Washington 5 - Montreal 4 (OT)

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The Canadiens met the Washington Capitals for the first time since beating them 5-2 in DC on December 20th and they came prepared for Ovechkin and company. The Habs opened scoring the first with a powerplay goal by Tomas Plekanec off of a crisp pass from Alexi Kovalev and continued to skate hard for the rest of the period. Oleg Kolzig played well, keeping the score at 1-0 going into the first intermission.

The Habs’ newest young superstar, Andrei Kostitsyn, buried his fourth goal in three games after dancing around three Caps defensemen to launch a snapshot over the blocker of Kolzig, putting the Canadiens up 2-0 only minutes into the second period. Only minutes later Alex Ovechkin ripped a wrist shot off of a clean faceoff win in the Canadiens zone over the shoulder of Carey Price, who appeared to be screened. Niklas Backstrom added another Caps goal only 3 minutes and 22 seconds later, beating Price on a 2-on-1 and evening the score at 2 goals apiece.

To Price’s credit he made a few big saves before and after the second Washington goal, taking the Habs safely through their third and fourth penalty kill of the game to keep the game tied; standout defensemen Mike Komisarek threw all the right hits to keep the Caps shotless during the latter. Only seconds later though, the Caps’ Gordon blasted a long slapshot past Carey Price on his glove side, putting Washington up 3-2 with their three unanswered second period goals.

Roman Hamrlik answered the Caps early in the third period on a deflection from the boards, tying the game at 3 goals for each side. The Habs went to the powerplay early, setting up a few decent chances but not putting it home. Ovechkin, the penalized player, jumped out of the box to put his second goal past Carey Price, putting the Caps up 4-3 with 13 minutes left to play in the third period. The Canadiens upped the pressure until 8:34 in the period when Alex Kovalev walked over the blue line and fired a wrist shot past Kolzig to tie the game at 4.

Into overtime we went and it wasn’t a minute and a half in before Washington’s Mike Green finished the game, giving the Caps the win 5-4.

GAME NOTES: I love Carey Price, but he looked soft on at least 3 of the goals in regulation. I’ll be looking forward to seeing Huet against Chicago on Tuesday. Andrei Kostitsyn scored another goal, continuing his three game scoring streak by making it 4 goals in his last three games.