Caps 6, New York Rangers 5
Every time a team thinks it has the Caps on the ropes they find a way to escape. It’s becoming a fascinating nightly ritual. How will Washington get into trouble and how will it find a way out? The Caps may have saved their best for last on Thursday night. They were outshot, outhit and outplayed by the Rangers in the first period. They committed six penalties. They gave up four – FOUR – power-play goals. Oh, and they also won for the 12th consecutive game.
There’s no real good way to explain what this team is doing. Only a handful of NHL teams have ever won more games in a row than this group of Caps. They trailed the Rangers 5-3 late in the second period, but were energized by one of Alex Ovechkin’s best goals of the season – a left-handed pop shot over the shoulder of New York goalie Henrik Lunqvist that came AFTER a sweet curl-and-drag that left Rangers defenseman Michal Rozsival in his dust. Then came the obligatory third-period goals by Tom Poti and Nicklas Backstrom to turn a loss into a win.
The last team to win this many games in a row was the New Jersey Devils (13) in 2000-01. The Caps are tied with the 1985-86 Flyers, the 1967-68 Canadiens and the 1998-99 Avalanche with 12-game streaks. They are an absurd 39-12-6 with 84 points and a 12-point lead in the Eastern Conference. The Devils may have added Ilya Kovalchuk in a blockbuster trade on Thursday. But even a top-shelf sniper will be hard pressed to help New Jersey overcome that deficit – though they do have two games in hand over Washington and own the tiebreaker.
Caps Notes
» Nicklas Backstrom is the fifth-leading scorer in the NHL with 69 points. Alex Ovechkin leads everybody in goals (38) and points (80). And congrats to him for recording career point No. 500 in his fifth season. He is just the ninth player to accomplish that feat in league history.
» Jose Theodore didn’t have a great game. But tough to fault a goalie too much when his team takes six penalties. He finished with 33 saves. Henrik Lundqvist wasn’t any better with 26 saves on 32 shots.
» I’ll have more on the Ilya Kovalchuk trade on Friday when the Caps get set to face his old team, the Atlanta Thrashers.
