not the fastest overtime goal in Caps
history. Not close, really. But a familiar face was on the wrong end of
it. Alex Ovechkin beat Kari Lehtonen six
seconds into overtime to complete a hat trick in a 3-2 win against the Atlanta
Thrashers on December 15, 2006...
-- The Caps came into the game with the third-fewest
fighting majors in the league. Dallas
was second in the league. The teams did
mix it up twice, Tom Wilson going against Brett Ritchie and Daniel Winnik
squaring off against Antoine Roussel. It
was the first time the Caps had more than one fighting major in a game since December
12, 2015, when Wilson and Nate Schmidt were charged in a 2-1 win over the Tampa
Bay Lightning.
-- Matt Niskanen had a three-assist night, his high for the
season in both assists and points and the most of both since he had a
three-assist night on November 28, 2014, when the Caps beat the New York
Islanders, 5-2, at Verizon Center.
-- Nicklas Backstrom had a pair of assists, extending his
points streak to nine games (4-12-16).
It was his 12th multi-point game of the season and the 188th
of his career, third-highest in Caps history.
-- Evgeny Kuznetsov’s assist on Jay Beagle’s game-winning
goal made it six games in seven in which he has a point (2-6-8). Since December 5th, he is 3-21-24,
plus-9, in 23 games, over which the Caps are 18-2-3.
-- Philipp Grubauer extended his record to 9-1-2 with the
win. He has allowed more than two goals
just four times in 12 appearances this season.
If there is a twinge in that, it is because he has done so in each of
his last two outings (three on 11 shots in 26 minutes in the 8-7 overtime loss
to Pittsburgh on January 16th and three on 35 shots tonight). That said, a lot of those 32 saves against
the Stars were of highlight reel quality.
This could have ended a lot worse for the Caps absent his acrobatics.
In the end…
The Caps are now 11-0-2 in their last 13 games. This one was not a picture of execution or
focus. The Burakovsky goal aside, the
Caps started the game sluggishly and took the better part of two periods to
find their legs. But they still managed
to scratch out a win, taking advantage of perhaps the weakest part of the Stars’
game, their penalty killing.
The schedule takes a bit of a turn from here. The mentors’ trip now in the rear-view
mirror, the Caps return to a series of games against Eastern Conference teams
over the next two weeks, mostly on the road (four of their next six games are
away from Verizon Center). This is where
the long slow slog of the NHL’s mid-season starts to take hold. It will be a test of the club’s depth and
focus.
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