The Washington Capitals took game one of their three-game, regular season, mini-series with the New York Islanders by a score of 1-0 in a shootout.
The Caps outshot the Isles 28 to 26 and out-attempted them at five-on-five 47 to 34.
By Chris Cerullo 3 years ago
During the Capitals’ 1-0 shootout win over the Islanders Thursday, Alex Ovechkin did not take a shift late in the third period or in overtime. Considering it was one of the biggest games of the season and Ovechkin has so many goals in overtime that Capitals fans have nicknamed the extra frame Ovitime, that was kinda strange.
So after the game, the media asked Capitals head coach Peter Laviolette what happened and if Ovi was injured.
“I don’t even know what’s wrong,” a cagey Laviolette said postgame. “I know he wasn’t available during that time.”
By Ian Oland 3 years ago
The Washington Capitals and New York Islanders entered Thursday’s matchup deadlocked with 62 standings points each. Whoever won would end up in first place in the East Division. With such huge stakes, both teams played it tight during the actual game, and literally, no one scored in regulation or overtime, forcing a shootout to decide a winner.
After TJ Oshie was stopped by Isles goaltender Semyon Varlamov, Nicklas Backstrom, taking Jakub Vrana’s old spot, scored in the second round and Evgeny Kuznetsov clinched the win with a shot to the short side of the net.
Kuzy’s goal gave the Capitals a rare 1-0 shootout victory. Both goalies, Varlamov and Ilya Samsonov, earned a shutout for their efforts.
The Washington Capitals kicked off the homestretch of the Weird Year with an extremely low-scoring affair on the road against the New York Islanders.
First period: No goals.
Second period: No goals here either.
Third period: Nu-uh.
So onto overtime, where the Isles played actual keepaway until time expired.
Here comes shootout bullets.
CAPS WIN! Shutout for Sammy!
By Peter Hassett 3 years ago
After landing in Washington via a trade deadline deal, Michael Raffl admitted that he didn’t know anyone personally on the Capitals. Now, he officially has a friend in the team’s captain, Alex Ovechkin.
Thursday, ahead of Raffl’s Capitals debut, Ovechkin welcomed the gritty forward to the team with a bad pun.
“You know what I did last night?” Ovechkin asked his teammates in the huddle. “I went to the gas station to buy Raffl tickets.”
Not too long ago I was asking people, “Does this NHL season feel super long?” But now, I can’t believe we’re down to the final ten games of the regular season.
The Capitals are in New York to kick off a three-game extravaganza against the New York Islanders. Both teams are 29-13-4, so expect this series to be pretty intense. The Caps have a bit more of an edge in other areas like power play and shot-attempt percentage, but who the heck knows what kind of Caps team will show up tonight. I won’t “jinx” anything; I did that last time.
Puck drop is at 7 PM and Peter will have your recap.
By Elyse Bailey 3 years ago
