Again, they faltered after a fast start. Again, late penalties cost them a lead in the third period. Less than seven minutes into the game, starting goalie Jose Theodore was sitting on the bench, his night done before it ever really started.
All the discouraging trends that have hampered the Capitals early this season were on display Wednesday night at Verizon Center. Yet they still found a way to win. They almost always do these days.
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Chris Clark scored in the 11th round of the shootout and rookie goalie Semyon Varlamov made the game-ending save as Washington managed a 5-4 victory over the New York Islanders.
So despite the sloppy first period – “I still have no idea what happened in that first five minutes,” said forward Tomas Fleischmann – and a batch of untimely penalties, the Caps (11-3-4, 26 points) won the game and took sole possession of first place in the Eastern Conference. It might only be Nov. 11, but that still sounds pretty sweet.
Alex Semin scored just eight seconds into the game. A good omen, right? Wrong. Within 6 minutes, 46 seconds the Islanders had scored three times and Theodore was pulled for Varlamov — after just five shots.
“You don’t like to do that – especially so early,” said Caps coach Bruce Boudreau. “But [Theodore] looked a little rattled. He looked a little down. And it wasn’t like pulling him when the game was out of reach. We had so much time left.”
The last time Boudreau had to make that switch Theodore left an Oct. 15 win over San Jose with back spasms after the first period. Varlamov came on that night and stopped all 15 shots he faced in 40 minutes. This time he stopped 24 of 25 in regulation and made seven in a row to keep the Caps alive during the shootout.
To be sure, the early struggles were not all Theodore’s fault. Semin tried to get fancy near the blueline and was drilled to the ice by an Islanders defenseman. That led to an easy breakaway goal by forward Sean Bergenheim and a 3-1 New York lead.
“No game is without a mistake,” Semin said. “I’m just glad that I became more responsible as the game went on and that I scored a couple goals. I had a lot of moments to score … I couldn’t capitalize on all of them.”
Penalties cost the Islanders their lead in the second. Fleischmann and Semin both scored on the power play to tie the game. Late in the period, Eric Fehr was simply trying to backhand the puck through Dwayne Roloson’s crease only to see it bank off an Islander skate for a 4-3 lead.
But “we can’t stand prosperity,” Boudreau lamented.
The Caps, after taking no penalties through the first 40 minutes, took three in the final 20. The last one – a questionable boarding call on Milan Jurcina – cost them as New York forward Trent Hunter banged home a power-play goal at 17:52 to send the game into overtime.
It took 11 rounds to decide it as Roloson and Varlamov made save after save. The Islanders had several chances to win it. But choppy ice and Varlamov’s long reach kept the puck out. Finally, Clark stepped onto the ice and decided – no matter what – he was shooting. The ice was simply too bumpy to do anything else. So he picked the top right corner of the net and hit it. Just like that, the Caps were atop the conference.
“There’s a long way to go,” Clark said. “Not many teams can hold onto that lead for that long. But why not us? We got the team to do it.”
