A pose fit for an action figure: Nicklas Backstrom beat Canadiens goaltender Carey Price glove side to win the overtime shootout in Montreal last night. (AP Photo/The Canadian Press, Graham Hughes)

Capitals 4, Canadiens 3 (OT): The Caps let a two-goal lead after the first slip away, but managed to come back with strong goaltending by Semyon Varlamov, Eric Fehr’s heroics, and Nicklas Backstrom’s tricky move in the overtime shootout to win in Montreal. A Fehr backhander and a pretty one-timer from Alex Ovechkin staked the Caps to a 2-0 lead through twenty minutes, but Jaroslav Spacek, Tomas Plekanec, and Travis Moen scored unanswered goals to take the lead back for Montreal. For once, it was the opposition’s lack of third period discipline which factored into a Caps result — Fehr scored his second of the game with 11 ticks left, after Paul Mara was called for high-sticking but ten seconds earlier. Varlamov then stopped all three shootout attempts, leaving Backstrom to strike the iconic pose seen above. At November’s end, the Caps find themselves in first place in the East, two points behind San Jose for the league lead — it’s not too early to ask whether or not these Caps will redeem the currently morose Washingtonian sports landscape, is it?

Bobcats 92, Wizards 76: Remember when we said last night that the Wizards needed more cohesive team performances if they were going to get things back on track this season? Well, that didn’t mean that the entire team could slack off. Any time an NBA team only scores 76 in a game, you could probably assume that it was an ugly game, and so it was — especially against Charlotte, who may just be one of the least thrilling teams to ever win four straight games: the Bobcats are second to last in scoring, first in scoring defense. A first half in which the Wizards were outscored, outrebounded, and outplayed was too much to overcome. Back to square one, I guess.