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Caps' Good Fortune Continues
Matt Pettinger has the puck inadvertently go off his skate and past Panthers goalie Alex Auld for a first-period goal.
(Hans Deryk - Reuters)
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That gave Washington a 1-0 lead that irked the home crowd. The box score, meantime, was telling a different story. The Panthers barraged Kolzig with six shots on goal in the first four minutes and 10 in the first 10 minutes, as Washington mustered a mere two.
Capitals Coach Glen Hanlon downplayed the overall shots-on-goal disadvantage -- 45-27 -- saying the Capitals were more concerned about the quality of their shots than the quantity. Panthers Coach Jacques Martin, meantime, lamented the lost opportunities.
"Tonight, I thought we worked for 60 minutes and we just didn't score enough," he said.
The Panthers, who failed to convert two power-play opportunities in the first period, finally made good with a man advantage at the 14:55 mark of the second. Just as the Caps' Brian Pothier was settling into the penalty box after getting whistled for tripping, Florida's Nathan Horton slapped a perfect pass from Jay Bouwmeester, who had received a nice pass from Ruslan Salei, past Kolzig to tie the score at 1.
The tie lasted a mere 90 seconds.
Florida might still have been ruminating about the beautiful execution of that goal when Ovechkin single-handedly regained the lead, taking a pass from Chris Clark and wristing it past Auld for a 2-1 advantage. It was Ovechkin's 12th goal of the season.
As it turned out, with Kolzig manning the net, Washington wouldn't need any more than that.
"Maybe with the day off yesterday, or whatever it was, we came out a little bit flat," Zubrus said. "But Olaf, like so many times this year, played really well for us. . . . When we count on him, he's always there."
