On this beautiful Wednesday night the Washington Capitals headed to the big apple to take on the Rangers and came away victorious 3-2 in overtime.
Before you could get settled in your seat the Caps got on the board early off a faceoff win and a nifty backhand pass by Wilson who found PLD who dropped to a knee and sniped it home, 1-0 Caps.
Dubois’ 5 game opening goals rank first on the team and tied 15th in the NHL and this was his 16th of the season.
Artemi Panarin seemingly effortlessly via a solid deflection off the high point shot by Zack Jones tied the game at 1-1 with 6 and a half left in the first.
https://x.com/NYRangers/status/1897453622448804024
The Caps were able to survive a four minute penalty kill because of an Ethen Frank high stick which apparently drew blood on the Rangers Brett Berard which was questionable in my opinion.
During the second after some chaos out front K’Andre Miller was able to find Sam Carrick who beat Charlie Lindgren on the back hand to give the Rangers the 2-1 lead.
The next goal didn’t come till halfway through the third period and it came at the hands of the Gr8 One on the power-play. McMichael with one the best passes I’ve seen to Mangiapane who swung to the front of the net but was hooked down to the ice but as he was falling a crashing Ovi playing heads up hockey followed the play and snapped home the game tying goal.
Ovi has scored 10 goals in the last 12 games. Also with his power-play goal he has passed Steve Yzerman who has 595 for 11th most power-play points in NHL history. He is also one point shy of becoming the 11th player in NHL history to reach the 1,600 point mark.
Oh how could I forget with that goal Ovi is now 10 goals away from passing Gretzky. Also Gretzky will start attending games when he reaches the 5 away mark.
Then we head to over-time and with a minute left in OT on a 2v1 rush by the Caps Wilson and Strome played a little tic tac toe and on the door step Wilson found the back of the net for the big OT winner!
It was a great win, but the Caps committed yet again another too many men penalty which is unacceptable and is just a lack of focus type issue that can not happen when it comes to playoff time.
We also saw some boys chuck some knucks and have each other’s backs and this is the type of fight I know this team isn’t afraid to bring in the postseason. Matt Roy is one tough sonafabitch and straight bullied Juuso Parssinen who looked like an infant against him.
https://twitter.com/NYRFanatic/status/1897468970103664901
People were waiting for the big Wilson vs that tall traffic cone fight but unfortunately for the Rangers Wilson is actually a high caliber player and doesn’t need to fight side show bob.
As we close in on single digits it will be fun to see NHL greats and former Caps that are close to Ovechkin start showing up to see history.
The Capitals are back in action Friday night as they host the Detroit Red Wings, who rank 32nd in the NHL when it comes to penalty killing which is last in the league at 69.9% (nice). Sooooooo if the Caps can get some power-plays we may see an Ovi onslaught.
The Morning Skate 