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The
Washington Capitals played much better against the
New Jersey Devils yesterday than they had against the
Carolina Hurricanes on Saturday. Good enough to win, in fact. The defense remembered how to keep the front of their own net clear. But, the Devils defense did a fair job guarding their net, and their goaltender did an excellent job on anything that got past them. The Cap's had to settle for the single point that came with the sudden death overtime that ended...well....suddenly.
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The game started off with some rather quick moving, back and forth play. That's not terribly common during a game involving the Devils, but the Cap's kept the puck moving. They got many more shots and scoring chances than New Jersey was able to come up with in the first period.
Brent Johnson must have felt a little lonely in front of Washington's net. Meanwhile, at the other end, the Capitals were taking their shots and ringing the post. Netminder
Martin Brodeur was stopping everything with his "snow angels". Personally, I refer to his style as "floppin' like a fish". But, whatever works for yuh Marty. Problem is....it does work for him. The best thing that happened in the first was probably the
Donald Brashear vs
Sheldon Brookbank fight. Sheldon put a late hit on Brash well after he cleared the puck. Apparently, Shelly didn't talk to his brother
Wade, who got pummeled by Donald just yesterday. I'm sure he regrets the decision now. The last 1:18 of the period was spent in the Cap's end due to a hooking penalty called on
Sami Lepisto. Washington's defenseman, including the incredible
Quintin Laing helped Johnson keep the Devils off the scoreboard.
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About five minutes into the second period, we almost got another fight. After Johnson gloved his shot, New Jersey's Travis Zajac continued in toward the goal and poked Brent with the business end of his stick. What would make this guy who had just been released from serving time for a hooking penalty, do such a thing? The Cap's continued to play well, and clueless Devils kept trying to pick fights with Brashear. Dirtball Johnny Oduya tried to take out Alex Ovechkin with a terribly obvious intentional knee on knee collision at the side wall. Ovie was down for a minute, but luckily seemed fine later. There will be no suspension for Oduya, but it sure should be at least reviewed. Both, Brooks Laich and Ovechkin had really good chances on some nice efforts. But, the period would end still scoreless. However, Eric Fehr and Tom Poti were each called for high sticking. So, the end of the period was all played in the Cap's end, with Laing clearing the puck just before time ran out.
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The remaining 40 seconds of a Devils' 5 on 3 power play to start the third period, was enough to get New Jersey on the board first. Just enough, as Jamie Langenbrunner got his first goal in six games with one second of the two man advantage left. Just over two minutes later, Washington's Alex Semin answered back with a backhand goal, assisted by Alex Ovechkin and Nicklas Backstrom. Semin now has a five game goal scoring streak. Backstrom's assist gave him his 50th point of this, his rookie season. Ovechkin's assist put him in a tie for the most points so far this season with 82. Ovechkin had a couple drives to the net during the balance of the second, that brought the crowd to it's feet. But, neither team managed to hit the back of the net before the period ended. One of the Devils did manage to hit one of the robotic cameras, which kept the puck from exiting the rink. This should've been a delay of game penalty for New Jersey, but somehow the referees didn't even notice, and play was allowed to continue.
With a 1-1 tie, the game went into overtime. The Capitals continued making good offensive and defensive plays. But, during a split second of casualness by Brent Johnson, New Jersey's
John Madden slipped a
Patrik Elias rebound between the pads. So, the game ended suddenly, after just 49.6 seconds of OT. The overtime point moves the Cap's up to 5 points behind Southeast Conference leading Carolina, with two more games in hand.
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All Photos - Nick Wass / AP
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