Party animal celebrates career achievement (Photo: @myregularface)
Twice this week the Capitals faced the Tampa Bay Lightning, maybe the best team in the east, and twice the Capitals have won. At home on Saturday night, the Caps played a steady game on unsteady ice. With a solid backstop and the consensus most underrated player in the league, the Caps seemed to have it sewn up until a late volley by the Bolts made it scary.
Both teams emerged scoreless from a power-play-packed first period, then Nick Backstrom struck twice in the second– both times up close. Backstrom earned the natural hat trick with a wrister from the slot in the third. Tyler Johnson ended the shutout in the final five minutes, and then Matthew Carle made it scary with a wrister super late.
But Eric Fehr got the empty netter because he’s bacon bits.
Caps beat Bolts 4-2! Backtrick!
Joe B suit of the night
Braden Holtby was four minutes and change away from his second shutout of the season when the Bolts summoned the spirit of the Harlem freaking Globetrotters to set up Tyler Johnson. Then Matt Carle cracked the Caps’ defensive shell after that. No matter; we’re not looking for perfection, just rarefaction. Holtby was excellent– particularly on that long penalty kill– and earned this win with flash glove saves and solid positioning. I’m okay with it; I just wish the Caps would be a little less conservative with the lead.
So ends another good week of Caps hockey, and a pretty fargin’ good one by my estimation. Should be a fun snapshot tomorrow.
Russian Machine Never Breaks is not associated with the Washington Capitals; Monumental Sports, the NHL, or its properties. Not even a little bit.
All original content on russianmachineneverbreaks.com is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported (CC BY-NC-SA 3.0)– unless otherwise stated or superseded by another license. You are free to share, copy, and remix this content so long as it is attributed, done for noncommercial purposes, and done so under a license similar to this one.
Share On