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Jackets Bird-Danced their way Outta DC - Holtby on Ice |
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It was a rematch of last springs first-round playoff series in Washington last night as the Columbus Blue Jackets “bird-danced” away with the extra point in a 2-1 OT win scored on the power play. The loss puts the Caps now just 4 points up on 3rd place Columbus with Pittsburgh sandwiched between the two in the battle for home ice in the playoffs.
Cam Atkinson would give the Jackets the early 1-0 lead in a less than ideal start to the contest. Both John Carlson and Michal Kempney got caught flat-footed and allowed Atkinson to accept a breakout pass and go right up the middle of the ice and in on Caps starter Braden Holtby. He made a nice deke to his backhand on a play you can’t fault the goaltender on. The defensive gaff here is definitely not something you’d expect to see from your top pairing defense combo. They can’t let that happen...ever.
Shortly after, the Caps took a penalty as they continue their trend of heading to the box too much for my and GM Brian MacLellan’s liking, He touched on this during his address to the media yesterday. Despite the concern, he also thought the penalty kill units were trending up and the Caps would test that early.
Rookie defenseman Jonas Seigenthaler would head off for interference just 52 seconds after the Jackets went up by the goal. However, the penalty killers did a fine job and were able to get things back to even strength still down one.
The Capitals would get their first power play late in the period but could not score the tying goal. They have really struggled on the power play as most who follow know as Vrana’s goal vs Philadelphia was the only one in the last 16 pp opportunities coming in.
The second period would go scoreless and both teams failed to register much by way of quality chances. Uneventful it was not, however, as the penalty Columbus took had an adverse effect on the Capitals. Atkinson’s stick came up and caught Holtby in the mask with enough force that it penetrated the wiring enough to clip the face of the surprised goalie. He immediately threw off his mask and after some time trying to clear his eye he would have to leave the game. Pheonix Copley came in relief as Holtby went straight to the dressing room and wouldn’t return.
Holtby was on the ice this morning in good news.
The third period was played much like the second though no penalties where called as the Capitals pushed to tie the game up outshooting the Jackets 12-8 in the final frame. And, like a bookend, the Caps would score almost as late in the game as the Jackets had scored early. Evgeny Kuznetsov, who hadn’t scored in 17 games coming in, tied the game up 1-1 with just 1:06 remaining on the clock. He ripped a beautiful slapshot for his 8th goal off a nice pass by John Carlson who had received a pass from Alex Ovechkin off the draw. With the lack of face-off success this year in DC, it was nice to see the veteran Nicklas Backstrom win the draw on the play to help set up the goal.
The two teams headed to OT where the referees would give Columbus one more chance with the man-advantage as Backstrom was called for slashing at the 3:18 mark. It was a chincy call, but a slash it was, and so the Caps penalty killers had to go to work again. Except in OT it’s 4 on 3 and with way more ice and it didn’t take long for Artemi Panarin to score his 16th of the year just 12 seconds into the power play to send the Jackets on their way with the 2-1 win. They mocked the “bird-celley” performed by Kuznetsov after he scores in a gesture, while all in good fun I am sure, will be remembered. Not sure what the Jackets were accomplishing by doing that as they’ve not won anything and as a matter of fact blew a two-game series lead to Washington last season in the playoffs where they even lost the last game of the season in order to play Washington. Many of the Caps just washed it off. Kuznetsov had the best quote…
The Capitals next game is Monday night at home vs St. Louis at 7 PM EST. It’s the first game of a back-to-back as they will return to Capital One Arena on Tuesday night to face the Nashville Predators.
Capital Gain:
Caps penalty problems aren’t with everyone…
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