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Backstrom’s back but the Capitals are still awful in overtime: Blackhawks beat Capitals 5-4

By Chris Cerullo

 3 Comments

December 15, 2021 10:49 pm

Nicklas Backstrom got back on the ice for the Washington Capitals and it was a glorious sight. The only thing standing in the way of a perfect season debut was the Chicago Blackhawks. Could they play spoiler?

Alex Ovechkin scored on the power play to tie Dave Andreychuk for the most power play goals all time. Alex Debrincat, Philipp Kurashev, and MacKenzie Entwistle all struck literal seconds apart from one another to absolutely turn the game on its head.

Daniel Sprong gave the Caps some life with an absolute snipe to the roof. Lars Eller drove the net and slipped a backhand past Marc-Andre Fleury to tie the game. Alex Debrincat with another power play goal.

Conor Sheary ties it up with three seconds remaining and the netminder pulled. Caleb Jones OT winner.

Blackhawks beat Capitals 5-4.

  • The first period felt like it took a Caps team that had a few days off some time to get back into the swing of things. They took over near the end but unfortunately couldn’t find paydirt. I thought the referees and linesmen were both noticeably terrible in the period. Both Capitals’ penalties were soft, which is fine if you call them all but they swallowed the whistles going the other way. I noticed a couple god awful drops of the puck on faceoffs and some weird offside/icing decisions. I don’t normally like complaining about officiating but these dudes sucked.
  • Marc-Andre Fleury has god damn puck magnets in his posts. This dude has had literal magic luck against the Caps this season.
  • The ice in Chicago looked awful. I was almost expecting to see Alex Caruso’s bald head flying around out there. I feel like I haven’t watched a Caps game this season at any rink that has had “good” ice. That only exists in Edmonton apparently. I wonder who gets to play there half the season.

  • Three goals against in 34 seconds. Yep. The stupid part is that I feel like those 30 seconds were the only portion of the second period that the Caps were “bad” and half of it was spent on a penalty kill. They still dominated five-on-five.
  • Alex Ovechkin scored at least. He tied Dave Andreychuk for the all-time most power play goals scored. Nicklas Backstrom grabbed his first point of the season on the strike. Nick is great.
  • Daniel Sprong looked like he was going to score from the second the puck dropped. He did the thing late in the second to give his team some life after being shellshocked. What an absolute rocket to the roof. That was some Alex Semin level filth.
  • The power play automatically looked better to me with Backstrom at quarterback. Never leave us again, Nicky.

  • Wihtout MAF this game is like 10-4 Capitals. This dude will apparently be in our nightmares until he’s like 45.
  • I’m sure he’s a swell fellow but Michael Sgarbossa does literally nothing. I’ve watched him for like 20 games or whatever as a Cap and he does nothing but just skate in straight lines…which is probably why Peter Laviolette likes him so much.
  • Too many penalties taken but I also think the refs were absolute trash basically one way. Whatever. The penalty kill needs to be better. I guess.
  • What an absolute fight from Ovi to create that very, very, very late tying goal. I was complaining about Conor Sheary on Discord like .0001 seconds before he scored. Sheary is then kinda the reason the Caps lost in OT but you have to just take that point.

The Caps travel to Winnipeg next and will leave a few of their recent COVID protocol friends back in the States when they take on the Jets.

Headline image via @Lenkedup

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