Photo credit: Mitchell Layton

Some nights, watching hockey is fun. Other nights, it’s a gut punch and you wonder what you’ve done to make the hockey gods so mad. Tonight, the Caps got out to what seemed to be an insurmountable 2-0 lead, their second consecutive shutout well within grasp. Awesome, right? Then Brooks Laich’s stick freakishly broke on the PK and Winnipeg scored while up three men. 12 seconds later, Dustin Byfuglien rifled a slap shot from the red line that deflected off 10,000 people including Goat, Horn Guy, and Wes Johnson’s mic and bounced in. You gotta be kidding me.

The play that perhaps best summed up the night, though, was a hit that came with under a minute left in the game. You probably missed it. As Jeff Halpern dumped the puck into the Jets’ zone, everybody’s favorite Kazakhstani giant, 6’7” 245-pound Nik Antropov, left his feet and knocked Halpy head-first into the Winnipeg bench. Check it out below the jump.

Yikes. If that had been Alex Ovechkin, he would have been Shanabanned for life.

Stupid hockey.