Ovechkin Lifts Caps with Two Late Rebound Goals

Alex Ovechkin scored twice in a span of 3:09 in the back half of the third period to lift the Capitals to a 2-1 comeback win over the New York Rangers on Friday night at Capital One Arena. Ovechkin's goals were nearly identical; both came off rebounds on shots originating from Washington defensemen, and both came from just above the paint, continuing the Caps' captain's recent scoring spree.

Ovechkin now has scored in each of his last five games and has seven goals in his last seven contests. The 147th multiple-goal game of the Great Eight's career lifted the Caps to their seventh straight victory, their longest streak in just over two years, since a seven-game winning run from Feb. 24-March 10, 2019.
"You know [with] Ovi," begins Caps coach Peter Laviolette, "it doesn't have to come from a one-timer at the top of the circle. He goes to then hard areas and that proves it right there. I thought we did a better job of finding pucks that actually got through to the net in the third period."
Two goaltenders coming off shutouts in their previous outings hooked up in a duel on Friday in the front end of a set of back-to-back games between the Caps and the Rangers. Washington's Vitek Vanecek was sharp from the outset, and he stayed sharp all night while New York's Alexandar Georgiev left a few early rebounds that were cleaned up in front him. Georgiev's night was relatively quiet until those two late rebounds came back to bite him and the Blueshirts.
Vanecek is now 8-2-1 in his last 11 starts, and he has yielded one goal on 56 shots in his last two starts.

"He has proven what he can do," says Washington winger Jakub Vrana of Vanecek. "He is a really talented goalie, and you can see it from some of the saves he makes in certain situations. Even the goal [the Rangers] scored on the power play there, I thought it was a save. it was really close."
For the third time in as many games against the Rangers this season, the Caps started sluggishly and fell down a goal in the first frame. Vanecek had to make a pair of stellar stops in the middle of the first, denying Brendan Smith from the slot and Jacob Trouba from the bottom of the right circle. The Rangers also missed the net on some good opportunities, and they held the Caps without a shot on net for more than 13 minutes in the first frame.
"The start wasn't good," says Laviolette. "I thought we got better as the game went on; [we were] better in the second, our best in the third. From the game standpoint, it was tight but we weren't tight enough in the first period, so we gave up a bit too much."
With Nicklas Backstrom off for tripping late in the period, the Rangers went on top on an Artemi Panarin power-play goal at 16:42. Panarin barely slipped a shot past Vanecek from the left dot to give the visitors a 1-0 lead.
For the Caps, the second period didn't produce much in the way of offense. Washington mustered only six shots on net in the middle period, only one of them from inside of 30 feet away and only two off the sticks of Caps forwards.
Washington needed a great stop from Vanecek on Ryan Strome midway through the second to keep the Rangers within a goal heading into the third period.
The Capitals' penalty-killing outfit has been stellar of late, allowing just four goals in the last 10 games including Panarin's extra-man strike in the first frame of Friday's game. Washington's penalty killers snuffed out a pair of New York power plays in the third period, and roughly half a minute after the Caps killed off the second of those penalties, their dormant attack came to life.

Daniel Sprong carried into New York ice and halted in the right circle, feeding a late-arriving Dmitry Orlov at center point. Orlov fed Justin Schultz, who cranked a shot toward the cage from the left circle. Georgiev stopped it, but Ovechkin was right there to bury the loose change at 13:18 of the third, tying the game at 1-1.
Two shifts later, Ovechkin scored again on a remarkably similar play. This time, Evgeny Kunzetsov gained the zone and curled off, feeding a late-arriving Zdeno Chara at center point. Chara teed up a one-timer for John Carlson from the left circle, and again Georgiev made the stop. But again, Ovechkin was right at the top of the paint and he clapped a backhander home to give the Caps their seventh straight win and their second triumph of the season when trailing after 40 minutes of play.
Ovechkin's first goal came on the Caps' first shot on net from a forward in just under 24 minutes of playing time. Washington was limited to 18 shots on net for the night, a single-game season low.
"I think on the first [Washington] goal, there was just an issue of sorting out who was first man back," says Rangers acting coach Kris Knoblauch. "and then just responsibilities are a little slow to react. It allows the puck to get to the point too easily, and goal scorers they find ways to score goals, and usually it's around the net.
"I think it was a small mistake, but ultimately you can't keep him off the scoresheet every time."