The Alex Ovechkin Goodwill Tour rolled through St. Louis on Monday night and it appears several fans had a night to remember.
During warmups, aCaps fans, wearing a neon blue hockey hat, held up a Russian language sign that was immediately noticed by the Capitals. According to the team’s Twitter account, the sign read, “Throw me a stick so I can defend myself from these Blues fans!”
The Caps playoff seed has been set and they are the Metropolitan Division winners, but they still have a couple games left in this year’s campaign. They headed to St. Louis for their last road fixture of the regular season and came away with a 4-2 victory.
Said victory allowed the Colorado Avalanche to hold onto the last Wild Card spot in the Western Conference and put the flailing Blues further into desperation mode.
The Blues out-shot the Caps 36 to 34 and out-attempted them at five-on-five 62 to 48.
By Chris Cerullo 5 years ago
Capitals center Evgeny Kuznetsov keeps being his weird self and it continues to become more and more endearing.
A night after contributing to Evgeni Malkin’s ejection for speaking Russian at him, Kuznetsov had an interesting response to being obstructed in the third period.
The Caps had little to fight for on Monday night in St Louis. They already had the division and home ice locked up with 100 standings points and counting, and the team was weary from having played in Pittsburgh just last night, but I guess playing spoiler for the Blues proved to be sufficient motivation.
Vladimir Tarasenko owned the lone goal of the first period, but the Caps came back furious in the second – first with Backstrom’s 20th, then a solo effort from Chiasson, then a highlight-reel goal from Andre Burakovsky. Patrik Berglund kept it close with a sharp-angle deflection to make it 3-2 heading into the third. Ovi got the empty netter in the third.
Caps beat Blues 4-2.
By Peter Hassett 5 years ago
Andre Burakovsky just scored his 11th goal of the season and it was a beauty.
The tally gave the Capitals a 3-1 lead in the second period.
Sunday night, the Washington Capitals clinched their third-straight Metropolitan Division title after defeating the Pittsburgh Penguins 4-1. With not much to play for beyond home ice (potentially in the Eastern Conference Final and beyond), the Capitals’ likely only goal is to avoid injury. Which is why the following play is so scary.
Monday, in the Caps’ second game of a back-to-back, Alex Ovechkin, the team’s captain and franchise leader in everything, laid on the ice in pain after falling awkwardly into the end boards.
Happy home stretch! We’ve reached the final week of the regular season and the Capitals’ final road game (until the ‘loffs, of course). Today, the good boys have traveled to St. Louis to face off against the Blues. Kinda fitting since it is a gross Monday and a lot of us have the Monday blues.
While the Capitals have already clinched both a ‘loffs spot and the Metro Division title, it might seem like they can just chill out now…but there is one final thing that needs to be done. The Caps just need to start setting Alex Ovechkin up with easy shots so he can reach 50 goals. He is five away with three games remaining.
As for the Blues, they are still fighting for a playoff spot and they are neck-and-neck with the Colorado Avalanche. What’s not going to be very helpful for them? Their forward Scottie Upshall is out indefinitely with not just any sort of injury…but a lacerated kidney. He has 19 points in his 63 games with the Blues. Upshall is also the third player on the team in 13 games that the Blues have lost for the year. Not a great spot to be in for the final push into the playoffs.
This is your final late night regular season game, so we expect you to stick it out with us. The puck will drop a tad after 8PM on NBCSNWA and Pete will recap it up with ya.
By Elyse Bailey 5 years ago
