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Capitals 3 - Lightning 2 .
The Washington Capitals finished off their southeast father & son roadtrip with a win against the Tampa Bay Lightning. Tampa Bay's goaltender Johan Holmqvist was very sharp. But, Washington's Olie Kolzig was even better, carrying a shutout all the way to just over four minutes left in the game. "Olie The Goalie" had 39 saves overall. Also, after being called up from the Hershey Bears for a second time, Capitals defenseman Sami Lepisto got his NHL debut.
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This was a more free flowing game than the one against the Florida Panthers the previous evening, making it much easier to watch. However, Alexander Ovechkin was still unable to score a goal. Tampa Bay didn't keep three or four players around him like the Panthers, but they didn't exactly let him roam completely free either.
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The first period went by fairly quickly. There wasn't a penalty called until the period was more than half way over. All three penalties were called on the Lightning. The second was a delay of game, for sending the puck over the glass at 15:51. During this man advantage, Washington got the first goal of the game. Alexander Semin was speeding deep into the Lightning's end, when he spun around and showing great patience, held on to the puck for a couple seconds before sending a perfect no look pass across the top of the crease to a driving Tomas Fleischmann, who backhanded the puck past Holmqvist. That makes a goal in two straight games for Flash, and his eighth of the season. Shortly before the end of the period, Washington netminder Kolzig ended up in an interesting position. He stood over the puck which layed a couple inches from the restricted area for a couple seconds, before successfully clearing it out of the area. It was obvious he knew exactly what he was doing. But, that's the kind of moment when you expect something to go horribly wrong. Nothing bad happened. The period ended with the Cap's leading 1-0..
The Lightning tend to outscore their opponents in the second period. They did out shoot the Cap's 24-12. But, Tampa Bay were held scoreless, mostly by the exceptional goaltending of Olie Kolzig. Washington's Matt Bradley got the period's only penalty, when he was given two minutes for slashing at 18:17.
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The third period moved along briskly as well. At 6:08, Cap's rookie forward David Steckel sent the puck past a diving Holmqvist for his fifth NHL goal. Four of Steckel's goals have come against the Lightning. He now has a total of six points in seven career games vs Tampa Bay. Less than two minutes later, Tampa Bay's Vinny Prospal bounced one in off of Olie's skate. The chance for a shutout ending with just 4:11 left in the game. Just 33 seconds later, Jan Hlavac deflected in a shot from Filip Kuba, making the score 2-2. You can imagine the fans were getting a little excited at this point, as the Lightning had come back and tied the game with 3:38 left on the clock. But thankfully, Alex Semin tipped in a rebound 38 seconds later. Olie Kolzig and the Capitals held off the Lightning the last three minutes for the win.
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With all the end to end play, the great goaltending, the Lightning evening the score late in the game, and then Semin getting the game winning goal with time running out, this was a truely fun game to watch. What a nice way to end the road trip.
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Photo 1, 2 and 4 by Bruce Bennett / AP
Photo 3 by Mike Carlson / AP
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