Caps Take out Islanders, 5-2

The Washington Capitals got on the board first, twice to be precise, but the Islander stormed back to tie it and a funny feeling started sinking it of another pending loss. It didn’t happen. The Capitals rallied in the third for 2 unanswered goals and an empty netter to snap a two game losing streak and improve to 10-1-1 at the Verizon Center.
The Capitals started off the scoring by Great 8, Alexander Ovechkin, skating in from the left with a wide open shot, direct at Islanders goalie John MacDonald, scoring his 14th goal of the year and putting the Capitals on top 1-0. This time Ovechkin was fed by D Milan Jurcina.  Ovechkin was the Player of the Month for November and has showed absolutely no indication of slowing down, including some pretty harsh hits last night, one that led to a penalty.
The Caps would go up 2-0 on a Victor Kozlov deflection to give the Caps a 2-0 lead.  It was Koslov’s  5th goal of the season, coming on the power play.  The Islanders would gain one back with less than 50 seconds left int he period to end the first at 2-1.  The Capitals out shot the Islanders by a whopping 17-8 and were 2 for 3 on the power play.
The Islanders netted the only goal in the second period and out shot the Caps 13-12 to tie the game at the end of the second period, 2-2.  From there on, it was all Capitals.
The Islanders actually started out the third period out shooting and pressuring the Caps.  That would end when Donald Brashear would take a rebound and put it for his first goal of the year.  Comes one day after we here at DCPSR called Brashear out for his scoreless season at that point.  However, this goal was designed by rookie first rounder Karl Alzner.  Alzner is widely know for his hockey intelligence which is one of the reasons he has excelled in hockey and became the first overall pick of the Caps in 2007.  Alzner recognized the presence of the Caps in front of the net and blasted a shot, not at the goal, but purposely off the boards to the left of the net, the puck ricochetted out in front of the net, allowing Brashear to punch it in.  A heads up play by the first round pick and his first NHL point.  Kudos to Karl on a great play.   The goal put the Caps up 3-2.
Ten minutes later, with less than 4 minutes left in the game, Eric Fehr struck on the power play on a pretty backhand you don’t see often to put the nail in the Islander’s coffin, a 4-2 lead.  The last goal was something to see.  With the empty net open, Alex Ovechkin got the puck, skated down the ice, with a man closing in on him, he could have likely netted his 15tgh goal of th year, but chose instead to hand it off to Nicklas Backstom, for Backstrom’s 7th of the season.  Many superstar scorer aren’t that unselfish and would have taken the shot, not Ovie.  Ovie gave it to his center and partner.  Kudos to you Alex!
The Caps out shot the Islanders 18-8 in the third period, putting up a huge 46 shots at MacDonald.  Meanwhile, Brent Johnson picked up the win for the Capitals, stopping 27 of 29 shots.
Multi-Point Scorers:
Milan Jurcina, 2 assists
Brooks Laich, 2 assists
Alexander Ovechkin, 1 goal, 2 assist
DCPSR Player of the Game:
Alexander Ovechkin, a 3 point night, 1 goal, 2 assists
Next Up:
Saturday, December 6th at TORONTO