The Washington Capitals closed the first half of their
2017-2018 season on a high note, defeating the Carolina Hurricanes, 5-4, in
overtime on Tuesday night in Raleigh. It
was the Caps’ third straight win and broke a three-game losing streak on the
road.
The Caps fell behind early when John Carlson served up a
turnover on a plate to Victor Rask between the hash marks that Rask immediately
converted into his ninth goal of the season, beating goalie Braden Holtby on
the blocker side 5:21 into the game.
Barely a minute later, the Caps had the equalizer. Chandler Stephenson picked off a centering
feed in front of his own net and turned up ice.
Skating down the left side, he had the puck poked off his stick at the
Carolina blue line but recovered it and fed it in front to Alex Chiasson
skating down the middle. Chiasson
redirected the puck past goalie Cam Ward, and it was 1-1, 6:39 into the period.
Six minutes later the Caps took their first lead of the
game. Brooks Orpik sent a long pass out
of his own end to Jay Beagle at the Hurricanes’ blue line. Beagle tapped it back to Devante Smith-Pelly
entering the zone, and Smith-Pelly stepped up to fire a shot from the right
wing faceoff circle that beat Ward on the long side to make it 2-1 at the 12:53
mark.
The Caps extended their lead mid-way through the second
period on a fine individual effort from Dmitry Orlov. Skating the puck out of his own end, Orlov
carried it into the Carolina end and fired a shot that went wide to Ward’s
right. The puck caromed hard off the end
board and back across the goal line where Orlov followed it up to smack a shot
from a difficult angle past Ward 8:48 into the period.
Rask scored his second of the game on a power play to make
it 3-2 at the 11:15 mark, taking a feed from Justin Williams in the high slot
and rifling a shot past Holtby. The
Hurricanes took the lead on goals less than two minutes apart early in the
third period, Elias Lindholm coverting a pass from Derek Ryan from between the
hash marks to tie the game 5:40 into the period and Teuvo Teravainen giving
Carolina their first, and only lead of the night, getting credit for giving the
Canes the lead when a bouncing puck off his shot hit Holtby’s skate and
trickled into the net at the 7:04 mark.
Alex Ovechkin tied the game 12:45 into the third period when
Jaccob Slavin failed to clear a loose puck from the left wing wall in his own
end, Nicklas Backstrom picked it up and fed Ovechkin in the faceoff circle, and
Ovechkin circled in to backhand the puck past Ward’s blocker.
That would be how the teams went to overtime, and the extra
period ended early. The final play
started with Sebatian Aho ringing a shot off the post behind Holtby, the puck
caroming out to Nicklas Backstrom. From
his own blue line, Backstrom fed Ovechkin who turned up ice. Skating up the right side, Ovechkin carried
the puck into the Carolina zone, faked a slap shot that froze Slavin, and then
wristed a shot past a screened Ward to give the Caps the 5-4 win.
Other stuff…
-- Three Carolina goals came directly off turnovers from
defensemen – from John Carlson on the first Victor Rask goal, from Taylor
Chorney on the Elias Lindholm goal, and from Madison Bowey on the Teuvo
Teravainen goal.
-- This was Alex Ovechkin’s fourth multi-goal game of the
season and first since November 25th in a 4-2 win in Toronto over
the Maple Leafs. He scored on both of the
shots on goal with which he was credited.
-- It was Ovechkin’s first multi-goal game this season that
was not a hat trick.
-- With his first goal, Ovechkin became the fourth player in
NHL history to record 25 or more goals in his first 13 seasons, joining Mike
Gartner, Wayne Gretzky, and Jaromir Jagr.
-- Nicklas Backstrom had a pair of assists for his eighth
multi-point game of the season. He has
had four of them at home and four of them on the road.
-- The Caps allowed 38 shots on goal. It was the 11th time this season
that Braden Holtby faced at least 35 shots on goal. Only three goaltenders have faced 35 or more
shots more often: New Jersey’s Cory Schneider (12), Nashville’s Pekka Rinne
(12), and Toronto’s Frederik Andersen (14).
-- Carolina was 1-for-4 on the power play. It was the 12th time in 20 road
games that the Caps allowed at least one power play goal. Last night ended a two-game streak without
allowing one that tied their high for the season.
-- John Carlson skated 30:51 last night, the first time this
season that he topped the 30 minute mark in ice time. It was the first time a Capital topped 30
minutes in a game since Matt Niskanen skated 32:04 in a 5-4 Gimmick loss to
Columbus one year ago to the day before Carlson did it.
-- Did you have Devante Smith-Pelly leading the team in
shots on goal? He did, with five.
-- Carolina curb-stomped the Caps in shot attempts, 72-46
(61.02 percent). It was only marginally
better at 5-on-5, where the Hurricanes had a 49-36 edge (57.65 percent, numbers
from Corsica.hockey).
In the end…
It is not often one can say that the goalie was the key in a
5-4 game, but three giveaways by Capitals defensemen deep in their own end led
directly to three Carolina goals. At
least it wasn’t one defensemen, the errors made by three different perpetrators
(team…do things as a team). When you add
to that the fact that the Caps really took their foot off the pedal after
scoring their second goal (they actually led in total shot attempts mid-way
through the first period but were dominated thereafter), it put a premium on
Holtby not allowing anything soft. He
didn’t; he needed more disciplined play in front of him.
All that said, the Caps still won and extended their lead
over the New Jersey Devils in the Metropolitan Division (the Devils lost in a
Gimmick to the St. Louis Blues but picked up a point). Those two points will come in handy this week
as the Caps are off until Sunday against the Blues, and the rest of the
division catches up on the schedule. It
is entirely possible that the Caps will be tied in standings points with their
two closest pursuers in the division on Sunday as the Devils are two points
back and have one game this week, while Columbus is four back and plays twice. What is tight could get tighter. That’s why the
points matter.