What happens when you match a team with little to play for against a desperate club just scrapping to stay in the playoff chase?
Well, for the Capitals, the third period of Monday’s disappointing 4-3 loss to the Dallas Stars: Washington cruised into the final 20 minutes with a huge margin in shots-on-goal (42 to 16) and the game well in hand at 2-0.
It took Dallas all of six shots in the third to turn the tables – two of its three goals coming on the power play. A late Alex Ovechkin goal tied it again with 3 minutes, 16 seconds left to play. But Dallas earned the two standings points in the shootout when Loui Eriksson finally beat Caps rookie goalie Semyon Varlamov in the fifth round.
Brad Richards, Trevor Daley and James Neal scored three goals on six shots early in the third period against Varlamov – the last one a soft shot that slipped between the rookie’s pads. Meanwhile, Dallas goalie Marty Turco was brilliant with 49 saves.
“It’s not every day you get 52 shots on goal,” said Caps coach Bruce Boudreau. “[Turco] made a lot of real good saves, right in front getting deflections, controlling it and getting it again . We’ve seen what he can do in past years when he’s on top of his game and he was tonight.”
So goes Washington’s 13-game home winning streak. The Caps had not lost at Verizon Center since Dec. 28 against the Carolina Hurricanes – the team they will face on Wednesday night in the fourth game of this five-game homestand.
Washington (44-13-9, 97 points) outshot Dallas 19-5 in the first period and took the early lead when forward David Steckel patiently waited for defenseman Tom Poti to jump into the play. But Turco eventually made several big saves. The embattled veteran, who had allowed nine goals in his previous two games, kept the Stars close through the first two periods. Washington’s 52 shots were a season best.
“[Turco] was great,” said Caps center Nicklas Backstrom, who finished with two assists. “I don’t know how many shots we had. But he was good. He did some important saves for them, especially on the [second-period] 5-on-3. I guess that happens in hockey.”
The Caps extended that lead late in the second period. After the 5-on-3 advantage expired, Ovechkin took something off a wrist shot and found the top corner of the net for a 5-on-4 power-play goal. That snapped a six-game drought without a goal – a streak that lasted 404:09. Ovechkin’s second goal gave the Caps life late, but after a scoreless overtime period the Stars pulled out the victory in the shootout.
“In games like this when you come in against a team with that much confidence and plays that good in this building, I don’t mind saying [Turco] has to be our best player on those nights,” said Richards. “We don’t have the talent to match up with them line-for-line, player-for-player. So that’s when some nights it should be called ‘goalie’ and not ‘hockey.’”
