Washington Capitals Hockey
Saturday, April 12, 2008
Comeback, Playoff Style
It started with the fourth line guys and finished with
the MVP. In between was an extremely unsettling four minute stretch
that saw the Philadelphia Flyers take complete control of the game --
or so it seemed.
After Donald
Brashear and David
Steckel (both with help from Matt Bradley) each
gave the Capitals a lead, the Danny and Vinny Show took over. Philly's Daniel Briere and Vinny Prospal each
scored twice and added an assist to move the Flyers in front 4-2. But
most notably, the Capitals' big guns were held at bay for the first two
frames.
Down by two at the start of the third period, there was
a feel that the Capitals would need to make some major readjustments
for Game 2 just to gain a split at home. But Mike Green, whose on
again, off again play of late nearly cost him the scoring title among
blueliners, broke through -- not once, but twice. And both goals came
on brilliant shots.
Green, whose 18 regular season goals were one more than
Calgary's Dion Phaneuf
and Boston's Zdeno Chara
racked up, giving him the goal scoring title, beat Flyers netminder Martin Biron twice
to the roof to pull the Caps even with plenty of time to play.
Then with under five minutes to play in the third, enter
Alex Ovechkin.
Ovie was bottled up all night and held without a shot for the first 52+
minutes of the game. But his clean swipe of the puck gave him his only
good scoring chance of the whole game, and in MVP-style he buried it.
He actually managed to strip two Flyers on the play -- first was Jaroslav Modry
(whose -4 on the night tells the story of his ineffectiveness) and then
Lasse Kukkonen
became his next victim, with Biron last in line.
After scoring what turned out to be the game-winner,
Ovechkin picked up his physical game to an even higher level. Having
registered five hits before the goal, Ovie had three more in the last
four minutes of the game. The biggest of which was when he
decked Mike Richards,
allowing the Caps to clear in the final seconds icing the victory for
the home team -- the first time the home team has won in the season
series thus far.
SOME NOTES FROM THE GAME:
- In true Flyers/Capitals playoff fashion, the game was
extremely hard-hitting. A total of 76 hits were doled out with the Caps
making 40 of them. Leading the way were Ovechkin (8), Matt Bradley (7), Matt Cooke (6), and Milan Jurcina (5).
All had more than Philly's top guys, Jeff Carter and Braydon Coburn (4
each).
- Three of the four goals Cristobal Huet allowed
were shots he has stopped in the last couple weeks. But he
came up huge on Scott
Hartnell to keep the game tied at 4 in the third
to redeem himself.
- The crowd was raucously rockin' the red, as three
ESPN analysts predicted it would be.
- The refs let the players decide the outcome as they
had the whistle away for the most part. A few plays that would normally
be called were not, but for the most part both teams played a pretty
disciplined game. I will be very surprised if Game 2 is as businesslike.
So that's one game down and 15...er, 3 to go. Sorry. I
was getting ahead of myself just a bit. But with this type of comeback
victory coupled with the fact that the Capitals are the hottest team in
the league right now and have the 4th best record in the NHL since Bruce Boudreau came
aboard, why not think big?
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