Caps Take Two the Hard Way

On the second night of the 2018-19 season, the Caps found themselves down two goals late in the third period in Pittsburgh. They rallied on a pair of quick strike T.J. Oshie goals to tie it and they got out of town with a point in a 7-6 overtime loss to the Penguins.

That Oct. 4 game was the first of several comebacks from multi-goal deficits to earn points in the first half of the season, and the latest example took place on Friday night in Raleigh when Washington shoveled its way out of a three-goal ditch midway through the game to take two points in a 6-5 shootout win over the Carolina Hurricanes. The win extends Washington's winning streak to four.

Alex Ovechkin recorded his second hat trick in as many games, John Carlson and Nic Dowd each picked up a trio of helpers, and the Caps prevailed despite surrendering three power-play goals and a shorthanded goal as well. They've pulled that off twice now in franchise history; the first time was more than 32 years ago.
Two points are two points, but these two came the hard way.
"A tough start, and falling behind by three," says Caps coach Todd Reirden, "But the second half of the game - I think we said at the eight-minute mark [of the second period] that there was a lot of hockey to be played. Major credit to our guys for sticking with it and battling through, and converting on our chances that we got. It was a big two points for us in not a perfect way."

The Caps fell down early in Friday's game, as Carolina scored in the game's first minute. The Canes' Jordan Martinook flagged down a shot that was headed wide, curled around the back of the net and executed the wraparound on the opposite side, beating Braden Holtby just 47 seconds after the opening puck drop.
Washington got that one back quickly, drawing even on Ovechkin's first goal at 3:56. Jonas Siegenthaler bumped the puck to Ovechkin, and he drilled a one-timer past Scott Darling to extend his scoring streak to 13 straight games, matching his career best. With the assist, Siegenthaler notched the first point of his NHL career.

A quartet of minor penalties - two on each side - was whistled in a span of less than four minutes in the middle of the first. The first two were coincidental, but each team got its first power play of the game on the second two, and the Canes forged back into the lead with a shorthanded strike while the Caps were up a man.
Washington coughed up the puck high in the Carolina zone, and the Canes' Sebastian Aho scored on the ensuing two-on-none shorthanded rush to make it a 2-1 game at 13:18 of the first.
The Caps went shorthanded twice in the first 5:03 of the second, and Carolina scored on both power plays to take a commanding 4-1 lead. Aho scored his second of the game on a right dot one-timer at 4:39 and Teuvo Teravainen notched a power-play goal to make it 4-1 at 6:41.
Things didn't look great for the Caps at this juncture; they seemed to be stuck in the mud a little bit. Washington just wasn't crisp or sharp in moving the puck and the Caps looked a little more like the team that played the night before than did the Canes. But there was also - as the Caps themselves noted on the bench at roughly the same time - plenty of hockey still to be played.
The comeback process got underway at 12:37 when the Caps made it 4-2 on a transition goal. Evgeny Kuznetsov picked the pocket of a Carolina puck carrier at the red line and carried back into then Hurricanes' end. Darling stopped his shot, but Tom Wilson buried the rebound to give the Caps a needed spark.

Just under five minutes later, the Caps were within one when Ovechkin scored his second of the night. He pump-faked a slapper from up high, then crept a few feet closer and slipped a shot past Darling on the short side to make it 4-3 at 17:25.
Washington pulled even on the very next shift. Reirden put the Caps' fourth line out on the shift following the Ovechkin goal, and after a brief spell in their own end, they took off and got it tied up. Dowd gained the zone and went cross-ice to Carlson at the right point. From there, Carlson let a waist high shot fly, and Travis Boyd expertly deflected it past Darling to make it a 4-4 game with 1:41 left in the second.
"We were in the [defensive] zone a little bit," recounts Boyd, "got it out, got it to the offensive zone and had a pretty good rotation play over. I got left alone in front and John gave me a puck I could tip, and luckily it worked out."
Holtby made an excellent lateral stop to deny Lucas Wallmark just ahead of the second intermission, and Darling did the same on a Wilson shorthanded bid early in the third.
The Caps were able to take their first lead of the night on their second power play of the night midway through the third, an Ovechkin one-timer from the office at 9:49 that made it a 5-4 game for Washington.
"Obviously I have pretty good chances," says Ovechkin of his second hat trick in as many games. "You can see on my goals my linemates do a pretty good job of giving me space and I just have to put it in."

But a hi-sticking call on Oshie put the Canes on the power play once again in the back half of the third, and Holtby committed a turnover that ended up in his net, tying the game at 5-5 with 6:12 left. From behind the cage, the Caps goalie attempted to sail the puck over the net and ice it, but it caught the net and rolled to the front where ex-Cap Justin Williams tapped it into the vacant net.
The Caps still had to weather a Matt Niskanen tripping call with 1:35 left in overtime and once they did so, the two sides proceeded to a rather lengthy shootout in which Holtby stopped five of six, and in which Nicklas Backstrom and Jakub Vrana were able to put pucks behind Darling.
"The game of hockey has a lot of ups and downs, a lot of changes in momentum," opines Williams, the wise captain of the Canes. "And once [the Caps] got down, they started playing a different game and scored some goals because of it. That's the reason they are who they are, especially after last year. They find ways to come back in games and they're never out of it. That's it; you lose in a shootout."