Caps 5, Rangers 3
It was like a comedy club in the Washington dressing room after Tuesday’s hard-fought 5-3 win over the New York Rangers at Madison Square Garden. Read the details in our game story as the Caps improved to 11-4-0 with 22 points. For one day at least that’s good enough for the best record in the entire NHL.
Washington coach Bruce Boudreau on the crazy games these teams – led by himself and New York’s fiery John Tortorella – always seem to play at the Garden: “You get two defensive minded coaches going at it bad things happen,” he cracked.
Boudreau later added his thoughts about defenseman John Erskine, who hadn’t scored in 31 games, and Rangers enforcer Derek Boogaard, who hadn’t scored in 234 games, each striking within a minute of each other in the second period. Boogaard was just 21 games shy of the all-time record for consecutive games played without a goal. He last scored Jan. 7, 2006: “That should be in the Guinness Book of World Records right there. Easily. That’ll never happen again in the same week let alone the same shift.”
How about Brooks Laich explaining how he managed to score when Alex Semin fired a bad-angle pass off his stick for a deflection and Washington’s first goal: “Any donkey can go to the front of the net and stand there with his stick on the ice and have those guys make you look pretty good.”
Even Matt Hendricks had a one-liner when asked about his just-missed Gordie Howe hat trick – a goal, an assist and a fight. Hendricks was sent to the dressing room after a scuffle with New York’s Matt Sauer at 16:29 of the first period. Everyone assumed he
Can you tell these guys were in a good mood afterwards? It wasn’t a perfect game, obviously. Karl Alzner’s misplay on a clearing attempt led directly to Brian Boyle’s second goal of the night. Tyler Sloan whiffed trying to keep a puck in the offensive zone on Boogaard’s breakaway goal. And neither coach was happy with 17 penalty minutes each, a run of infractions that included fighting majors, roughing, tripping, hooking, boarding, bench misconduct, too many men on the ice. Not sure how we didn’t mix in a charging or high-sticking penalty, but there you go.
“I never thought that we were behind. We were behind, but I thought we played pretty good in the first period,” Boudreau said. “[Alzner] got a bad break on the second goal after killing a 5-on-3 pretty well. But sometimes in a game you feel you’re always in it. Sometimes a team’s beating you 2-1 or 1-0 and you think there’s no way we’re going to come back. But there was a good vibe on the bench tonight.”
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