Maple Leafs Vs Capitals 01/24/2008 Review

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Maple Leafs 1 - Capitals 2

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It was the Toronto Maple Leafs' first visit to the home of the Washington Capitals this season. After losing to the Leafs on the previous evening, the Capitals were determined to beat Toronto in this third meeting of the four game season series. They did it too. With Brent Johnson in net and a resigned forward Donald Brashear skating the ice.

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About 8 1/2 minutes into the game, Washington's Alexander Semin got his usual first period penalty out of the way with a holding call. The penalty came with a freak accident, as Darcy Tucker was innocently skating by (well, as innocently as Tucker can anyway) and got clipped in the face by Andy Wozniewski's stick as he was being held by Semin. It was the Capitals who would score the game's only Power Play goal though. With one second left on the man advantage, Brooks Laich redirected an Alexander Ovechkin rebound in at 13:05. That makes Brooks' 8th goal of the season, which came during his 200th game as a Washington Capital, and his 201st in the NHL.

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Nobody scored in the second period, as both the Leafs' Vesa Toskala and Caps' Brent Johnson continued to turn away all shots fired on net. Johnny was playing particularly well. The game was looking like it would be a second consecutive low scoring game between these two teams, and it was.

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The Capitals had some good scoring chances in the first few minutes of the third period, but it was the Maple Leafs who got on the board about five minutes in. Boyd Devereaux deflected a long range Pavel Kubina shot, and Johnson had no chance of keeping it out of the net. But, just 36 seconds later, Viktor Kozlov got his ninth goal of the season. He was right in front of the net, when another Alex Ovechkin shot rebounded right to him. Toskala wasn't able to recover in time to block it, as Kozzy put it in the wide open short side. It's great to see him starting to score goals regularly. No more goals were needed for the Cap's to win this one. Throughout the rest of the game, with a little questionable officiating (as usual) aside, some good defensive play by Milan Jurcina (that's right!), Jeff Schultz (I swear!), and the rest of the guys, Washington held on for the win. .

The win makes three home games in a row for Brent Johnson, who handed his game stick over the glass to a Caps fan, after the game. He was so on in this game, I'm anxious to see the next game with Johnny minding the net. The Caps go into the All Star break, just one point out of first place in the Southeast Division. I don't usually like this team to get too much time off, but it will give them all a chance to heal. We Capitals fans, can celebrate a little while we're waiting for the next game.

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All Photos - AP / Evan Vucci