Photo: Rob Carr
The Capitals bounced back from Saturday’s loss to Buffalo by beating the New York Rangers 5-2 at Verizon Center on Sunday. Justin Williams recorded his first Caps hat-trick with Alex Ovechkin and Marcus Johansson completing the scoring.
By Hana Imiolczyk 7 years ago
Photo: Patrick McDermott
If there’s one non-hockey thing Evgeny Kuznetsov has picked up from Alex Ovechkin, it’s celebrating teammates’ goals as hard as his own. On Sunday night, Justin Williams scored a hat trick after Kuznetsov forced a turnover. When the puck hit the back of the net, Kuznetsov pumped his arms into the air and gave Williams a huge hockey hug.
Photo: Rob Carr
When the Capitals signed Mike Richards to a $1 million, one-year contract on January 6, Washington head coach Barry Trotz forecasted that the former Flyers and Kings forward would make his debut against the Anaheim Ducks on January 22 at Verizon Center. Richards hadn’t played since last April after having his contract voided by the Los Angeles Kings over the summer.
“There’s no assurances in anything, in life,” Trotz said at the time.
But after seeing Richards quickly get his legs under him and adapt to the Capitals’ system, Trotz had Richards debut almost a week earlier than planned when he skated on Washington’s fourth line on Saturday night in Buffalo.
“I probably went into this weekend thinking maybe in the seven-, eight-minute range,” Trotz said Sunday night, referring to Richards’s ice time. “Seven to eight minutes in the first game and seven to eight minutes in the second. Probably 10 at the high end.”
Despite a 4-1 Capitals loss, Richards was fantastic on Saturday, skating over 13 minutes, including a stellar three minutes spent penalty killing. One day later, Richards skated nearly 12 minutes against the New York Rangers. He spent another three minutes on Washington’s shorthanded unit, which was perfect in four opportunities.
“What you see is how competitive he is,” said Trotz. “You can skate all you want in practice, but when the game is happening there’s a fire inside that young man.”
By Chris Gordon 7 years ago
Justin Williams recorded his second-career hat trick Sunday night. Williams didn’t have much of a celebration after he scored his empty-net goal, but once the Caps put Run DMC’s It’s Tricky on the speakers, Williams’ face lit up, and he began rapping with Rev Run and DMC.
Photo: Rob Carr
Justin Williams wasn’t brought to Washington to be a pure goal scorer and point producer. But in his regular role on the second line and second power play unit, Williams has become one of the team’s best finishers in front of the net. Through 45 games, Williams has 16 goals, which ranks second on the team and 58th in the NHL. Williams is also on pace for 29 goals, which would be the most he’s scored since the 2006-07 season with the Carolina Hurricanes, where he scored a career high 33 at age 25.
On Sunday night, Williams had arguably his best game yet as a Capital, scoring his second career hat trick and his first since October 16, 2006 with the ‘Canes.
“It was a looooooong time ago,” Williams told reporters when asked if he remembered the last time he scored three goals.
Williams’s hat trick Sunday was due to a little bit of luck, a little bit of magic from his teammates, and a lot of hard work.
Photo: Rob Carr
Speaking about Saturday night’s 4-1 loss to the Sabres, Capitals head coach Barry Trotz said the team “didn’t invest enough in the game.” That seems like a stupider way of talking about “compete level.” Nevertheless, the Capitals diversified their assets tonight! Or whatever. I’m a liberal arts major.
The Rangers got the jump early, outshooting the Caps 5-1 in the opening 10 minutes. Just past the halfway mark of the first period, Chris Kreider converted on that zone time, tipping a Ryan McDonagh shot from the point past a helpless Braden Holtby. Late in the period, however, the Caps vaunted power play got them back-in when Alex Ovechkin stepped out of his office to fire a wrist shot past Antti Raanta, making his first start in 11 games.
In the second, it was the power play again. This time Nicklas Backstrom fired a brilliant pass from the half wall to Marcus “Soft Serve” Johansson, who tapped-in the puck for the go-ahead tally. Washington added to their lead with a Taylor (!) Scorney, but the goal was later awarded to Justin Williams, who got a stick on the shot. Kreider put the Rangers back within one off a broken play in the slot, another one Holtby had little chance of stopping.
The final frame sealed DC’s win as J-Will added another tip-in tally before hitting the empty net (well, the Rangers helped) for his second career hat trick. Caps beat Rangers 5-2!
By Chris Gordon 7 years ago
Braden Holtby, who has been arguably the NHL’s best player this season, took himself out at the 17:42 mark of the second period. A minute after Holtby gave up a second goal to the Rangers’ Chris Kreider at 17:28, he skated over to an official during a break in play asking to visit with Caps’ head athletic trainer Greg Schmidt.
After a 30 second talk, Holtby took himself out of the game and slowly went down to the lockerroom. He did not appear to sustain an injury on a save.
Every team in the NHL knows what Alex Ovechkin is trying to do on the power play. They still can’t stop it.
During Sunday’s game against the Rangers, Ovechkin scored in his ninth-straight game against New York. This despite the Rangers having Ovi guarded perfectly.
Photo: Bill Wippert
Last night didn’t work out great for the Washington Capitals. Outplayed and outscored by a scrappy upstart Buffalo Sabres team, the Caps had one of those rare losses. Today at 5 PM they’ll be in peril of doing it again at the hands of New York Rangers, a team headed in the opposite direction of the Sabres but just as dangerous.
Tune in at 5 PM on CSN. Chris Gordon will have your deep-tissue Swedish massage with aromatherapy and recap.
By Peter Hassett 7 years ago
