Senators 5, Capitals 4 (OT)

The Capitals had yet another poor start tonight, but something changed:  the Caps scored a goal in the first period, and that made a huge difference.  After falling behind 1-0, the Caps got a fancy goal on a silly individual effort by Alexander Semin, who ripped a shot through Ottawa goalie Brian Elliott while on the powerplay to even the score at 1.  Semin got himself across the blueline after the Caps had had trouble setting up on the powerplay and with a little subterfuge on a fake spin move, he got himself into space before ripping a shot 5 hole, off the wrong foot, of course.

The Caps then fell behind 3-1 before the end of the period.

In true Ottawa-Washington style, the Caps pulled ahead 4-3, let Ottawa tie it 4-4 and lost in overtime.

On a night when Jose Theodore was occasionally very good and often victimized (and had an assist), the Capitals got themselves in trouble on the penalty kill and it cost them.  They took four penalties and could only kill off one of them, the most important of these coming in overtime.  The officials had been calling weak penalties and the trend continued into overtime, and it cost them the game.  Good thing Joe B and Locker get paid the same either way:

-Alex Ovechkin recorded his career-high 55th assist on a ridiculous goal by Alexander Semin, and with 101 points, temporarily tied Henrik Sedin for the points lead.  Nicklas Backstrom recorded assist #62 and point #91 on the goal, too.

-It looked like the Young Guns were on the ice all night.   Semin (24:17), Ovechkin (28:28), Backstrom (26:25) and Mike Green (31:44) all played substantial minutes and all found the scoresheet.  Ovechkin had 5 shots on goal, 8 shots blocked and 7 that missed, not to mention 1 giveaway to 5 takeaways.  Semin had 4 shots and 6 more were blocked.  Green had 4 shots and 5 blocked and his goal was his first in 9 games.

-The Caps blocked 8 shots, the Senators blocked 28.  The Capitals missed several golden opportunities, but nothing was better than seeing a Winchester misfire.

-Jason Spezza was on fire with 4 points.

-Mathieu Perreault was very good again tonight, and earned the game's #3 Star.  With a goal, two drawn penalties, a +1 in only 9:34 of ice time, Perreault is making it hard to send him back down.  He needs to improve on faceoffs, though, 3-5 (38%) isn't good enough.

-Let's hope John Carlson is ok.  The other Karlsson had 3 assists and 2 penalties.