Capitals-Canadiens: The Canadiens Rang the Final Bell for 5-4 Win

Last night’s game between the Washington Capitals and Montreal Canadiens went down to the wire.

After remaining quiet through two periods, the scoring barrage began in a fury, much to the delight of the raucous crowd gathered at Bell Centre.

With the score tied at 4-4 and 21.2 seconds remaining, Montreal Canadiens winger Sergei Kostitsyn sent the puck through the skates of slow footed Washington Capitals defenseman Milan Jurcina, past the unprepared Brent Johnson (30 saves) to seal the victory, 5-4.

It was the play of the game for obvious reasons, but it also highlighted the frustration for the road team, as they watched so many tallies end up in the net on lucky bounces.

Both teams kept their goaltenders busy in the third period as they racked up six goals between them.

This was a heart-breaker for the Washington Capitals.

Coach Bruce Boudreau was competing with Montreal Canadiens Coach Guy Carbonneau to be an assistant coach for the Eastern Conference at the All Star game.

The Bell Centre is the venue for this year’s game.

Boston Bruins Coach Claude Julien will mind the bench as his team owns the best record in the East. (31-7-4)

Boston is trailing the San Jose Sharks (31-5-5) in the race for the best record in the NHL by two and a half games respectively.

Washington has endured the constant shuffling of an injury-plagued lineup, and suffered their second loss in six weeks against a worthy opponent.

Milan Jurcina commented after the game on what went wrong as he tried to clear the unsettled biscuit out of his defensive zone.

“I saw it go off of Karl Alzner’s glove, and I don’t know what happened after that,” Jurcina admitted. “I just tried to spin, I think.  And the puck just stayed between my legs.  There’s 21 seconds left, it can’t happen something like that. Tough break.”

Bruce Boudreau was visibly upset with the effort of his checking line, particularly with Jurcina’s lack of awareness on the play.

“He could have cross-checked Kostitsyn. Anything. If you can’t find the puck, don’t just stand there. Cross-check him so he can’t get the puck. Don’t look at your feet.”

The Capitals missed an opportunity to give their coach the distinct national recognition he deserves the night before versus Columbus.

Instead, they were shutout at home for only their second loss in regulation time, at the Verizon Center.

Blue Jackets goalie Steve Mason stopped 43 shots for a 3-0 victory, marking their second triumph over the upstart good guys in red this season.

It was clear from the Canadiens bench how important they thought this win was for their head coach.

Things began to unravel for the Caps at the start of the third period.

An inopportune penalty set up former Capitals center Robert Lang’s goal 1:56 seconds into the final period.

 This goal tied the score at 2-2, and signaled that there was more where that came from the crafty Canadiens.

Only 43 seconds later, Sergei Kostitsyn’s brother Andrei, lit the lamp to put the Canadiens ahead for their first lead of the game.

Tomas Fleischmann gave the Capitals life firing a wicked slapshot past Canadiens goalie Jaroslav Halak a few minutes later.

That 3-3 score didn’t last long, when Tomas Plekanec (two goals) answered his aptly named foe with a nasty wrist shot, that went through the five hole of Brent Johnson’s legs, to break the tie yet again.

The Capitals last gasp off the gifted skating of their All Star player, Alexander Ovechkin. (27 goals 27 assists 54 points on the season)

His blast from the middle of the circle bounced off Michael Nylander’s foot and slipped past Halak (31 saves) to knot the score at 4-4 with 7:39 seconds to play.

Nylander netted his first goal since Oct. 16.

Alexander Semin found the back of the net for two goals to lead the Capitals.

Both teams were resigned to taking this game into overtime, as they went conservative, not wanting to make a dumb mistake.

Then the puck bounced the Canadiens way one final time, and the Capitals paid dearly for their poor puck handling.

Notes

The Capitals(27-13-3 57 points) maintain a ten-point lead over second place Carolina in the Southeast division.

They have a tough schedule coming up after Tuesday's home game versus the Edmonton Oilers.

Wednesday's game in Pittsburgh pits them against Sidney Crosby and Co.

The Penguins lost for the seventh time in eight games, dropping a 5-3 decision to the Colorado Avalanche, last night at the Pepsi Center in Denver.

Avalanche netminder Andrew Raycroft stopped 21 shots against his former team.

Rounding out the week, the Caps have the Boston Bruins coming to DC.