(Photo credit: Mitchell Layton from like 3 years ago)

Live from Verizon Center… it’s Saturday night! The Washington Capitals bested the New Jersey Devils in hostile territory on Friday, so they invited the conquered down to Chinatown for another round. Mike Green, injured in the first duel, did not dress, replaced by the Giraffe Jeff Schultz. Brooks Laich played defense, and Alex Semin returned to action, where he immediately took an offensive zone penalty.

Troy Brouwer stole the puck and beat Hedberg for the night’s first goal. Carlson did his 70-footer thing, and a screening Chimera tipped it in to make it 2-0. Petr Sykora scored on a set play off the face off to end the shutout. Ryan Carter got a deflection to tie it up. From there we entered the shoot out, where way more stuff happened than I can record here. Suffice it to say: Devils beat Caps 3-2 via shoot out.

• Alex Semin, after returning from his timeout in the corner, promptly took a call. I and the thousands in Verizon Center thought the trip was a dive, and maybe Boudreau agreed. Alex returned to the ice, but did not have the rebound game we expected of him. And now I owe Doug 20 bucks.
• The ice in Chinatown was its usual, scratchy self. A Foo Fighters concert the night before and a Georgetown b-ball game this afternoon can do that.
• The Capitals suited up for the second period, but they did not really play. Two shots on net is never okay, but that’s all the team could muster in the frame. That gave NJD the time and space to make this game interesting.
• Jason Chimera deserves respect. The dude has scored in two straight and remains the Caps’ most consistent and timely of scorers.
• Dennis Wideman’s trip added to Alex Semin’s trip makes this one poorly called hockey game. While the Caps are working on tightening up their discipline, bad calls make it all the much more harder.
• The Washington Capitals went two million years without a shot during this game. It’s astonishing to learn that you can skip offense for over a period and still win a hockey game in the NHL. Oh wait, they didn’t.
• Roman Hamrlik either suffered an injury or was discovered to suck, as his ice time was profoundly limited in the second half of tonight’s game. My vote is suck, but I’m willing to change my mind.
• Absorbing up that ice time? Once again, it’s Dennis Wideman, who has a date with the ice bath on Sunday after his 33+ minutes of play,
• All of a sudden, the Washington Capitals penalty kill is a force to be reckoned with. 11 kills in a row as of this game. Now if we can get the PP in the same shape.

Joe B suit of the night via @CapFans1426

Sorry for the poorly formatted, image-light recap, everyone. This is coming straight from the ledge, where I sat with Peter Robbio of Chirps from the Ledge. Thanks, Peter, for a great game! Thanks for bearing with us, everyone else. Please share your own analysis of the game since we are so light tonight.

See you Tuesday!