This entry was written by DCist contributor Jesse Rounds.
On Monday night the Caps came home to the newly minted Verizon Center to take on the New York Islanders and attempt to turn around a post-Olympic slide. An impressive display by the Caps gave Olie Kolzig his 250th career win and Alexander Ovechkin his 40th and 41st goal. The teams were evenly matched through the first period but in a second period bookended by goals from Ovechkin the Capitals came alive. The third period brought two goals from 10-year NHL veteran defenseman Bryan Muir to complete the victory over the Islanders.
The win was welcome after a post-Olympic break road trip on which the Caps went 1-1-1, their sole win coming against a somnolent Toronto Maple Leafs team in the clubs’ first game back. Two nights later, Ottawa didn’t hesitate to capitalize on their complete superiority with a game that ended at 7-1 in favor of Senators. The backbone of The Ottawa Senators had just returned from the Olympics, but didn’t seem at all tired. Their offensive leader Daniel Alfredsson and defensive power Zdeno Chara proceeded to offer a master class in hockey to the young Capitals team. Washington played like they had taken a page from the Maple Leafs playbook. During the post game press conference Coach Glen Hanlon offered the following appraisal of the game, “We’ll likely watch this tape and watch Ottawa. We’ll use it as a teaching tool for our group. I don’t think we can learn much from our team watching this tape.”
AP Photo taken by Gerald Herbert.
