Luongo Clamps Down on Caps Again
Canucks Goalie Beats Washington 10th Straight Time: Canucks 3, Capitals 2

By Tarik El-Bashir
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, October 27, 2007

The Washington Capitals' futility against Roberto Luongo continued last night at Verizon Center.

But the 3-2 loss to the Vancouver Canucks and their all-star goalie wasn't all that was on the Capitals' minds following the game. Their captain, Chris Clark, went down in a heap after an Alex Ovechkin slap shot struck him on the side of the head in the final seconds. Forty-five minutes later, Clark was still receiving stitches to close a gash on his left ear, making his availability for tonight's game against St. Louis questionable.

"You know if Chris Clark is on the ice, it's not good," said Capitals Coach Glen Hanlon, whose team surrendered a pair of goals on first-period miscues and struggled all night to catch up. "We're just waiting to see how he's doing."

The rugged right wing was simply performing the gritty job he is charged with, creating havoc in front the goal as the Capitals pressed on the power play for the equalizer in the waning seconds.

Luongo made one of his best saves on Clark earlier on that same shift, flicking his stick to change the trajectory of a shot that might have been the game-tying goal. That it didn't go in was emblematic of the Capitals' struggles of late -- and Luongo's dominance against them. The Canucks' netminder notched his 10th consecutive victory over Washington.

"He seems to get stronger as the game goes on," Hanlon said of Luongo. "Get him the lead, he's like our goalie. When Olie [Kolzig] gets the lead early, it's usually pretty hard for teams to come back."

Taylor Pyatt scored his second goal of the night on the power play 3 minutes 37 seconds into the final frame to put the Canucks ahead 3-1, and Luongo made sure the defending Northwest Division champions stayed ahead, snapping a two-game losing streak.

Ovechkin scored on the power play with 1:36 remaining, cutting the Capitals' deficit to a single goal. But they couldn't find a way to squeeze the equalizer past Luongo, who made nine of his 26 saves in the third period, five of them coming on back-to-back power plays in closing minutes. Kolzig made 23 stops for the Capitals, who have lost five of their past six.

"He's one of the best goaltenders in the game," Viktor Kozlov said of Luongo. "Close doesn't count. It doesn't give us two points."

Clark was knocked from his skates by Ovechkin's shot. He stayed down for about two minutes, leaving a small pool of blood on the ice.

"I didn't want to shoot high because there were a lot of people over there," said Ovechkin, who complained about the ice conditions afterward.

"I don't know," Ovechkin added, clearly concerned about his linemate's condition.

If there was one positive for the Capitals -- and it was a small one considering the defeat -- they did score two goals with the man advantage. It was their first multiple power-play goal game since February, a stretch of 26 games.

With defenseman Tom Poti out of the lineup with a strained groin muscle, and the power play ranked 28th (4 for 39), Hanlon and his staff used the occasion to make a radical change to his power-play strategy, stacking one unit with five forwards.

Although it worked twice, Hanlon said he doesn't envision using the setup again against the Blues, particularly with Clark's availability in doubt.

"After giving up two penalty kill goals, it would be nice to have night where both the penalty kill and the power play are hitting on all cylinders," Hanlon said. "We just have to get the job done on the penalty kill."

Two days after snapping a four-game slide with a 5-3 victory over Tampa Bay, the Capitals committed mental miscues in the first period that led to a pair of Canucks goals.

First, Vancouver's Daniel Sedin gathered a loose puck and snapped it past Kolzig on the power play only 2:11 into the game to put the Canucks ahead 1-0. Clark had been sent off for interference less than a minute before Sedin's strike.

The Capitals' revamped power-play unit evened things at 8:45, when Michael Nylander dug out the puck from a morass of skates and flipped it past Luongo to make it 1-1.

Moments later, though, a misplayed puck along the boards wound up on the stick of Pyatt, who controlled a bouncing puck in front and beat Kolzig, who didn't appear to be expecting a shot, making it 2-1.