Jets erase a 2-0 deficit to send game into OT
The Capitals had a two-goal lead in the waning minutes and two standings points directly in their sights. But a pair of untimely penalties led to one goal and then a wicked deflection off a defenseman’s stick led to another.
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The Winnipeg Jets erased that 2-0 deficit with a pair of tallies 12 seconds apart late in the third period and then pushed the contest to overtime and a shootout, where they came away with a stunning 3-2 win at Verizon Center on Thursday night.
With two Washington players in the penalty box and goalie Ondrej Pavelec (32 saves) pulled from his net, the Jets took advantage of a 6-on-3 power play. Evander Kane pushed home a goal with 2:15 remaining to make it 2-1. Then Dustin Byfuglien’s shot from outside the blueline clipped off Caps defenseman Karl Alzner’s stick and skipped past goalie Tomas Vokoun to tie the game with 2:03 left.
Alex Ovechkin opened the shootout with a goal past Pavelec, but the Winnipeg netminder stopped the next two attempts and was made a winner thanks to shootout goals from teammates Blake Wheeler and Bryan Little. The loss cost Washington (28-21-5, 61 points) a critical standings point. The Florida Panthers (25-17-11, 61 points) jumped them in the Southeast Division standings by beating Los Angeles at home on Thursday. The Caps dropped all the way back to ninth place in the Eastern Conference.
“It’s frustrating. The kind of penalty we take is one that’s kind of questionable,” Alzner said. “And then sure enough they score the two goals and that’s what happens. They’re a good shootout team. We’ve watched them a few times now. It’s a game that we should have won.”
At one point in the second period, Washington had 22 shots to nine for the Jets. One that didn’t count towards that total was a wrister from Ovechkin that banged off the crossbar. That would have been a power-play tally and put the Caps up 1-0. Instead, the game remained scoreless.
Pavelec has long had solid career numbers against Washington with a 1-1-1 record this season and a .938 save percentage in three games. He needed some help from that crossbar to stop Ovechkin but also made fine saves on defenseman Dennis Wideman and also Mathieu Perreault on the power play, who couldn’t quite get enough of a pretty cross-ice feed from Ovechkin.
The Caps took the lead at 9 minutes, 46 seconds of the third period when Alexander Semin’s shot to Pavelec’s right bounced off the lively end boards and caromed to Ovechkin on the opposite side. He made no mistake and buried the rebound. Just 2:44 later, he returned the favor by finding Semin at the doorstep with a cross-ice feed — again on the power play — and an easy tap-in. That made it 2-0 and appeared to put Washington in complete control. It was a false sense of security.
