Ovechkin Overtime Goal Helps Caps Overcome Ducks, 3-2

Comebacks have been rare for the Capitals this season - especially on home ice - mostly because they've owned a lead in most recent home games and haven't needed to come back to win. But Washington's muscle memory was strong on Saturday night.

Down 2-0 to the Anaheim Ducks at the outset of the third period, the Caps scored twice in the final frame to force overtime. In the extra session, Braden Holtby made a couple of huge early stops on the Ducks' Rickard Rakell, and then Alex Ovechkin did one of the many things that Alex Ovechkin does well, namely win games for Washington in overtime, 3-2.

At the end of a lengthy shift in the extra session, Ovechkin took a feed from John Carlson in the neutral zone and skated back into Anaheim ice. From the top of the right circle, he let go of a slapshot that clapped off the stick of Ducks defender Brandon Montour before nestling into the top far corner of the cage at 1:58 of overtime.

"Yeah, I was tired, obviously," admits Ovechkin, "I just wanted to just throw it [on net]. I think it deflected from [Montour's] stick, but I'll take it. Like I said, I was tired."

Ovechkin's goal culminated a shift that lasted 79 seconds.

"They came with a pretty good push," says Ducks captain Ryan Getzlaf of the Capitals' third period. "I thought we were doing a lot of flipping the puck out.

"Obviously they scored one on us early in the third, so that gets you on your heels a little bit. And they're a good hockey team. They're going to come at you pretty hard, and we've got to handle it better than we did tonight and execute a little bit more than just feeding their rush by flipping it out, flipping it out."

For the first 40 minutes of Saturday's game, it just didn't look like it was going to be the Capitals' night. The Caps' passing game was off a bit; passes were in skates or a bit long, and stringing together a couple of successive tape-to-tape feeds was sometimes problematic.

Getting through neutral ice was also a chore. The Ducks had good sticks in the neutral zone, and they forced a lot of turnovers in the middle of the ice, shortening the sheet for themselves and generating some opportunities of their own.

When Washington was able to get into Anaheim ice, it generated some excellent scoring chances. This was particularly true in the early minutes of the second period, when the Caps might have scored three or four times if not for a couple of misses and a couple of excellent stops on the part of Ducks goaltender John Gibson.

Anaheim built its two-goal lead with a Derek Grant transition goal with 3:59 remaining in the first frame, and a Jakob Silfverberg power-play goal at 7:36 of the second period. Silfverberg's goal came five seconds into the lone man advantage opportunity of the evening for either side, and it came after several minutes of high grade scoring chances from the Caps failed to produce any flashing red lights.

Gibson robbed both Alex Chiasson and Tom Wilson from the top of the paint, Jakub Vrana missed the net off a feed from Evgeny Kuznetsov and Ducks defenseman Cam Fowler got a stick on an excellent Ovechkin opportunity, all in the first few minutes of the second period.

With the Caps down a pair of pucks after Silfverberg's goal, Gibson thwarted Ovechkin from the slot once again in the latter half of the second, and it was beginning to look like Washington would not be able to win its third straight game and its sixth straight on Capital One Arena ice.

"You're on the bench and we had Grade A chances - twice as many as they did - and we're sitting there on the bottom end of a poor score," says Caps coach Barry Trotz. "I think we had double-digit scoring chances for in the second period, and we were down two pucks.

"But I had a really good feeling in the dressing room [at the second intermission]. We just said, 'Hey, right now I think we're playing fine. We've just got to find the back of the net, hit the net a little bit.' On some of our best chances, we shot it wide or didn't get enough elevation, whatever it was. We just said, 'Stay to the process. If we get one, we're going to get the other one,' because we were creating way too much not to get more than one."

Washington came out bullish in the third, and finally some of its offensive-zone work began to bear fruit.

Thirteen seconds after the Ducks won a draw in their own end, the Caps halved Anaheim's lead to 2-1. Nicklas Backstrom put some forechecking heat on Anaheim blueliner Josh Manson, forcing a turnover that went right to Wilson's stick. Wilson went cross-ice to Ovechkin, who fired from the left circle. Gibson made a pad stop, but kicked the puck right to Backstrom who had an easy tap-in to make it 2-1 at 3:05 of the third.

Just over four minutes later, the Caps evened it up. Kuznetsov put a hit on Anaheim's Adam Henrique down low in the Ducks' zone, jarring the puck loose. Vrana collected in and fed Kuznetsov in the left circle. Kuznetsov tried to feed Wilson at the back door on the weak side, but the puck caromed off the stick of Ducks winger Andrew Cogliano and into the net, short side, at 7:27 of the third to make it a 2-2 game.

The Caps couldn't beat Gibson cleanly; they got a rebound goal and a deflection goal to tie the game, and Ovechkin's game-winner went off Montour's stick. The Ducks likely deserved a better fate, but they did claim a point for the seventh straight game (3-0-4).

Kuznetsov's goal set the stage of Ovechkin's heroics, and the Caps captain netted the 21st overtime goal of his NHL career to send Washington to its third straight win, and its seventh victory in its last eight games.

"We were pretty neat and tidy with the puck," says Anaheim coach Randy Carlyle, "and we kept things to the outside as much as possible. We didn't take any penalties, too; you know they've got a very potent power play. It allowed us to get a two-goal lead, and then we kind of gave them the goals in the third period.

"There were two complete giveaways. One hit a stanchion as we went back, and it went off our stick. Kuznetsov was actually trying to hit the guy back door, and Cogs got a stick in there and deflected the puck into our net. But we still shouldn't have been in that position. Kuznetsov shouldn't have been alone. Obviously the first one, Manson was trying to make a play up to Getzlaf, and it slipped off his stick and went into the middle.

"But we played pretty good. We were on track in the third period for a little bit, and [the Caps] got a push, but once it got to 2-2, we started to establish our game again. But right now, overtime is not our friend, that's for sure."

That's certainly true. The Ducks are 2-8 in overtime games this season while Washington is now 5-1 in games that go beyond 60 minutes.

"I thought we did a lot of good things tonight," says Trotz. "At the end of the day, I thought we deserved to win."