Photo: Bill Wippert
The Capitals shutout the Sabres 2-0 on Monday night at First Niagara Center to record their eighth straight win. Alex Ovechkin opened the scoring with his 18th goal of the season and 493rd of his career as Jay Beagle added his 6th to complete the scoring. Braden Holtby made 31 saves including an impressive late glove save to hold on to the shutout.
By Hana Imiolczyk 7 years ago
Photo: Kevin Hoffman
The Washington Capitals managed to defeat the Buffalo Sabres 2-0 at First Niagara Center despite missing their entire first defensive pairing in Brooks Orpik and John Carlson. While Orpik been out most of the year with a mystery lower-body injury, Carlson missed his first game in nearly six years after suffering a lower-body injury of his own against the Montreal Canadiens on Saturday night. Carlson played 25:11 that evening. On Monday, he was replaced in the lineup by prospect Connor Carrick.
Carlson, who ended a streak of 412 consecutive games, was just 10 games away from matching Bobby Carpenter’s franchise record of 422.
Photo: Bill Wippert
Coming into Monday’s game against the Buffalo Sabres, Washington Capitals captain Alex Ovechkin had scored 492 career goals. He’s won the Rocket Richard Trophy as the league’s leading goal scorer, five of his ten seasons in the NHL. He’s scored 50 goals five times in his career. Basically he’s the greatest goal scorer of this generation and maybe of all time.
That’s why I found the Buffalo Sabres defense of him so curious.
The league’s most winningest goalie on the league’s best team, Braden Holtby, recorded a shutout on Monday night against the Buffalo Sabres. It was not easy. Holtby survived two almost-goals, both of which were washed out.
And then, late in the third period with his perfect game on the line, Holtby made a glove save that we thought could only happen inside the Matrix.
I wanted to like Monday’s opponent, the Buffalo Sabres. They’re a young team with a superstar rookie and a good coach. Amanda’s a fan and she’s got decent taste. But then a dude hurt Justin Williams and then that same dude hurt Michael Latta and then he stomped around the ice as if he needed the Hulkamaniacs to re-energize him. At that moment I decided the Capitals must crush the Sabres, which is exactly what they did.
Alex Ovechkin scored on the first shift of the second period, one-timing a pass from Nick Backstrom from below the goal-line. Jay Beagle made it 2-0 with a gift of a goal.
Caps beat Sabres 2-0! Braden Holtby is perfection!
By Peter Hassett 7 years ago
Midway through the second period, Capitals forward Justin Williams absorbed a dangerous, unpenalized hit from Sabres forward Nicolas Deslauriers along the center-ice dasher boards. Deslauriers checked Williams by putting his hand in Williams’ face. As Williams fell, Deslauriers’ stick struck the Conn Smythe winner’s face accidentally.
Williams missed nine minutes of game time while getting repairs in the Capitals locker room before returning right at the tail end of the period. That did not sit well with Caps roomies’ Tom Wilson and Michael Latta.
Big bopper Dmitry Orlov just lit up a Sabre at the blue line in his first shift. It was like two beefy cows running into each other with skates on.
Photo: Maddie Meyer
In case you haven’t been keeping up with the rest of the NHL this season, the Buffalo Sabres are actually fielding a competent hockey club in 2015-16. They are a young team with some exciting players and a really good coach whom you might recognize.
The Sabres made a couple savvy trades over the Summer, picking up quality players that other teams, for one reason or another, didn’t want. They also added rookie Jack Eichel with the second overall pick. Eichel is only 19 and it’s a decent bet that he’ll be one of the top player in the league within a couple seasons.
They also have the best goal song in the NHL. More on that below. 7pm game. CSN.
| Team | Record | Possession | PDO | Power Play | Penalty Kill |
| Washington Capitals | 26-6-2 | 51.0% | 102.2 | 25.2% | 84.5% |
| Buffalo Sabres | 15.16.4 | 47.4% | 98.8 | 20.4% | 78.2% |
By Patrick Holden 7 years ago
