Alex Ovechkin was able to concentrate enough to put two past Marty Turco, but the Capsblew a lead and lost at home for the first time in 2010. Photo by choofly.
There’s two sides to the Washington Capitals’ 4-3 shootout loss against the Dallas Stars on Monday at Verizon Center.
The ugly side is the Caps blowing a 2-0 lead in the third period en route to dropping their first home game since a December 28 loss to the Hurricanes. The Stars, a team that’s earned 27 fewer points than the Caps in the league, got two power play goals before James Neal gave them their first lead of the game. And at the other end, the Capitals got 52 shots on Stars goalie Marty Turco but had only three goals to show for it by the end of overtime.
Tom Poti, who scored the first goal of the game and played a solid 24 minutes, had questions about the penalties the Caps took in the third — penalties which gave the Stars their two power play goals: a hooking call on Mike Green and a holding call on Matt Bradley.
“We hadn’t had a penalty called on us all game, so we knew we’d probably have some makeup calls against us,” Poti said. “The penalties we did have were pretty questionable, and we didn’t get it done.”
Though the bright side is always hard to see after losing, the Caps did keep their cool after falling behind 3-2 late in the game. At a break in play with 7:37 left, team captain Alex Ovechkin sat perched effortlessly on the boards by the Caps bench, dangling his legs, the Unleash the Fury video playing in the background. He had already found the net once that night — the first time the league leader in points has scored an NHL goal since February 10 — and within minutes of play resuming, found it again.
“We’re the kind of team that we didn’t give up,” said Nicklas Backstrom, who was the only Capital to score on Turco in the shootout. “We showed good in the last 10 minutes.”
