Your new desktop background: Ovi’s OTGWG. Click to enlarge. (Photo credit: Greg Fiume)
Well, you could argue that the Washington Capitals did not deserve tonight’s win over the Ottawa Senators. You’d probably be right. If not for the superdeluxe hockey of the Great Eight, the Senators would take a matching pair of points with them as they leave D.C. Despite a dominating performance for the entire game, the Senators trailed 2-1 until Ryan Shannon‘s beautiful wrister beat Michal Neuvirth. But it was Alex Ovechkin who, in overtime, displayed some future highlight reel material to beat Chris Phillips and Pascal LeClaire for the game winner. Mocking expectation, the Caps picked up the win, and they’ve also got a ton of new injuries to show for it. Oh well. Caps beat Sens 3-2!
Deke, deke, fake, bullets to the five hole for the win.
- The elephant in the room is the Caps’ special teams. The penalty kill is still perfect, and the power play has only one tally to show for their effort. The Caps had many chances to make it happen with the extra man tonight, but there’s something just wrong about how the they’re conducting the PP. To the untrained eye, it looks like they need more traffic up front when the shots are (finally) made.
- Eric Fehr picked up his second goal of the year with a lovely execution off of a Matt Hendricks‘ pass below the goal line. The 2nd and 3rd lines officially have more chemistry than the marquee.
- Tom Poti‘s late scratch was a huge downer for the Washington defense. After establishing some synergy last week, BB was forced to suit up Tyler Sloan and switch up the D pairings. Maybe that fiddling revealed John Erskine‘s myriad flaws. Big John lacked restraint in his late-game roughing penalty, and he lacked coordination in his later-game pratfall that almost cost the game. Get well soon, Tom!
- Matt Bradley took only three shifts tonight. He’s now reported as injured. I’m too emotionally raw to discuss this. Please send me a honey glazed spiral cut ham, some mayonnaise, and some wheat bread. I’m not capable of feeding myself right now.
- Alex Ovechkin had an awful night for the most part. He gave up two dumb penalties, managed only a few shots on goal, and seemed to have hurt his wrist. Yet, like the sainted Adam Banks before him, Ovi shook it off and ended the game in grand fashion. Remember this night when we start talking MVP, okay?
- The Senators should have rolled some cots and a hot plate into the Caps zone; they spent enough damn time in there. JUST CLEAR THE PUCK, JOHN.
- Michal Neuvirth. I feel bad that he has to give up two goals in every game; he’s better than that. But goalies must be fed to the Caps machine in order for it to run. At least Mikey looked like a seasoned vet with those back-to-back pad saves against Peter Regin late in regulation.
All that ends well, I guess. But let’s not let Alex Ovechkin’s mindbottling OTGWG be the only thing we take away from tonight. There are oodles of bad hockey for the Caps to pore over before Wednesday’s appointment with the Islanders. I don’t want to pee on the parade– a parade is appropriate– but let’s not play too many more hockey games like this one.
