Kuznetsov Rises to Down Avs in OT, 4-3

Evgeny Kuznetsov went from the exam table to overtime hero for the Capitals on Thursday night, scoring his second goal of the night on an overtime breakaway to lift the Caps to a 4-3 win over the Colorado Avalanche at Capital One Arena.

Kuznetsov spent the last half of the third period in the quiet room undergoing the concussion protocol after Colorado defenseman Ian Cole laid a late and unnecessary hit on him with 8:42 left in the third and the Caps leading 3-2. Cole's hit resulted in a five-minute major and a game misconduct, but Washington winger Tom Wilson immediately instigated a fight - and we use that term loosely in this instance - with Cole, trading two of those five minutes of power play time for the privilege of pummeling Cole with a relentless fusillade of fistic fury.
The Caps couldn't cash in on that power play, and they continued a troubling recent trend of losing leads late when Colin Wilson tied the game with 2:07 remaining. That set the stage for Kuznetsov's resurrection.
In the final minute of the extra session, the struggling and desperate Avs were pushing for the extra point in the Washington end, and their three skaters got in too deep; all were below the dots when Alex Ovechkin gained control of a loose puck and sent Kuznetsov on his way. Even though he was at the end of a 94-second shift, Kuznetsov had about a zone's worth of distance with which to work, and he beat Semyon Varlamov to seal the deal for the Caps, giving them their third win in four games on the homestand.
"I don't know why he decided to make that hit," says Kuznetsov of Cole. "Maybe he's so mad he played in the [defensive] zone all game. When you get tired, you get frustrated a little bit."
Cole probably isn't the only frustrated member of the Avs. Two months ago today, Colorado owned a share of the top spot in the Western Conference standings. But the Avs have now won five of their last 24 games (5-15-4), and they've slid straight down the side of the mountain and into 10th place in the West, out of a playoff position.
"We can talk about the effort as much as we want, but all that matters now is the wins," says Avalanche forward Mikko Rantanen. "And we're not getting them."
Washington jumped out to a 1-0 lead at 6:43 of the first on an Andre Burakovsky goal. The Caps snapped the puck around the offensive zone quite nicely, and Burakovsky found a soft spot just above the paint and was able to tap home a T.J. Oshie feed to give the Caps an early lead.
On the power play minutes later, the Caps appeared to have extended that lead to 2-0 when Colorado goaltender Semyon Varlamov wasn't able to secure an Ovechkin blast from the office. Nicklas Backstrom found the puck sitting in the crease and dragged it over the line. The nearest referee signaled that the goal was good, but the other ref apparently blew his whistle prematurely, wiping the Washington goal off the board.
The Caps killed off a carryover Colorado power play, the last seconds of which trickled into the beginning of the middle period. But seconds after Washington finished the kill, the Avs tied it up.
Tyson Barrie put a shot off back wall, and Nathan MacKinnon got a hold of it and jimmied it through Caps goalie Pheonix Copley on the short side, which wasn't thoroughly sealed. Washington issued a coach's challenge, alleging that play was offside. A video review did not reach the same conclusion, and MacKinnon's goal tied the game at 1-1, just 35 seconds into the second.
The failed challenge also gave the Avs another power play, which the Caps killed off.
Later in the second, the Caps got a second goal that counted, and ironically it looked a lot like the one that didn't. Ovechkin fired a bomb from the office that Varlamov couldn't handle cleanly, and Kuznetsov was there to deposit the loose change, a power-play goal that restored Washington's lead at 2-1 at 8:38 of the second.
Washington took a two-goal lead on a Matt Niskanen point drive just 34 seconds into the third, but the Avs kept trying to claw their way back. Rantanen converted a Caps turnover into a goal to make it 3-2 at 5:10 of the third, shortly after Washington was unable to put the undisciplined Avs away after Colorado committed its fifth minor penalty of the night.
Varlamov had an up and down night, but some of the saves he made while the Caps were on the power play and some of his stops in the third are responsible for Colorado claiming the single point it did get. The Avs fell to 1-8 in overtime games this season with Thursday's loss.
"I loved the way we fought back and tied the game," says Avs coach Jared Bednar. "Overtime was going good, we were trading a couple of chances, and Mikko had it looked like almost an empty net. We missed the shot there. So we were doing some good things and then we get tangled up in the corner and lose the puck at the end. It's definitely a big point to get, but it's also a big point to lose."
Despite coming out on the wrong end of two video reviews, being on the wrong side of a couple of other quick whistles, and giving up a late lead in Thursday's game, the Caps picked up two points.
"That's the game," says Caps coach Todd Reirden. "Agree or disagree, [the officials] have the final say. That's how things worked out for us tonight. It was some adversity, some tough things that didn't necessarily go our way, but we stuck with it and we end up getting rewarded at the end of then game. I'm happy with our team for sticking together as a team and finding ways to win games."