Montreal Canadiens 5-4 Washington ‘Yeah? yeah?…we stole your baseball soul!’ Capitals
TopShelf’s Completely professional GameReport:
The Montreal Canadiens won their fourth straight game on Saturday night in dramatic fashion, disposing of the Washington Capitals 5-4 at the Bell Centre.
In a third period that saw 6 goals in total, Sergei Kostitsyn managed to beat Brent Johnson with just 21 seconds left on the clock to give his team the win.
There was plenty of talk before the puck was dropped about the vacant assistant coaching position at the upcoming All-Star game, with the slot going to the coach whose team won the night’s game.
Ultimately, Guy Carbonneau beat out Caps coach Bruce Boudreau for the honor and will take his place next to Claude Julien, the man he replaced as head coach for the bleu-blanc-rouge.
Washington got the better start however. Mike Green’s point shot was deflected by Alexander Semin who was well positioned in front of Jaroslav Halak’s net.
Barely a minute later though, the Canadiens were right back in it. While Alex Kovalev was serving a two minute minor for high-sticking, Tomas Plekanec gathered a loose puck and went in alone on Johnson who he beat with a quick wrist shot to put his team on level terms.
The rest of the opening period was a battle of two teams perhaps reluctant to make any mistakes, and it showed as a combination of good goaltending and lack of opportunism kept the score tied.
Alexander Semin managed to beat Halak for a second time though. Patrice Brisebois was caught out of position when the young Russiam winger stole the puck from him and had no trouble putting it in the net with a beautiful wrist shot.
Something Carbonneau said during the second intermission must have hit home for the Habs players, because there was barely two minutes on the clock when Robert Lang took advantage of a 5-on-3 to score his 16th of the season.
On the same powerplay, Andrei Kostitsyn got his stick first to his brother’s rebound and slid the puck into the empty net to give the home team their first lead of the game.
Less than two minutes later however, the Capitals again showed how feisty they are by tying the game. A nice passing play through the neutral zone ended up with the puck at Tomas Fleischmann’s stick who made no mistake putting it into the net with a slick wrister.
An incredible 16 seconds later however, Tomas Plekanec scored his second goal of the game when Max Pacioretty’s nice pass permitted him to have half a breakaway and once again he got the better of Johnson with a quick slap shot.
After that, it was Washington’s turn to make the Habs pay on the powerplay. Michael Nylander got credited with his team’s fourth goal when Alex Ovechkin’s shot deflected off of the former New York Rangers’ stick and past Montreal’s Slovak netminder.
But with only 21 seconds remaining on the clock, the younger Kostitsyn sent his boss to the All-Star game by fishing the puck out from under Milan Jurcina’s skates and surprising Johnson with a quick shot that squaked under the goaltender’s pads to give Montreal a very important win in the chase for Boston.
TopShelf’s notes o’ da day:
-THIS. IS. WHAT. I. AM. FUCKING. TALKING. ABOUT! 21 SECONDS MAN! YOU CAN’T WRITE THIS SHIT IN A JOHN STAMOS MOVIE!
-Tomas Plekanec, how I love thee! Kovy’s in the box? No problem! Give me the puck! Actually, you know what?! Just put the puck along the boards, I’m gona fucken outskate every fucken defenseman and beat the goalie with a wrister. No Turtleneck? No problem!
-Alex Ovechkin – 18 shots! 8 on net, 8 blocked, 2 wide.
-Kostitsyn – either of them – will never win the Selke trophy. But it’s ok, we still love them!
-Carbo and Julien behind the same bench – I wana see that!
-The brothers have to play together. It doesn’t matter if Sergei passes to Andrei even if big brother has a broken stick and only one skate on and Lang is alone in the crease, just keep them together!
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