Caps extend win streak to 6

The Washington Capitals jumped out to an early 3-0 lead on Atlanta then had to fight off a sub-par Caps defensive performance in the third period to extend their winning streak to 6 straight games with a 4-3 win over Atlanta Thrashers.  The Caps improve to 8-2-2 on the season, 2 points behind the Pittsburgh Penguins for the overall Eastern Conference lead.

The Capitals dominated play in the first period out shooting Atlanta 13-8 and scoring twice.  The first goal came on the struggling Caps power play off a terrific fake by Mike Green to feed Alex Ovechkin for Ovie's 12th of the season, his 2nd power play goal of the year.  The goal was created by an outstanding fake that fooled Thrasher's goalie Ondrej Pavelec, who thought Green was bringing a shot from the point.  Green kept his eyes on Pavelec while sending a sharp pass to Ovechkin who smacked it home for a 1-0 lead.     Credit that goal as much to Green as to Ovechkin.

  It took the Caps less than 4 minute to jump up 2-0.  Again, it was Great 8 on a breakaway scoring his 2nd of the game, 13th of the season.  Again, give the credit to the helper.  Nicklas Backstrom made a dazzling pass to Ovechkin who was breaking away down the middle and Pavelec never stood a chance with a 1 on 1 from Ovechkin, who put it up over Pevelec, a top shelf goal, number 13 of the season.   Caps left the first period with a 2-0 lead.

Atlanta out shot the Capitals in the 2nd period, 13-8, but the Capitals scored the only goal of the period.  Brendan Morrison took a nifty pass from Ovechkin, on the Caps power play, to give the Caps a 3-0 lead.  It was Morrisonn's 4th goal of the season.

From there on, the Capitals defense seem to go to sleep and leave youngster Semyon Varlamov on his own.  After pitching a shutout for the first two periods, the Caps defense got lax and the Thrashers mounted a come back.  They put up a whopping 20 shots on Varly in the 3rd period.

Zach Bogosian scored the first goal for Atlanta just a few seconds in the power play to draw the score within 2 at 3-1.   Latre in the game, over the 17 minute mark, Todd Waite made it 3-2 and suddenly a close game at hand.    However, with an empty net at hand, Mike Knuble put the icing on the cake for the Caps scoring his 3rd of the year.  Caps went on to win 4-3.

Varlamov did a pretty terrific job in net, despite not having a defense in the 3rd period.  Varly stopped 38 of 41 shots to stay undefeated at 5-0.   Let's face it --- Varlamov saved the Capitals tonight from some pretty lousy defense and kept the Caps in the game and on to the win.  He had a terrific game and help up pretty well when his defense decided to check out.  Kudos to Varly.

Read it all at

http://dcprosportsreport.com/2009/10/30/caps-extend-win-streak-to-6.html