Capitals Vs Penguins 01/14/2009 Review

Washington's John Erskine checks Sidney Crosby into the boards.
January 14, 2009 Photo by Gene J. Puskar / Assiociated Press.

Capitals 6 - Penguins 3

The Washington Capitals stopped their recent losing streak at three games by beating the Penguins in a great momentum building effort last night in Pittsburgh. The Capitals kept their focus on winning and left all the media's semi-fabricated bickering hype behind them, off the ice.

Both teams started off looking a little sloppy at first, but play tightened up as the game moved along. Washington netminder Jose Theodore wasn't looking to be at his best early on, even though he made some good saves in the first period. The referees weren't at there best either, calling a four minute double minor high stick penalty on Washington's Donald Brashear, when his stick was clearly not the one that made contact. The offending stick may even have been one of Kris Letang's teammates, from within traffic in the area. Pittsburgh scored on the power play with a slap shot by Evgeni Malkin at 5:45, for his 18th goal of the season. Malkin managed a couple hits on Alex Ovechkin, which thrilled the Penguins fans. They weren't terribly thrilled when he got whistled for interference at the 16:00 mark, after smacking Ovechkin in the head with his stick. Everyone became concerned shortly after, when Rob Scuderi blocked a hard shot by Mike Green with his face. He did not return to the game.

Things looked a little brighter for Caps fans, when Viktor Kozlov sent the puck through Marc-Andre Fleury's catching glove for his 10th goal of the season about a minute into the second period. At 8:13 however, Miroslav Satan put the Pens back ahead by one goal. A few minutes later, the Capitals answered back with Alexander Semin netting his 17th of the season. Tomas Fleischmann got the puck from the side wall to Sergei Fedorov, who sent a perfect saucer pass over a defender's leg to Semin. As Semin reached the other end of the crease, he batted the flying puck into the net. The two Capitals goals, along with increasingly confident and physical play by Washington, were starting to get to Pittsburgh, including their goaltender.

The Caps went ahead for the first time in the game, when Ovechkin potted his own rebound from the edge of the Pens goal crease. Pittsburgh then scored their third and final goal via a slapper from the point by Ryan Whitney, after Sidney Crosby sent the puck to him on a nice rink wide pass. Just after that, a temporarily rattled Theodore got nicked with a delay of game penalty. He misplayed the puck, then unfortunately swatted the biscuit out of the playing area. Luckily, he straightened out afterwards. Pittsburgh's Petr Sykora lost his cool right after a draw, and smacked Fedorov on the helmet with his stick (seems to be a common behavior by the Pens). Washington's Tomas Fleischmann scored his 15th goal of the season on the PP opportunity. He sent Ovechkin's rebound in for the game winner with a wrister, while lunging through the air toward the goal. By this point, Fleury was completely flustered, and his mates were losing it as well. At 11:27, Ovechkin banked the puck off of Whitney's skate, scoring his 29th goal of the season and second of the third period. About a minute before the end of the game, Caps defenseman Jeff Schultz ended his 72 game goalless drought. He cleared the puck from Washington's crease, and it went all the way across the ice surface and into the empty net at the other end. That made it 6-3 for Washington, adding insult to injury. Injury including Pittsburgh's Rob Scuderi, Maxime Talbot and Sidney Crosby.

I thoroughly enjoyed watching the Capitals throttle the Penguins. It was just icing on the cake to see Washington's players taking turns crunching both Evgeni Malkin and Sidney Crosby. A totally frustrated and shaky Marc-Andre Fleury is a good sight for Caps fans too. Perhaps the most special moment of the evening was when Crosby tried to check David Steckel into the side wall during the third period and almost completely missed his mark. Unfortunately, that's when he also got hurt. Hopefully, the injured foul get the necessary repairs soon. I don't wish serious injury on any of them, much as I hate them. The first two games versus the Penguins this season have both been wins for the Capitals in Pittsburgh. The last two will be on Washington's home ice. I'm looking forward to the Capitals taking those games as well.