Tuesday night in D.C. welcomed the young and 12th place team in the Western Conference San Jose Sharks.
After some back and forth in the first with not much to show for it the Sharks got on the board first via a snipe-show from Tyler Toffoli that beat Logan Thompson top shelf where mama keeps the cookies.
Then we head to the 2nd period and with 7 minutes left the Caps get the equalizer. Off the right circle faceoff win by Nic Dowd he snuck his way in front of the net as Martin Fehervary sent to a beautiful pass back to Dowder who one timed it from his knee past Mackenzie Blackwood to notch the game at 1 a piece.
This was Dowd’s 7th goal of the season and has two goals in his last three games. Ivan Miroshnichenko was credited with the secondary assist on Dowd’s goal, marking his fourth point (1g, 3a) in six games this season.
Then we headed to overtime and not long into the extra time period William Eklund and the Sharks 3 forced the Caps to sink towards the net allowing for more space for the Sharks who took advantage with a one-timer by Eklund to give the Sharks a 2-1 overtime win.
In many sports when your team plays to the level on the inferior opponent it usually doesn’t have a positive result and this time that was the cause as the Caps fell into that “trap” game mentality.
The Caps did have plenty of scoring chances, but Blackwood played great in-between the pipes making some great saves like the one below.
The Caps struggled a lot last night during 5v5 play where it was clear the Sharks controlled the neutral zone play and pretty much dictated the game which allowed more chances for them, but luckily LT also played great last night keeping us in the game, stopping 29 of 31 shots.
The most frustrating thing from last night aside from the less than stellar effort was that our pretty successful power-play as of late went 0-3 on the night in a game if we get at least one the boys probably win the game, but when we have John Carlson filling in for the Ovi Office spot I don’t predict much success in that move. I would prefer a guy with more shooting skill in that spot maybe McMichael or Wilson.
Overall the Sharks just wanted it more than the Caps tonight and it showed all game especially when it came to forechecking and backchecking by San Jose who just put the Caps in a blender all night, so being able to escape with at least a point last night when we didn’t deserve one in my opinion.
With that one point it put us back to the top of the Division and Conference and only some tiebreakers keeping us from being first in the league.
The Caps will next head up to the great white north to face the Maple Leafs on Friday night.
The Morning Skate 