Caps Throw Cold Water On NHL's Hottest Team
Capitals 4, Senators 1

By Tarik El-Bashir
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, November 9, 2007

OTTAWA, Nov. 8 -- All signs pointed to the Washington Capitals getting run out of Scotiabank Place.

The Capitals had lost four straight. The Ottawa Senators had won eight in a row. Washington was in last place in the Eastern Conference. Ottawa sat atop the standings, off to the best start in NHL history.

But after withstanding a scintillating Senators scoring chance in the opening seconds, Olie Kolzig and the Capitals put together their most complete performance of the season and stunned the Senators, 4-1, before an almost silent sellout crowd.

It wasn't just Kolzig's 27-save effort that delivered Washington its biggest win of the season. The Capitals also received strong games from rookie Nicklas Backstrom (first career goal), Viktor Kozlov (a goal and two assists), Alex Ovechkin (goal, assist and 10 shots on goal) and Tomas Fleischmann (goal, six shots).

The offensive outburst ended a slump in which the club had scored only three goals in the previous four games. Coach Glen Hanlon said it was a long time coming.

"This is just an extension of what I've been telling everybody," he said. "We didn't play any better tonight than we have in a lot of the games in the last six or seven. What happened was the pucks went in. We were rewarded. We're hoping that this is something that will continue."

The victory sent the Capitals home with three huge points in the standings from their three-game road swing, not to mention an enormous confidence boost.

The trip started with a 5-0 loss to the Hurricanes on Monday. That was followed by a heartbreaking 2-1 loss in overtime Tuesday in Atlanta. Considering those losses, and the fragile state of the team's psyche, there was little indication the Capitals would turn it around against the league's best team.

"Going into this road trip, I said that if we could get three points we could look at the trip as being successful," Kolzig said. "We did it the hard way after losing the first one in Carolina. I thought we deserved better in Atlanta. Then tonight we played fantastic."

Kolzig's counterpart, Ray Emery (31 saves) said: "No one had their best game. I don't know if we took them lightly. You tell yourself not to take them lightly because you realize they have some big names over there. If we did take them lightly, we shouldn't have."

It was an unfamiliar position for the Senators, who lost for only the second time this season, and the first time since Carolina beat them here, 5-3, on Oct. 11.

"We win a game, finally," Ovechkin said, wearing a wide smile. "It's a great win. We beat a great team. We played tonight great defensively, and we finally score on our chances."

And they did it without wingers Chris Clark (lacerated left ear) and Alexander Semin (sprained right ankle), both of whom were out again.

Although the Capitals didn't score their first goal until the midway through the second period, they actually won the game much earlier.

Kolzig thwarted a glorious scoring chance right off the opening faceoff, making a sprawling save on Chris Kelly, who had raced right down the center of the ice.

Then, early in the second period, the Senators were awarded a 63-second five-on-three power play. Kolzig, though, sent them away empty-handed, making perhaps his biggest save of the game with his glove on Daniel Alfredsson. Penalty-kill specialists Dave Steckel and Boyd Gordon also shined, disrupting the Senators.

Moments later, Kozlov put the Capitals ahead. The hulking Russian danced the puck between Randy Robitaille and Wade Redden and beat Emery over his shoulder at 12 minutes 10 seconds.

Backstrom then earned his milestone, ending a 15-game drought at 14:27 on the power play. The play began with Kozlov attempting a wrap-around. Emery stuffed him, but the puck bounced up and over Emery. Backstrom, in a scramble in the crease, jammed it out of midair and past the unsuspecting goalie to make the score 2-0.

"I touched something, and I think it was the puck," said Backstrom, who has been at his best since being moved to center, his natural position, this week.

The home crowd of 19,666 grew restless, but the Capitals continued to pressure the Senators.

That diligence paid off at 17:55, when Fleischmann took a long pass from Kozlov, then raced into the zone unimpeded. By the time the Senators' Luke Richardson came over, the Capitals winger had unleashed a perfectly-placed wrist shot past Emery's blocker pad.

Fifty-four seconds later Alfredsson finally beat Kolzig, finishing a pretty cross-ice pass from Mike Fisher to make it 3-1.

Ovechkin put the game out of reach with his 10th goal with 3:45 remaining, beating Emery between the pads on a two-on-one with Brooks Laich.

"It was just a great, great effort all around," Kolzig said.

Capitals Notes: Senators' No. 1 defenseman Anton Volchenkov left the game early in the first period after suffering a bruised right thigh. Steve Eminger, John Erskine and Brian Sutherby were healthy scratches. Ottawa center Jason Spezza missed his fifth consecutive game with a strained groin muscle.