Caps 3, Islanders 2
Things didn’t look very good on Long Island early Saturday night. The Caps fell behind 2-0 early in the second period, they generated five shots total in the first 20 minutes and needed a strong night from Michal Neuvirth to even keep them close.
But Washington has found ways to dig deep this season when absolutely necessary. It happened against Ottawa to finally snap that eight-game losing streak in December. It happened at Anaheim last week. The Caps did it again on Saturday with goals from Brooks Laich, Mike Knuble and Alex Semin to pull out a comeback win.
On a night he wasn’t even supposed to start Neuvirth stopped 29 of 31 shots and was unlucky on the early second-period goal by Islanders defenseman Travis Hamonic that fluttered in from the blueline and likely clipped defenseman John Carlson on the way past.
Credit Bruce Boudreau for scrapping his line combinations when it was clear they weren’t working. Semin moved up to Alex Ovechkin’s line with Nicklas Backstrom and Marcus Johansson dropped to the second line to center Laich and Knuble. A key timeout by Boudreau at 5 minutes, 35 seconds of the second period seemed to settle everyone down. Laich scored on a nice power move about four minutes later and Knuble tied it just over two minutes into the third – again on a play where he and Laich drove the net hard.
The penalty kill had allowed a goal on 6 of its last 16 chances. That won’t cut it for a team that can’t actually score. They caught some breaks on New York’s dangerous first power play and in the end came through 4-for-4 on the night. Washington doesn’t win without that effort.
With 19 games left the Caps are 33-20-10 with 76 points. That’s still good for the No. 5 seed. No. 4 Pittsburgh won in a shootout at Toronto – a thrilling 6-5 game – and is at 80 points. Tampa Bay, the Southeast Division leader, was idle at stays at 79 points with two games in hand on Washington. No practice on Sunday as we wait to see what general manager George McPhee and his staff have in mind as Monday’s 3 p.m. trade deadline approaches. Certainly seems like today’s moves – claiming Marco Sturm on waivers, recalling Jay Beagle, sending Mathieu Perreault down to the AHL, adding Todd Ford in goal for the injured Semyon Varlamov – were setting the table for a deal or two. But we’ll find out soon enough.
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