Caps 4, Phoenix Coyotes 2
The Caps are on a serious roll now. After Saturday night’s 4-2 win over the rarely-seen Phoenix Coyotes, Washington has won six games in a row for the third time this season. They have won 10 of 11 overall since a so-so trip to California to start the year. And it’s not like they’re beating up on patsies. First Philadelphia, then Detroit and, of course, the emotional win at Pittsburgh. But the Coyotes look like a Western Conference playoff team to me. They’re scrappy, play a pretty structured system and Ilya Bryzgalov is a fine goalie.
The Caps are also 11-0-1 in their last 12 games at Verizon Center and 18-3-3 overall. That brings to mind last season’s first-half dominance when it seemed no one could come into D.C. and escape with a win. That changed a little bit in the second half as Washington lost focus with a playoff berth and Southeast Division title all but sewed up. This year though the Caps aren’t falling into that trap. Maybe it’s a growing maturity. Maybe it’s the influx of new veterans like Mike Knuble and Brendan Morrison. The six consecutive wins at home is the Caps’ longest streak this season, too.
Can we talk about Alex Semin? It’s no surprise that he posted another strong game. He scored an even-strength goal at 17:06, roofing a wrist shot over Bryzgalov after a sensational no-look, between-the-legs pass from Tomas Fleischmann. That made it 3-1 Caps. We all saw his beautiful pass to Fleischmann in the Pittsburgh game. His goal was No. 21 of the year, he matched his career best with three assists in one game and his season high for points in a game with four. Semin is scorching now with 17 points in his last 10 games and a season-best five-game point streak.
“He’s playing well right now. He’s so skilled,” said Caps coach Bruce Boudreau. “He’s one of the few people that I know of – [Backstrom] may be the other one – that can pass it from one side of the ice to the other side and it lands flat all the time. It’s a real skill and he’s got it. He’s sort of on his game right now.”
Caps Notes
» Washington last beat Phoenix in the District on Jan. 28, 2000 – a 3-2 overtime win. It had been 0-2-2-1 in their last five at home against the Coyotes.
» Goalie Michal Neuvirth has allowed two goals or fewer in seven of his last 12 starts.
» The Caps have scored a power-play goal in five straight games and are 12-for-27 in their last seven.
» Brooks Laich notched goal No. 14 in the first period – a power-play deflection on a pass from Semin. He’s one of many headed for a 20-goal season.
» Another great game from Eric Fehr. Check out my game story for more on that. One stat that didn’t make it? Caps PR reports that Fehr has 14 goals in his last 36 games. In his first 119 NHL games he had 15.
» Tomas Fleischmann’s sweet pass to Semin for a second-period goal puts him at 34 points for the season – 17 goals and 17 assists. He’s four points from setting his own career high in that category.
» You know the Caps are going well when Alex Ovechkin is an afterthought after most games. Yet he added another goal – No. 33 – and assisted on Fehr’s tally. That’s 70 points in 43 games. Be serious. That’s ridiculous. At 1.63 points per game Ovechkin leads the NHL. No one else is really close. Vancouver center Henrik Sedin has a league-high 74 points, but is at 1.45 ppg pverall. Ovechkin’s best ppg season was last year when he posted 1.39 in 79 games.
» The Caps killed all five Phoenix power plays on Saturday. Make it 14 in a row for the PK, a streak that spans the last three games. The overall numbers still aren’t great. The Caps have a kill rate of 79.6 %. But they have moved up in the overall rankings, sitting at 21st now.
» Defenseman Tom Poti earned the hard hat after doing battle in the trenches with the tenacious Coyotes.
Notable Quotable
Bruce Boudreau on rookie goalie Michal Neuvirth, making his first start in 10 days.
“I thought he was a little nervous at the beginning of the game. But he really smothered pucks in the third period and allowed our centermen to win a lot of faceoffs so we could get line changes and weren’t caught out there too long. That was a real big factor.”
Think Neuvirth was nervous after getting pulled his last two starts? Yeah. He spent a lot of time working with goalie coach Arturs Irbe.
“Just to get my confidence back. I was really down after those two games. I felt like my career was over. So Archie helped me a lot and it’s a big win. Big thanks to him.”
Phoenix coach Dave Tippett on his team’s penchant for taking penalties on Saturday.
“We ended up having to work too hard because we took too many penalties. When you give the top power play in the league that many power plays it wears down a lot of people. It wears down your defense. We had some people out there that competed very hard…but it comes down to discipline and not putting a high-skilled team on the power play. In the end it comes down to a special teams contest and we lost that contest tonight.”
