Washington Capitals 6, Pittsburgh Penguins 3

The game of the day turned out to be quite a game indeed as the Caps iced the reigning Stanley Cup Champion Pittsburgh Penguins 6-3. This could have easily gone the other way as the Pens are every bit as talented and strong defensively as the best of them, but tonight just wasn’t their night, it was the Caps’.

Sidney Crosby scored the easy 1st goal with a bouncing puck, which seemed to take goalie Jose Theodore and defenseman Karl Alzner by surprise. Alzner tried unsuccessfully to clear the bouncing puck, but it was already declared a goal after two different Pens took a stab at it. Mike Knuble tied it up with a strategic goal, thanks in great part to an assist by Alex Ovechkin.

In the second, Eric Fehr scored to make it Caps 2-Pens 1, but Pittsburgh responded less than 30 second later and tied it up again 2-2. Kris Letang gave the Pens a nice lead with a goal, but Ovechkin made sure the Caps were not trailing too long and tied it up again on their first PP opportunity when goal scorer Letang was called for holding. The physical play really began to take both teams into a frenzy in the second period, which opened the door to allow the first Penguin penalty of the game.

In the 3rd, Thomas Fleishman took an Alexander Semin feed ahead, and scored a nifty goal on former Cap Brent Johnson to take an early lead. It was all downhill for the Pens from there as the Caps went on to score two more goals, one on an empty net.

It wasn’t just an ordinary game as Ovechkin played his heart out to score two goals and earned one assist in a game that could very well be the indicator of their Playoff potential. Crosby on the other hand, ended the night with a -1 +/-. Crosby a -1?? Surely he must have worn himself out with the 6 pt. game the other night.

Pittsburgh’s Ruslan Fedotenko had 3 assists on the night, and the Caps needed to keep him for making any more scoring opportunities. This is one player that you don’t take your eyes off of, and the Caps will surely work on shutting his game down when they meet up again at the Verizon Center on Sunday, February 7th. To be noted, the game has been scheduled for 12:00 and will be featured as the NBC Game of the Week. Interestingly, this is also Super Bowl Sunday. We know where we will be!