Caps 6, Lightning 0
That’s a pretty good way to make you forget about the 5-0 losses to New Jersey and Atlanta. The Caps played their best game of the season in a 6-0 Friday night blowout of Tampa Bay, which played like a team that ate way too much turkey on Thanksgiving and then had to board a plane. No sympathy from the Caps, though. Check out the details of Alex Semin’s monster day in our game story here. Seems like there’s been a lot of those lately for him.
“I don’t know if it was perfect,” said Caps coach Bruce Boudreau. “But it’s as good as we’ve played all year.”
Washington killed all five Tampa Bay power plays, including a 5-on-3, registered two man-advantage goals of its own, drove starting goalie Mike Smith from the game midway through the second period, limited the Lightning to 17 shots and watched goalie Semyon Varlamov stop all of them. Doesn’t get much better than that.
Boudreau must have singled out a half-dozen guys for strong games, including rookie defensemen John Carlson, who scored a goal, but also made a handful of nice poke checks to break up Tampa Bay rushes in the first period. He has 11 point now and leads all rookie defensemen in that category. Boudreau praised defensemen Tom Poti and John Erskine, too.
“We played good defensively. The power play works good,” said Alex Ovechkin, who had two assists, took four shots on goal and was credited with three hits while again playing right wing instead of his natural left wing. “The [penalty kill] did an unbelievable job and I think we played a solid 60 minutes.”
Thanks to the Caps crack public-relations staff: Tonight is the first time Washington has ever had a hat trick and shut out its opponent in the same game. That’s kind of astonishing for a team that’s been around since 1974-75. Semin’s natural hat trick took just 4 minutes, 29 seconds. That’s the fastest natty in the NHL since Anaheim’s Bobby Ryan did it in 2:21 on Jan. 8, 2009. And Semin’s three separate hat tricks in just 35 days are the fastest in the NHL since Marian Gaborik had three in 34 days back in November and December of 2002 when he played for the Minnesota Wild. Semin now has six in his career.
Not to be outdone, Varlamov fared well despite minimal work. Tampa managed just 17 shots on goal against him – a season-low taken by the Lightning and allowed by the Caps – but Varlamov stopped them all anyway. It was his third career regular-season shutout and fifth overall if you include the two in the 2009 postseason against the Rangers. The 22-year-old Russian was playing for just the fourth time this season thanks to a severe groin injury. But he looked solid in Wednesday’s 3-2 win over Carolina and continued at that level against the Lightning. That’s another good sign for a team that went from bad to good in the blink of an eye.
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