Caps captain Alex Ovechkin and Buffalo Sabres enter Tage Thompson claimed the NHL's first and third stars, respectively, for the month of December. Both players were on display at Capital One Arena on Tuesday night as Buffalo visited Washington for the first time this season, and both made their impact on the game as well as the scoresheet.
Sabres Slide By Caps in OT, 5-4
When it was all said and done however, it was Thompson who one-upped Ovechkin and the Caps. With exactly two minutes remaining in overtime, Thompson scored his third goal of the night to send Washington to a 5-4 defeat.
Alex Tuch forced a turnover behind the Washington net and got the puck to the front for Thompson, who beat Caps goalie Darcy Kuemper from close range on the game-winner.
"I think they were trying to make a safer play," says Caps coach Peter Laviolette, "instead of getting checked into the corner and just throwing it up to the middle of the ice. I think they were trying to go back one more time and Tuch, I think he read it pretty good by just keeping his stick in position.
"Things mumbled around for two seconds, it ended up on Thompson's stick, six feet outside the crease. That's not a good look that you want to have."
Tuesday's win pushes the Sabres to 9-2-1 in their last dozen games, and also gives the beleaguered citizens and fans of the Buffalo area something positive, a night after Buffalo Bills defensive back Damar Hamlin went into cardiac arrest on the field in Cincinnati in a game against the Bengals.
The Sabres sported "Love For 3" t-shirts upon arrival at Capital One Arena for Tuesday's game; Hamlin sports uniform No. 3 for the Bills. Hamlin remains hospitalized in Cincinnati in critical condition.
Buffalo did not make coach Don Granato or any of its players available following the game, and Sabres' GM Kevyn Adams instead addressed media.
"I just want to say that our thoughts, and our hearts and prayers are with Damar and his family, and the entire Bills' organization," Adams began. "What happened last night is something that makes the game itself and any sport secondary, so it was a tough day for all of us. As a community, we care about each other in Buffalo and as organizations we care about each other. I know our players felt that this morning, and we're all just thinking about Damar."
Both Ovechkin and Thompson finished December with 13 goals and 22 points, but Thompson was more economical, needing only 11 games with which to rack up those totals while Ovechkin required 15 games. So it was on Tuesday night, too, as Thompson scored three goals - and added an assist - with just five shots on net and six shot attempts.
Ovechkin scored twice for Washington, but he teed up 15 shot tries and got seven of them on net. Although the Caps let a 4-3 third-period lead slip away, they also rallied from a two-goal deficit late in the second to take that lead in the third, and they executed a penalty kill in the final two minutes of regulation just to get the game to overtime and claim a standings point; the last 16.2 seconds of the third were spent with Buffalo on a two-man advantage.
The Sabres jumped out to a 1-0 lead just after the midpoint of the first, scoring when Thompson whirled and fed Tuch with a perfect backhand pass on a 2-on-1 rush. Tuch's shot came from below the hash marks on the left side, giving Buffalo the game's first lead at 10:48.
Washington answered back quickly, needing only 79 seconds with which to get even.
Caps defenseman Matt Irwin forced a turnover high in Washington ice and Anthony Mantha nudged the puck ahead to Sonny Milano, sending the winger in alone on a breakaway. Milano finished with a flourish, beating U.P. Luukkonen with a backhander to make it 1-1 at 12:07.
"A breakaway," recounts Milano. "I saw my go-to move as I felt [Buffalo blueliner Rasmus] Dahlin behind me, so I had to keep it in front of me, and I just went to my backhand."
Late in the first, Buffalo benefitted from the game's first power play, regaining the lead when Thompson drilled a one-timer home from the left dot off a tee-up from Dahlin at 17:29.
Tuch set up Thompson for a goal from the slot at 5:50 of the second, giving Buffalo the only multi-goal lead for either team. That lead lasted nearly 11 minutes, until Ovechkin brought the Caps back to within one, rifling a shot past Luukkonen just two seconds after Kuznetsov beat Thompson on a right dot draw in Buffalo ice at 16:46 of the second.
Washington pulled even less than a minute into the third when Milano made a heady play to put the puck on net from a deep angle on the left side. Luukkonen made the save, but Nic Dowd crashed the net and buried the rebound just 55 seconds into the third. Dowd's 10th goal of the season made it a 3-3 game.
Coming out of the first television timeout of the third, Kuznetsov lost the right dot draw to Buffalo's Casey Mittelstadt, but Conor Sheary bulled his way below the goal line and made a boss play on the forecheck, stripping Dahlin and sending a feed to the front for Ovechkin, who had all the time and space he needed to strike from the slot at 7:10, just six seconds after the face-off loss.
Washington's lone lead of the night lasted four and a half minutes, until Tyson Jost scored from the top of the paint at 11:42 to make it 4-4.
With Kuznetsov off for tripping with exactly two minutes left, Buffalo pressed for the game-winner. But Kuemper and the Caps' penalty killers were up to the task, even after Lars Eller joined Kuznetsov in the box with 16.2 seconds left.
After Washington's penalty killers extinguished the rest of the Eller minor, the Caps had a couple of looks from Kuznetsov and Ovechkin, but it was Thompson that tipped the scale in Buffalo's favor at night's end.
"I think today we have plenty of chances to score," says Ovechkin. "We didn't execute a couple of them. Tough loss."
Tough loss for sure, but Washington is now 14-3-3 in its last 20 games after starting 7-10-3 in its first 20 games. And this was a win that means a lot to a Buffalo community that is reeling from a mass shooting over the offseason, multiple devastating winter storms that took dozens of lives, and the on-field event on Monday in Cincinnati that has Hamlin fighting for his life.
"It's hard to say much about [Tuesday's] game to be honest," says Adams. "What I can tell you though is that we talked as a group this morning. We have such good people in our locker room - players, coaches, staff - and it wasn't feeling right this morning; it didn't feel like a normal game day.
"So we talked as a group. I made sure I talked to the players. I told them - to be honest - how proud I am of them and what they've done in this community through a lot of tough times, going back to what happened in the offseason and then some of the struggles with the snowstorms and the deaths that have gone on, and then this last night."
