The Montreal Canadiens, for the most part, held Alexander Ovechkin in check - but it was not to be. Washington threw 35 shots Carey Price's way, but despite his valiant efforts the Capitals defeated the Habs 4-3 in a shootout on goals from Niklas Backstrom and Alexander Semin. Tomas Plekanec and Andrei Markov were unable to score on behalf of the Canadiens.
The outcome could have been very different, however, as Price played spectacularly the entire game. Tomas Plekanec rang a shot off the inside of the post with 30 seconds left in overtime, and clearly had Jose Theodore beat. Another inch and the Canadiens win. Thems the breaks, as they say.
A good game for Price, Plekanec, Koivu, Higgins, Pacioretty Kostitsyn Sr. and Lapierre. A great debut for Mathieu Schneider. He looked solid, logged significant minutes, and contributed an assist on the power player. Also a great game for Alex Ovechkin. He is a hockey behemoth. How he scored his goal on Carey Price, with Kyle Chipchura essentially getting a piggy back as Ovechkin fell on his side, I will never understand. But that's what great players do, they score when they're not supposed to.
Now, would the outcome have been different had Alex Kovalev been there to go in the shoot-out? We'll never know.
Montreal is in Pittsburgh tomorrow night.
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You guys were actually leading in the third. The outcome didn't necessarily reflect the effort last night. I thought Price looked solid, except for the first shootout goal, which was a bit weak. Everyone else responded well to Kovalev not being in the lineup. I'll be curious to see if they keep it up in Pittsburgh tomorrow night.
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