Most of Brooks Laich’s 21 goals for the Washington Capitals last season came from deflections, rebounds and other dirty work around the goal mouth.
His first this season was of the same variety, and it decided the Caps’ first victory of the 2008-09 campaign. Laich’s goal snapped a 2-2 tie at 15:33 of the final period in a 4-2 victory Saturday night against the Chicago Blackhawks in front of a sellout crowd at Verizon Center.
Alexander Semin carried the puck to the net, and Laich’s second whack helped it across the goal line. There was no immediate signal for a goal, but a review showed Blackhawks goalie Nikolai Khabibulin caught the puck inside the net and brought it back into play.
“I actually thought [Semin] scored it,” said Laich, wearing a dark red construction helmet to signify his efforts as the hardest-working player for the night. “He makes a great play to get to the net and just crash the net because good things happen.”
The Caps raised a banner before the game began to commemorate their Southeast Division title. Coach Bruce Boudreau, captain Chris Clark and assistants Alex Ovechkin and Sergei Fedorov were on the ice as the banner went up, far below the others at the end of the arena where the visiting team shoots twice.
As far as Boudreau is concerned, it is time to move on.
“I am trying to get away from talking about last year because this is this year, and it is a whole different scenario, I believe,” Boudreau said before the game. “The more we start thinking about last year, then you have results like you have [Friday] night. It is time to put that behind us. It is a great honor and they deserve it, but once that is done let’s focus on what is at hand.”
The only member of this year’s Caps who wasn’t on last year’s team is goaltender Jose Theodore, who collected his first win with Washington despite another shaky start. After Boudreau pulled him in the team’s season-opening loss to Atlanta on Friday night, he was beaten by Kris Versteeg 26 seconds into the contest on the game’s first shot.
He yielded another goal at 11:41 of the opening period, but that would be all for the Blackhawks offense.
“I think at one point you try to do too much, and it affects your play,” Theodore said. “Sometimes you feel good, but you still give up really bad goals. I felt good, but the first two goals were goals that I shouldn’t have allowed, and I was unhappy with them. … You find a way with experience to forget about them, bounce back, and I think the victory is so much sweeter when you know you were able to face adversity.”
Ovechkin notched his first pair of goals of the season - one to tie the score at 2-2 and an insurance marker with 1:36 remaining. Matt Bradley had the first Caps goal of the night on a pass from David Steckel.
While Steckel took a penalty at 14:31 of the second period and another at 16:41 while skating from the penalty box to the bench, his line (along with Bradley and Donald Brashear) was very affective at applying offensive pressure and keeping Chicago’s top players on the defense.
“Of the four lines, I wouldn’t say we’re right up there with the skill players, but we’re just playing to our strengths,” Steckel said. “That is, get it deep and create offense by going to the net.”
The game was also supposed to be a homecoming of sorts for Cristobal Huet, who helped the Caps to last year’s division title but left for Chicago via free agency. Because Huet didn’t start in goal, the only chance Caps fans had to let him know their opinion of his decision was during pregame warm-ups.
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