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Big stakes: Caps beat Blue Jackets 2-1 (SO) 🇷🇺

By Peter Hassett

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March 23, 2017 9:52 pm

The Washington Capitals knew that Thursday’s game against the Columbus Blue Jackets was important. With the Jackets nipping at the Caps’ heels in the standings, a win would have a big impact on playoff seeding. The Caps played appropriately: shoveling shot after shot on the Columbus net, but that’s not always enough.

The Caps had a ton of offense, but the game remained scoreless after two. That’s when Seth Jones delivered from the blue line to put the Blooj on the board. Dmitry Orlov did the same, scoring on his comrade Sergei Bobrovsky from the other blue line to tie it up.

Rego and overtime passed without a decision, so here come shootout bullets!

  • Oshie put the biscuit in the basket!
  • Atkinson did NOT put the biscuit in the basket!
  • Kuznetsov did NOT put the biscuit in the basket. Too fancy, Kuzy.
  • Gengar did NOT put the biscuit in the basket.
  • Backstrom did NOT put the biscuit in the basket.
  • Wennberg did NOT put the biscuit in the basket. CAPS WIN!

Caps beat Jackets 2-1 in the shootout!

  • The third line of Lars Eller, Brett Connolly, and Andre Burakovsky was incandescent. They could have and should have scored a handful of times, and hardly ever got stuck in their own zone.
  • Seth Jones‘s goal was a respectable blast from the blue line, but the failure of the Caps’ top line to mitigate the attack early in the third was the real cause of that goal. As good as that line is, they could be much better in their own end. They bleed scoring chances.
  • Brooks Orpik got busted for hooking in the third, giving Washington their first penalty kill of the night and only their fourth in their last four games. The call on Orpik was at least dubious, but the refs couldn’t keep handing the Caps power plays to squander.
  • Halfway through the third, a scandalously weak call on Brett Connolly put the Caps on the PK for the second time, ending a great streak of discipline. Let’s see that trend continue.
  • The fans couldn’t let Russian Heritage Night go without comment:

  • Alex Ovechkin was feeling it again. He put eight shots on goal. His last three games go like this: 7, 11, 8. He’s heating up right in time. 🔥🚒
  • Dmitry Orlov and Sergei Bobrovsky are good buddies. They spend breaks together. How fitting that the former would light up the latter on Russian Heritage Night.

  • Orlov’s goal was assisted by none other than Marcus Johansson, who tied his career high in points with 47. He’s been excellent, eh?
  • Between Bob and Braden Holtby, we were treated to two excellent backstops. That made for low goal totals but some super saves. Holtby had the best of them, imho, plus a great one in OT against Seth Jones, who clipped the goalie and should’ve been penalized, also imho. Holtby earned his first shootout win this season.
  • Not the best time for a three-point game, y’all. Unless they’re colluding against Pittsburgh?

Joe B suit of the night

Way too good of a performance to end in the shootout, but so be it.

Tonight was Russian heritage night at Verizon Center, and what appropriate timing. Russia is in all of our minds these days for good reason.

That reason, as we all know, is The Master and Margarita, Mikhail Bulgakov’s posthumous masterpiece. Master is a scathing satire — needling the autocrats at the center of the Soviet Union as well as the feckless society that empowered them.

But more importantly to me, Master is about how, through courage and hope, people can defy authority and transcend their political realities. That wasn’t true for the author himself, but you can make it true for yourself. I have faith.

Full Coverage of Caps vs Blue Jackets

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