John Erskine and Tyler Sloan are two players content to linger in the shadows for the Capitals. As the last two defensemen on the roster they know the accolades and hosannas showered on their superstar teammates will rarely land on them.
But for one evening at least the two men earned some praise of their own. Erskine scored the game-winning goal and Sloan recorded a multi-point game for the first time in his career as Washington shook off a disastrous second period en route to a 6-4 victory over the Atlanta Thrashers on Sunday evening at Verizon Center.
Erskine’s goal came with 6 minutes, 49 seconds left in the third period to break a 4-4 tie. The Caps needed it in a game where they let leads of 2-0, 3-1 and 4-2 slip away. Erskine has now scored twice in the last four games. He and Sloan have also combined for nine points over the last six. Their offensive contribution continues a trend for Washington’s blueline, where the seven defensemen have totaled 31 points, including 11 goals, over the last eight games.
“I don’t know if its contagious or what, but the forwards are doing a good job of giving us the puck and we’re able to get shots through,” Sloan said. “I don’t know what it is, but we’re going to keep doing it.”
Erskine found a shooting lane when teammate David Steckel pursued the puck into the offensive zone and dropped a pass behind him. With good traffic in front of Atlanta goalie Ondrej Pavelec, Erskine’s low bullet slammed past him to break the tie. Add in a haymaker-filled fight with Thrashers forward Eric Boulton in the second period and Erskine earned the hard hat from his teammates as player of the game.
But it wasn’t easy. The Caps have made it a point to shut down opposing teams once they get a lead. It didn’t happen Sunday as Atlanta scored three times in the first nine minutes of the second period, including a short-handed goal by Bryan Little. Washington goalie Michal Neuvirth, who allowed a soft goal to Andrew Ladd just 72 seconds into that period, settled down in the third and finished with 23 saves on 27 shots.
“It was a roller-coaster of a game and we had a letdown there in the second,” Erskine said. “But we came out hard in the third and getting that goal to take the lead was huge for us.”
The Caps improved to 13-4-1 with 27 points and have won seven of their last eight games – with the lone loss in overtime at Buffalo on Saturday and worth one standings point anyway.
Sunday’s scoring started when Atlanta goalie Chris Mason – later to be replaced by Pavelec – reached out with the paddle of his stick only to deflect an Alex Ovechkin shot off his own body and in. That put Washington ahead 1-0 just 90 seconds into the game – a noteworthy achievement for a team that had been outscored 17-8 by opponents in the first period so far this season.
They kept the pressure on when – with just one second left on a power play – defenseman Mike Green whipped a shot that hit off Atlanta defenseman Brent Sopel and past Mason.
Rich Peverley earned an odd goal of his own for the Thrashers at 13:14 of the period when a Tobias Enstrom point shot deflected on top off the net and bounced down. Peverley got his stick on the descending puck and pushed it off Neuvirth and into the net.
That bit of luck was short lived for Atlanta, however. As it pushed into the offensive zone late in the period the Caps stopped the puck and began a rush the other way. Ovechkin drove up the left wing and patiently wait for Semin to catch up to the play. He then timed a cross-ice saucer pass perfectly for Semin, who easily deked Mason and slipped a backhander in for the 3-1 lead.
But while Washington reversed its poor play in the first period it did the exact opposite in the second. Up 25-12 on opponents in second-period scoring this season, the Caps instead gave up three to the Thrashers in just nine minutes.
One of those was a disastrous short-handed goal by Atlanta forward Bryan Little. After a bad pass skipped past him, Ovechkin corralled the puck again in the neutral zone. But as he turned back towards his own end Thrashers forward Andrew Ladd jumped him and swiped the puck. Neuvirth made the initial save on the breakaway only to see Little’s second whack go in.
It was Ladd’s first goal of the period, however, that changed the momentum – a relatively harmless shot from a bad angle left of Neuvirth that somehow snuck through to cut the lead to 3-2. It was the first of a combined three goals over the next 1:55 that still had the Caps ahead 4-3. But after Little’s short-hander – and another two or three Atlanta chances that could have gone in during that sequence – Boudreau was left fuming on the bench. It took Erskine’s goal – and an empty-netter by Steckel – to finally brighten his mood.
“It wasn’t very good. We made mental mistakes. It was ugly,” Boudreau said. “The good thing is that they righted the ship. We talked about not wanting to beat teams 6-4. We want to shut teams down.”
