"It's always these kind of games against Pittsburgh," says Backstrom. "It's fun games to play because there is a lot of emotion out there. It was actually a great hockey game I think, overall. We started off really good, and they came back in the second. It was a tight game."
The Caps turned in a terrific and dominant first period, pouring 21 shots on Pittsburgh goaltender Casey DeSmith and taking a 1-0 lead on Alex Ovechkin's power-play goal. They also expertly snuffed out Pittsburgh's only power play chance of the period, and, as it turned out, of the game.
"The first period was probably one of the best first periods was probably maybe one of the best first periods we've played in a little bit," says Caps coach Peter Laviolette. "When you play the game against Pittsburgh with us, you have to be ready to play the whole 60 minutes. And you know that they're going to push at some point, too. But just trying to stay focused through the whole thing, you've got to play fast, you've got to compete hard against them in order to be successful, and I thought we did a pretty good job of that."
Ovechkin's 32nd goal of the season came in typical fashion, on a one-timer from his left dot office and off a brilliant tee-up from Evgeny Kuznetsov, who fed the captain with a sublime seam pass for a 1-0 Washington lead at 6:00 of the first.
Washington pumped nine shots on the Pittsburgh net with the ninth one finding its way in. When the Pens went on the power play later in the first, the Caps not only kept them from registering a shot, they managed three shorthanded shots of their own. Two of those came from in close off the stick of Lars Eller, who put on a one-man penalty-killing clinic.
The Penguins pulled even on a Danton Heinen goal off the rush early in the second, and Pittsburgh rebounded from a sluggish first to assert itself in the middle frame. Both goaltenders made strong stops to keep the score low and close, and both sides kept up the volume of shots the rest of the way.
Just after the five-minute mark of the first, Washington regained the lead and did so by going 200 feet in a matter of seconds. From behind his own net, Martin Fehervary fired an indirect feed along the right-wing wall to Sonny Milano at the red line. Milano bumped it to Backstrom, who gained the Pittsburgh zone before leaving a little drop feed for Johansson just inside the line. From there, Johansson crept up to just above the top of the left circle before letting it fly to the top right corner of the cage, putting Washington up 2-1 at 5:17 of the third.
"I saw the guy - the defenseman - just coming at me," says Backstrom. "I was just trying to drag him to me, and I saw Marcus standing there. It was a great shot."
Bryan Rust drew the Pens even with 7:08 left in the third, beating Caps goalie Darcy Kuemper high to the glove side off the rush, doing so less than a minute after Kuemper robbed Pens' captain Sidney Crosby, gloving his backhand bid from in tight.
For the first time this season, the Caps were on a 4-on-3 power play in overtime. They went with four forwards for much of the time but weren't able to get one past DeSmith, despite putting four more shots on him during that man advantage.
With the teams all even after 65 minutes of hockey, the stage was set for Backstrom. After Rickard Rakell scored for Pittsburgh in the first round and Evgeny Kuznetsov struck for Washington in the second, Backstrom skated in and beat DeSmith to the blocker side. When Kuemper stopped Evgeni Malkin, the Caps had the win and two much-needed points.
"It was good," says Laviolette. "We certainly came out the right way and kept going. I thought the attack was really good - especially in the first period - and they pushed hard in the second; I thought that was probably their best period. They came back at us a little bit.
