NHL - Washington Capitals @ Minnesota Wild 4-3 - Thursday, February 11, 2016

Alex Ovechkin’s 14^th career hat trick helped the Capitals to a 4-3 win over the Wild in St. Paul. The hat trick wasn’t a thing of beauty, the game wasn’t a thing of beauty, and in order to claim the two points, the Capitals were forced to overcome a good deal of adversity down the stretch, little, if any, of which was their own doing. When it was over, though, the Caps had their fifth straight win, their 40^th of the season and their 20^th road triumph of 2015-16.

The postgame celebration was muted by the Caps’ collective concern over an injury to Caps center Evgeny Kuznetsov, who was the victim of an unpenalized butt-end of Mikael Granlund’s stickto the head, just before the eight-minute mark of the third period. Kuznetsov lay prone on the ice for more than a minute before being aided to his feet. He skated off slouched over, but under his own power, and did not return to the game.

 Although Minnesota held a slim 19-18 advantage over Washington in shot attempts in the first period, the Wild also had 4:33 worth of power play time in that first frame to just 47 seconds with the extra man for the Capitals. For the third time in as many games, the Caps faced a five-on-three opposition power play. Fortunately, this one was brief, just nine seconds in duration, and the Caps were able to kill it off without incident.

The Caps outshot the Wild 8-5 at even strength in the first, and Washington earned its second power play of the night in the waning seconds of the scoreless first. Once again, the Capitals weren’t able to do anything with that power play opportunity, but seconds after the expiration of that extra-man opportunity, the Caps took a 1-0 lead on a broken play that produced Ovechkin’s first goal of the game.

Ovechkin gained the zone with possession on the left side and went cross-ice to Nicklas Backstrom. Backstrom dropped it for late-arriving T.J. Oshie, who pounded a one-timer that glanced off Zach Parise’s skate and went right to Ovechkin. His shot wasn’t perfect, but the puck bounced off Wild goalie Devan Dubnyk and into the cage to put Washington on top at 2:14 of the middle stanza.

Thomas Vanek was boxed at 4:10 of the period, and the Caps’ struggling power play went back to work. Marcus Johansson made a great play to enable the Caps to gain possession after the initial offensive zone draw, and Washington got set up in the Minnesota zone. The Capitals moved the puck sharply and crisply, and their recoveries were good as well. The combination produced a prime chance for Ovechkin to drill a one-timer, but Dubnyk made the stop.

Seconds later, the Caps and their captain made good on a more unconventional extra-man strike. John Carlson put the puck off the back wall, and it took a membership bounce right to Ovechkin, who chipped it high into the cage from a tight angle, giving the Caps a 2-0 lead at 5:21.

Minnesota cut into the lead on a Charlie Coyle goal at 11:27, a tally that came after Washington was unable to clear the puck from its zone. But Ovechkin restored the Caps’ two-goal lead at 14:55. Backstrom kept the puck in at the Minnesota line, barely, as video review later revealed, and carried deeper into the Wild end of the ice. He whipped a shot on net, and Dubnyk made the stop, but Ovechkin banked the rebound in off the post and the goaltender’s body; it more or less fell behind him without reaching the back of the net. No matter, Washington owned a 3-1 lead with 4:55 remaining on the strength of three Ovechkin goals in a span of 12:41.

Washington took that lead into the final frame, and that’s when the ornery Wild, snarly over their 1-9-2 record in their previous dozen games and their ongoing offensive impotency (three or fewer goals in 23 of their last 24 contests) began to display their collective irritation. Christian Folin cross-checked Andre Burakovsky behind the Minnesota net, and Caps goalie Braden Holtby skated to the bench upon seeing the official’s arm go up. In the wake of Folin’s foul, Caps forward Justin Williams laid a cross-check of his own on Folin.

Incredibly, the officials forgot all about Folin and took only Williams to the box. Predictably, the Wild scored on a Ryan Suter point blast at 7:35 of the third to make it a 3-2 game. Kuznetsov’s injury occurred on the ensuing face-off, and again, the incident was conveniently missed/ignored by every official on the ice.

In the face of all this adversity, the Caps kept their cool and whittled time off the clock until Minnesota coach Mike Yeo pulled Dubnyk for an extra attacker with a little over two minutes remaining. Holtby made a sharp right pad save on Matthew Dumba’s point shot, expertly padding the puck right to Tom Wilson for the clear. Wilson sent it toward the vacant Minnesota cage, and Jason Chimera skated in and helped it home with 51.1 seconds remaining to make it a 4-2 game.

The Wild scored a disputed Granlund goal with mere seconds remaining, Holtby claiming that Parise had interfered with him before the goal and Trotz issuing a coach’s challenge. Although that call also went against the Caps, it didn’t matter. Washington had its fifth straight win, leaving the Wild to continue sputtering.

Wild Quotes

Devan Dubnyk: “The puck just went to [Ovechkin] on all three goals. Every single puck ends up on his tape and he doesn’t make a mistake. That puck off the wall, I don’t think anybody else on the ice is putting that in the net.”
Charlie Coyle: “Getting tired of it.”

Ryan Suter: “Everything about this stinks. You usually have to hit rock bottom to go up, and I feel like we’ve hit rock bottom.”

“I saw it in real life, and on the replay it looked even more offside. [Sharrers] said he doesn’t have enough angles. He said he can’t overturn it because he can’t see it clearly. If they’re going to have the rule, they better get some more cameras, I think.”

Mike Yeo: “If this wasn’t really maddening and really frustrating, it would almost be comical the way things are going right now. I don’t think I’m in a state of mind to start figuring out what’s best for the league right now.”

Matt Dumba: “I don’t think anyone can really put a finger on it, but we need to figure that out.”

Capitals Quotes

Alex Ovechkin: “It’s a good feeling. Obviously when you get one, it’s nice. When you get the second one, it’s pretty cool. But when you have three goals in one game, it’s kind of special.”
Barry Trotz: “We’ll see [Kuznetsov’s condition]. He was being evaluated. He didn’t come back, but I haven’t talked to the trainers yet, so I have no idea.”
“I thought it was big [Williams standing up for his teammate]. You’ve got a veteran guy who is all-in as a teammate. When he is out there battling for a young guy, that’s pretty impressive. We had a couple of things happen out there that were uncharacteristic in the game. We just battled through it. It was good.”

Other Results
Los Angeles @ NY Islanders 2-5
Buffalo @ Philadelphia 1-5
Anaheim @ Columbus 3-4 SO
Colorado @ Ottawa 4-3
Toronto @ Edmonton 2-5