Postgame Notebook 2-1-13: Caps 3, Flyers 2
Posted on February 01, 2013Two Turnover Goals Lead to Two Points – Caps coach Adam
Oates’ system is designed to force turnovers in the neutral zone. On Friday
night against the Philadelphia Flyers, the Caps scored two goals off such turnovers
and they rode that to a 3-2 win over their former Patrick Division rivals at
Verizon Center.
After spotting Philly a 1-0 lead on a Bruno Gervais goal
midway through the second, the Caps drew even six minutes later. John Carlson
picked a puck-carrier clean near the Washington line juts as Philly was making
a wholesale line change. Caps center Nicklas Backstrom broke for the opposite
blueline, and Carlson hit him in stride. Backstrom did the rest, roofing a
backhander past Flyers goalie Ilya Bryzgalov to even the game at 1-1.
“First off,” says Carlson. “I was just making a defensive
play first and foremost. Once I looked up at pretty much the same time as I was
redirecting the puck into the middle of the ice more or less, and they got
caught in a line change and Nicky made a great play.”
Washington had a golden opportunity to take a stranglehold
on the game early in the third when they had a 5-on-3 power play for 1:13. But
the Caps were unable to get anything going, largely because they could not
enter the zone cleanly with any efficiency.
Troy Brouwer put the Caps on top by a 2-1 count at 3:57 of
the third, taking a pass from Mike Green in the lower portion of the left
circle. Brouwer himself was looking to make a pass somewhere, at least he was
until he saw a bit of daylight short side. Eschewing the pass, he sniped the
puck into the spot, a tally that gave Washington its first lead of the night.
Brouwer’s goal gave Washington its third 2-1 lead in the
third period in as many games. The Caps could not successfully close out either
of the first two games in which they owned that slim lead, and after those
games Washington skaters lamented their inability to add to the lead and give
themselves some breathing room.
Tonight, they did exactly that.
Less than three minutes after Brouwer’s goal, Washington’s
Wojtek Wolski pressured Philly blueliner Luke Schenn along the left wing wall
near the Flyers’ line. The blueliner bobbled the disc, and Wolski scooped up
the puck, skated in and pushed it through Bryzgalov to make it a 3-1 game.
Schenn’s brother Brayden scored with 9:30 left in the third
to pull Philly within one. But the Caps, playing their second game in as many
night, third game in four nights and seventh game in 11, held the fort the rest
of the way.
“We did really well in the neutral zone,” says Wolski. “I
think the last couple of games in the third period we seemed to break down and
get away from what we want to be doing in the neutral zone. I think tonight we
really stuck together and reminded each other to stay wide. We did that really
well, we got a lot of turnovers and pucks going the other way.”
With the win, Washington was able to exit the Eastern
Conference cellar, leaving Philly there in its wake.
Tonight’s game was the fifth straight 3-2 game in which Washington
has been involved. They’ve won two of them, and they really needed tonight’s
game.
“It’s huge,” says Carlson of the win. “Honestly we came into
this game with the mindset that we had played pretty good hockey the last two games,
but not good enough. We wanted to stay confident but changes a few things to
make sure that what we’re doing is the right thing for the whole game.
“And we also needed to capitalize on our chances and I think
we did a better job of that today. We’ve had some big momentum swings in the
past since the beginning of the season where we maybe should score and we don’t
and they maybe shouldn’t and they do. Those are really tough to swallow and
back to come back from.”
Back On The Beam – Backstrom is one of the team’s more honest
players in terms of his own performance. During a recent chat, he told me he
hadn’t been playing very well. I asked him what specific areas he needed to work
on and he answered, “Everything.”
We didn’t see any vintage Backstrom performances in the
season’s first seven games, but the playmaking pivot picked up his game for
Friday’s game with the Flyers.
With a goal and an assist, Backstrom notched his second
multiple-point game of the season and first since Jan. 22 against the Winnipeg
Jets. Backstrom skated 22:29 on the night, got all five of his shot attempts on
net, won 10 of 19 draws (53 percent on a night in which the Caps won only 42
percent as a team) and led all Caps forwards in ice time and even-strength ice
time on the night.
In short, he turned in a vintage Nicklas Backstrom
performance.
“I think our line played a little bit better,” says
Backstrom. “We passed the puck a little bit better and we created more chances,
too. That’s what we have to do. That’s the way we have to play and keep doing
it every night.”
Even Strength – For the first time this season, the Capitals
scored as many as three even-strength goals in a game.
Uh Oh – Caps defenseman John Erskine caught Flyers forward
Wayne Simmonds in the head with his right elbow late in the first period.
Simmonds went down in a heap, left the game and did not return. Officials did
not call a penalty on the play, but it’s likely that the incident will be
subject to some further review by the NHL’s player safety division.
Missing Men – Prior to the puck drop immediately after the
Erskine-Simmonds incident, Philly’s Zac Rinaldo and Washington’s Matt Hendricks
dropped the gloves and fought. Because they did so before the puck actually
dropped, both Rinaldo and Hendricks received game misconduct penalties in
addition to the five-minute fighting majors.
Losing Hendricks hurt the Caps more than losing Rinaldo hurt
the Flyers. Hendricks is the Caps’ top face-off man this season, and he tallied
two goals in the team’s first seven games this season. He has averaged better
than 12 minutes a night since the start of last season.
Rinaldo has two goals in 70 career NHL games and he has
played less than 10 minutes in 57 of those 70 games. He averaged 7:29 a night
as an NHL rookie last season.
Face-Off Futility – For the fifth time in eight games, the
Caps fell below break-even in the face-off circle on the night. Washington won
29 of 69 draws (42 percent), its second-lowest single-game rate on the season.
The Capitals won just 41 percent of their draws on Thursday night in Toronto.
Equation Line II – Caps winger Alex Ovechkin started the game on the right side of a line with
center Mike Ribeiro and left wing Wojtek Wolski. The uniform numbers of the
three players are 8, 9 and 17. The sum of the first two add up to the third,
hence “The Equation Line.”
Several years back, Ovechkin was part of another “Equation
Line” here in DC. His linemates on that unit were center Dainius Zubrus (No. 9)
and right wing Chris Clark (No. 17).
Flyer Beater – Caps goalie Braden Holtby had a strong game
in goal for the Caps to earn his first win of the season. He stopped 29 of 31
shots he saw on the night to run his career record against the Flyers to 2-0-1.
In three career starts against the Flyers, Holtby has a 1.62 GAA and a .940
save pct.
Holtby had a good deal of help out in front. Caps skaters
combined to block 23 shots on the night, a single-game high this season. Karl
Alzner and Carlson led the way with five each.
By The Numbers – The Caps are 2-2-1 when they give up the game's first goal and 0-3 when they score first ... Green skated 25:51 on the night to pace the
Caps in ice time for the eighth time in as many games this season … Sixteen of
the game’s 24 skaters took at least one face-off in the game … Philly’s Claude
Giroux took 31 of the game’s 69 face-offs, winning 20 for a 65% efficiency rate
… Fourteen of Philadelphia’s 31 shots on goal came from its defensemen.
