PITTSBURGH | Alex Ovechkin has been through plenty of painful losses to the Pittsburgh Penguins, so when his team completed an improbable rally from three goals down to win Thursday night, he was ready to celebrate.
After verbally sparring with Penguins captain Sidney Crosby at center ice shortly after the final buzzer of a 4-3 victory, his shouts of joy as he exited the ice could be heard at the top of Mellon Arena. Just before he hit the tunnel, Ovechkin cupped his glove to his ear and then egged on the nearby opposing fans to keep heckling.
“We have character,” Ovechkin said. “Everybody play for each other. [Matt Bradley] fights, somebody scores, somebody gets hits - everybody pushing hard for the victory. I think today the third period was our best period in the season so far.”
Boyd Gordon broke in on a two-on-one with Ovechkin and, instead of passing to the league MVP, snapped a wrist shot over the left shoulder of Pittsburgh goalie Marc-Andre Fleury with 4:17 left in the game. There was no signal for a goal, and play continued for nearly a minute before a stoppage and a video review that confirmed the game-winner, which was Gordon’s first tally of the season.
With defenseman Tom Poti out because of a pulled groin and Bradley in the dressing room for stitches after his fight with Paul Bissonnette, Caps coach Bruce Boudreau put Sergei Fedorov back on defense and shuffled his forward groups.
He put Fleischmann with Michael Nylander and Alexander Semin in the third period, and the trio provided the offense to erase the three-goal deficit.
“Nothing else was working, quite frankly,” Boudreau said.
Fleischmann got the Caps on the board 5:45 into the second period. After Eric Fehr intercepted a clearing attempt by Miroslav Satan, Brooks Laich was able to get the puck from the right circle to Fleischmann between the hash marks, and he backhanded it into the net for his first of the season.
“We wanted to win more than them, and that’s why we won,” Fleischmann said.
Semin cut the lead to one early in the third when Nylander won a faceoff cleanly in the right circle. The 24-year-old Russian snapped a wrist shot over Fleury’s right shoulder before the netminder could flinch. It was Semin’s fourth goal of the season.
Nylander knotted the score at three by putting home a one-timer from Fleischmann exactly 10 minutes through the final period. John Erskine intercepted a pass in his own end, and his breakout attempt found its way to Semin, who hit Fleischmann to start a two-on-one.
“It worked out well in the end,” Nylander said. “We just have to keep believing in what we’re doing. Anything is possible.”
The Caps fell behind 3-0 because of poor special teams play (all three of Pittsburgh’s goals were on the power play, while Washington did not convert any of its four chances) and a lack of shots on Fleury. Washington had only nine shots through 40 minutes but fired 21 on net in the final period.
“We shot the puck - we were trying to be so cute [in the first two periods],” Boudreau said. “All of us were trying to skate east-west [in the neutral zone] against a team that loves it when you go east-west. They eat you up.”
For much of the night, Ovechkin seemed preoccupied with hitting fellow Russian star Evgeni Malkin. Despite doling out plenty of physical punishment to Malkin, Ovechkin’s first shot on net didn’t come until there were 45 seconds left in the second period.
At that point the Caps still trailed 3-1, and it appeared Malkin (a goal and two assists) and Crosby (two assists) would be the ones to go home happy. Ovechkin had four more shots in the final period, when Boudreau made an effort to keep his line away from Malkin’s.
“He’s got to shoot the puck,” Boudreau said. “When Pittsburgh and Washington play, they have their own little interwar. Maybe sometimes you do get focused on doing one thing.”
Notes - Viktor Kozlov (knee) and Donald Brashear (hand) did not play for the Caps, though Brashear could be ready Saturday against New Jersey. …
Poti did not play in the final 45 minutes and will be evaluated further Friday in Arlington. …
Bradley returned to the game, and Ovechkin credited his courage for helping to shift the momentum.
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