Irwin is an anteater. (Photo: Patrick McDermott)
It’s started as badly as you could imagine. After just 10 minutes, the Caps trailed the San Jose Sharks 3-0. But a stirring effort in the second period brought the Caps within striking distance. Remember, last season, when the Caps would go down two goals and you knew it was over? Well, now that’s over.
Matt Irwin connected for two in the game’s first five minutes, followed up by John Scott (seriously) five minutes later. Holtby out, Peters in.
The Caps got three back in the second period, including Ovi’s third of the year, but the Sharks led 4-3 going into the third.
Tommy Wingels kicked off the third period with either a hardnose goal or Carlson and Orpik just gave up. No matter, Ovi neutralized it with an Ovi shot from the Ovi spot with under 10 minutes remaining. Troy Brouwer stalked up to Niemi’s net like a panther before tying the game from the slot.
Overtime was thrilling but didn’t give us a result, so…
Shootout bullets!
- Backstrom did NOT put the biscuit in the basket
- Marleau did NOT put the biscuit in the basket
- Kuznetsov did NOT put the biscuit in the basket
- Pavelski put the biscuit in the basket
- Fehr did NOT put the biscuit in the basket
Sharks beat Caps 6-5 in the shootout.
Feels like it's gonna be a high-scoring game.
— Peter Hassett (@peterhassett) October 14, 2014
Caaaalled it.
- Who is this Matt Irwin person?
- A: Late bloomer playing just his 101st NHL game, and his first of this season. Irwin got either very good or very lucky in the first period, connecting for two before some fans got to their seats.
- Getting beat by John Scott, at least in actual hockey skills, is an honor few NHL player have had. Because he’s bad.
- At that point we had to dismiss poor Braden Holtby, who was very busy in his 10 minutes of work. In his stead, the debut of Justin Peters, who had a much better team skating in front of him.
- Big ups to Scott Hannan, who played in his 1,000th game. He was pretty good for the Caps I guess. I forget. It was awhile ago, and I was drinking.
- This game featured a bunch of firsts. The Sharks first goal against. The Caps first defeated PK. Justin Peters’ first appearance in net. John Scott’s first goal since the Coolidge administration. Aaaaaand the topic of our next bullet…
- Liam O’Brien cracks me up. Congrats to the plucky little plug on his first NHL apple.
- John Carlson was kind of sinking with Brooks Orpik. In the third period, Trotz shuffled the D pairings. Schmidt and Carlson took shifts together, and Orpik skated with Green. The Carlson/Orpik duo was on the ice for FOUR (4) Sharks goals before Trotz thought better of it. Yikes.
- On the bright side, I can’t recall a more impressive series to set up a power-play goal than the one that led to Marcus Johansson‘s in the second period. I’ve said a lot about Johansson’s skills at 5v5, but his work down low when a man to the good cannot be denied.
- Andre Burakovsky: three games, three points. If he retires now, he’s basically Mike Bossy.
- Alex Ovechkin came up a bit lame after blocking a shot in the first period. Let’s say you’ve got a really nice Formula One racecar. You spent nearly 10 million dollars on getting that racecar fast. Now don’t use it to lug kegs around. If you put a ding on that thing, you wouldn’t have gotten two goals out of it later in the game, though maybe I’m mixing my metaphors.
- Faceoffs were about 50/50.
- At publication time the stats were still fluid, but Mike Green was DOMINANT during 5v5. Like 77% possession. The top line wasn’t far behind. Lots of ice time was spent trying to rally, which can distort the numbers, but that’s still a great sign– particularly against a puck-possession team like San Jose.
Joe B suit of the night
After an awful start, the Caps played an inspired game. Two goals from their captain led the way and proved that Ovechkin lost exactly zero steps over the summer. Secondary scoring showed up, including a real fancy one from Troy Brouwer. The team survived adversity in those opening minutes and the debilitating depression of having seen John Scott score on you.
I think Alan May would call that thick and proud.
It didn’t end the way we wanted, but that was a damn fine effort, and it bodes well for the future.
