By Brian LeBlanc
NCSportsTalk.com - Puck Drops
Email Puck Drops
With less than three weeks to go in the season, the Washington Capitals come to town for the second time in a week to face the Hurricanes in a game that means little to either side. The Caps played last night, scoring a come-from-behind 4-3 shootout win over the archrival Pittsburgh Penguins, while the Canes have had a day off after an overtime loss at Tampa Bay on Tuesday night.
The biggest news out of Canes camp is the shoulder surgery for Tuomo Ruutu, successfully performed earlier today. Ruutu injured his shoulder in a January fight with Colorado's Darcy Tucker, and while he's tried to play through the pain since just before the Olympics he decided to shut it down and get the necessary operation out of the way now. Ruutu will be on the shelf for 4-5 months, placing his return sometime in early to mid August and giving him plenty of time to prepare for the new season, including two games in his native Finland.
To compensate for Ruutu's absence, the Canes have called up Drayson Bowman for his second tour of duty and juggled the lines, with some interesting looks that we'll see for the first time tonight. Eric Staal will center a line with the, ahem, delicately sized Chad LaRose and Zach Boychuk, no doubt making Staal feel like Zdeno Chara in the process. Manny Legace will get the start, his second straight and perhaps one of his last, as Cam Ward could return before the end of the week from his injured back.
With a win, the Canes will improve their record to 4-1-1 against the NHL's best team, but even a worst-case scenario loss will still mean that the Canes are 3-2-1 against the Caps, an impressive achievement for a team that's had few of them this year. We're 60 minutes away from knowing the end result...
2:11 1st: Canes lead 1-0; McBain 2 (Jokinen, Whitney) At some point we're going to get tired of Simpsons references when discussing Jamie McBain, but they haven't gotten old yet, not when the man has points in five of his first six NHL games. Rainier Wolfcastle put the Canes on the board first with a seeing-eye point shot from the blue line, one-timing home a pass from Jussi Jokinen along the far boards through traffic and cleanly past Semyon Varlamov to give the home team a 1-0 lead.
7:45 1st: The Canes seem really intent on peppering Varlamov with shots from outside. They're throwing it at the net every chance they get without really taking their location into account. Not saying it's a bad thing, as they've clearly made him uncomfortable and he seems to be fighting the puck a little bit, but just a change in the Canes' normal "wait for the perfect shot" routine.
9:09 1st: Canes lead 2-0; Rodney 1 (Jokinen, Dwyer) With all the Rats in tonight's game, it's no surprise that the second of the night was off the stick of another player who spent most of the season in Albany. Bryan Rodney has the Canes up by two on the strength of his first in the NHL, off a broken play in the neutral zone. It looked like Eric Fehr had stolen the puck for the Caps, but it rolled off his stick and right onto Patrick Dwyer's lumber. Dwyer started a 3-on-2 rush into the offensive zone, capped off by a Rodney 30-footer (again, a shot from well out) that beat Varlamov high to the blocker side.
10:05 1st: Nearly 3-0 on an open net that Erik Cole couldn't quite get a handle on. The Caps look every part the team that played an emotional game last night.
17:26 1st: Not sure how that wasn't a Washington goal. Mike Green wound up and fired from his office in the high slot with all sorts of traffic, but Legace not only stopped the puck but caught it cleanly for a faceoff. The Caps looked a little stagnant on their first power play of the night, but they did get a couple of great looks.
End 1st: That was an impressive showing by the 28th-place team in the NHL against the first-place team. Shots were even at 13, but it sure seemed like the Canes had better chances and their game plan was certainly well-rounded. The Canes will begin the second period with a 56-second power play thanks to a John Erskine interference penalty late in the first.
1:43 2nd: Caps pull to 2-1; Semin 35 (Fleischmann, Morrison) It wouldn't be a Canes/Caps game without Alexander Semin scoring, would it? Off a faceoff, Brendan Morrison won the puck backwards, and Semin fired a shot on Legace that was originally stopped. The rebound, though, bounced right back to Semin, and he fired it home through Legace's five-hole to put the Caps on the board.
5:00 2nd: Twice in one shift Mike Green has gotten away with a penalty, first on Chad LaRose then on Zach Boychuk behind the Canes' net. The Caps are really lucky they avoided a penalty there.
11:30 2nd: Green gets the favor returned to him by Sergei Samsonov, of all people, as Samsonov knocks Green down earning some serious applause from the home crowd.
12:02 2nd: For all the griping about the Crosby/Ovechkin rivalry, it seems that the battle lines are being pretty clearly drawn. Ovechkin looks like the prototypical wrestling heel, doing things to get a rise out of the crowd and for no other good reason. This time, he ran over Manny Legace in the crease for no good reason with a forearm shiver to the head, buckling Legace's left knee and earning himself some loud and sustained boos. This crowd hasn't forgotten what happened between Ovechkin and Tim Gleason in November, that's for sure.
16:36 2nd: Give Varlamov credit. After a shaky start, he's really settled down and has risen to the occasion. I'm sure he'd appreciate a little more help at the other end of the ice, but he's done his job in the second period, even as the Canes have piled up seven more shots.
17:02 2nd: Alex Ovechkin certainly thought he had tied the game, hands up and all ready to celebrate. Problem was, his celebration didn't fool referee Frederic L'Ecuyer, who saw that the puck never crossed the goal line behind Legace and whistled the play dead keeping the Canes up by one.
End 2nd: Well, that was certainly an entertaining period, and the Canes came close to making it a two-goal game again on a Whitney backhand with a few seconds remaining. Shots in the period were 12-9 Caps in the period, who took a 25-22 lead overall.
:28 3rd: Erik Cole's second close call of the night, as the puck got behind Varlamov and lay in the crease for a second before a Caps defender poked it to the corner a millisecond before Cole was about to pool-cue it into the net for a 3-1 lead.
2:12 3rd: Caps tie it at 2; Carlson 1 (Chimera, Erskine) Of the four goals so far tonight, two have been first career markers. Caps defenseman John Carlson finished off a 3-on-2 rush to tie the game at 2, dancing around Bryan Rodney in the low slot and surprising Legace with a quick snap shot through the five hole. At this rate, I fully expect Drayson Bowman to get the game winner.
10:35 3rd: LaRose just took a run at Ovechkin in front of the Canes' bench. If this wasn't a tie game we could see it get out of hand very quickly.
End 3rd: A great end to the third without any other scores. Shots were all Washington in the third. Off to OT for the fourth time this year.
Postgame: Canes win 3-2 in a shootout; LaRose with the GWG We'll send you to Twitter for the play by play of the shootout, but after Ray Whitney scored in the third round to send the shootout to extra shooters Chad LaRose won it in round 5 with a great move to beat Varlamov around his left skate and into the net. When Manny Legace stopped Mike Green to seal the win, he had more than earned the first star with 41 saves during the game and another four in the shootout.
Both teams finished 3-1-2 against the other this season, but the Canes won the season series based on goals scored, as they outscored the Caps 21-20 over their six games. Go figure that one out.
The Canes' tragic number remains at ten with their win combined with a Boston loss to Tampa Bay. It's still not likely, in the least, but at least there's still hope on the horizon.
Click for audio from Bryan Rodney, Jamie McBain, Manny Legace and Chad LaRose. Paul Maurice's press conference is attached.
Back at it Saturday when the Atlanta Thrashers come to town for the last time this season. We'll be here, and hopefully you will as well.
Thursday, March 25, 2010
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment