Caps 4, Oilers 2
Two-thousand mile flights are a little easier to take when you finish a road trip with a big win. Rookie goalie Michal Neuvirth kept the Caps in it after they fell behind 2-0 on Saturday night and the top line of Alex Ovechkin, Nicklas Backstrom – and Alex Semin, I guess – simply took over in the third period. Washington finishes 2-1 on a difficult three-game road trip out west. They also complete a stretch of 13 road games in 17 with a 10-5-2 record. Washington left for Colorado early in the week with the NHL’s best record. They come home with the third-most points in the Eastern Conference. I guarantee they could care less. Caps now get to spend the Christmas holiday in their own bed and get three home games at Verizon Center before heading back out west to San Jose and Los Angeles.
Washington came back from two goals down for the fifth time this season. At 21-8-6, this group of Caps reaches 50 points the fastest in team history. Alex Ovechkin scored goals No. 22 and 23. The second one – at 6:37 of the third period – was sheer will as he flew up the right wing, ripped a shot at Edmonton goalie Jeff Drouin-Deslauriers and then fired the kick-save rebound in from a bad angle. It was an awesome play and tied the game at 2. Before that, Ovechkin banged home a loose puck just 32 seconds into the third period. Tomas Fleischmann scored off a set play after a faceoff at 13:13 to put Washington up for good. That one was a one-timer off a Mike Knuble pass and was Fleischmann’s seventh goal in eight games. Nicklas Backstrom added the insurance tally late.
Give credit to Neuvirth. The rookie shook off his shaky performance last week in Toronto and made the saves he had to tonight. The shorthanded stop on Shawn Horcoff in the second kept the Caps in it. He stopped all 10 Oilers shots in the third and earned the win. With Semyon Varlamov experiencing a setback with that balky groin, Neuvirth took advantage of his opportunity. He had 26 saves overall and was solid positionally for much of the game. Drouin-Deslauriers deserves some respect, too. He robbed Brendan Morrison twice through the first two periods and did everything he could to keep the Caps at bay. But he couldn’t stop Ovechkin in the third and eventually wilted under a 42-shot barrage. That’s a season-high for Washington.
Backstrom’s goal – assisted by Ovechkin – gives him eight in nine games. He is one of five Caps who have already surpassed double-digits in goals scored. Backstrom now has 13 with 40 points overall. But that’s one behind Ovechkin for the team lead after his three-point night. Jeff Schultz had a rough weekend overall, but he did manage two secondary assists tonight. He has eight assists on the season. Mike Green earned the primary on Ovechkin’s first goal and has 27 assists overall – just one behind Backstrom for the team lead.
Who else? Karl Alzner was on the ice in the final minute as the Caps tried to protect the two-goal lead. That says something. He also assisted on Ovechkin’s second goal with a nice breakout. Only Mike Green and Tom Poti saw more ice time among Caps defensemen than Alzner (19:10). That says something, too. Congrats to Quintin Laing for returning to the ice for the first time since he broke his jaw on Nov. 17 – and for being able to eat real food again without sucking it through a straw. Ovechkin is now one goal behind NHL leader Marian Gaborik despite playing in five fewer games. He is fifth overall in points – again in seven fewer games than Sidney Crosby, Henrik Sedin and leader Joe Thornton (48) – and Backstrom is sixth.
Shawn Horcoff and Andrew Cogliano scored the second-period goals for Edmonton. Would have been interesting to see Ovechkin’s reaction if he had managed to hit that empty-net attempt in the final minute. Cogliano had said before the game that Ovechkin would not get a hat trick. However he meant that – a true guarantee or just a tounge-in-cheek quote about the league’s two-time MVP – I’m sure it got back to Ovechkin somehow. Either way, his reaction after the second goal was priceless – just an explosion of joy. It’s odd that – as much as this team scores with an NHL-high 130 goals – no Caps player has a hat trick yet. I’m going to go ahead and punch them in for one over the next couple of weeks.
