Leafs Postgame: Alex Ovechtrick

On the bright side, at least they weren’t shut out by the Montreal Canadiens!

Final Score: Washington Capitals 4, Toronto Maple Leafs 2

(courtesy of hockeystats.ca)

Nothing like a nice coast-to-coast goal to wake the team up, eh?

The Capitals kicked things off 13 minutes into the first period with an end-to-end goal by Alex Ovechkin, which would prove to be his first of three throughout the night.

It was an excellent individual effort on his part, crossing from the left wing to the right before using Morgan Rielly as a screen and wrapping around him for a lightning-fast shot that Curtis McElhinney barely gets a chance to respond to.

It wouldn’t take much longer for the Capitals captain to put back #17 on the year, either. By the 19th minute of the first period, the Capitals managed to take advantage of a power-play opportunity to score directly off the draw. Take a look:

He takes advantage of a bouncing puck off of TJ Oshie’s face-off winner, and while everyone else is scrambling to get into position he rockets it past McEhlinney for yet another clean goal.

The good news in the first was that it took the Capitals five minutes to get their first shot off on Toronto – but they managed to still walk away from the first 20 up by two goals, which would set the tone for the rest of the game.

The second period would test both Curtis McElhinney and Toronto’s penalty kill, as the team took the only two minors during those 20 minutes – one to Patrick Marleau for an interference call against Tom Wilson (who, surprisingly, didn’t take a single penalty all night) and one to Matt Martin for cross-checking.

The team did manage to kill both penalties – which, arguably, is a stark reminder that Ron Hainsey is a solid asset on the kill, as the Capitals’ only goal came on the penalty he himself took in the first (for delay of game).

What they didn’t manage to do, though, was adequately suppress shots for Washington, who managed to fire off 10 in that frame alone. And Jakub Vrana would put up his seventh tally of the year, capitalizing on a breakaway with nine to go in the period.

His goal was the second time a Washington player managed to find the back of the net after first gaining possession behind their own blue line, which is sub-optimal.

This one, though, was more on McElhinney than the first. He stayed too far out on the breakaway without cutting down the angle properly, failing to follow Vrana when he cut across royal road to expose the right side of his net pretty solidly:

#NotIdeal.

Toronto would head into the final period down 3-0 as a result.

Can I get an amen for score effects?

The Leafs picked up significant steam in the third and final frame, scoring both of their goals to pull within a single tally prior to Ovechkin’s completed hat trick.

While Toronto didn’t exactly pepper Braden Holtby with shots in those 20 minutes (they only outshot Washington 7-4), they did hold the advantage in shot attempts, and they managed to take a game that looked like a blowout and turn it into a close matchup by the end.

First, Jake Gardiner would capitalize on a clean shot through traffic less than two minutes into the period, receiving the puck from Auston Matthews to give the future captain his second point since coming back from injury.

Nikita Zaitsev would score arguably the flukiest goal of the year after that:

Taylor Chorney chips Zaitsev’s shot up and over Holtby’s shoulder, where it would roll into the net along his back despite Holtby’s effort to stop it.

Despite pulling within a goal, though, Ovechkin would score an empty-netter in the final minutes of the game, and Toronto would walk away losing 4-2.

The Capitals scored four times, and took just 21 shots throughout the game.

For the Leafs – who have been shelled by shots on a few occasions this year – the 21 shots against is a positive; and really, Alex Ovechkin has an unfair shooting percentage over pretty much his entire NHL career. So he got three goals on four shots? Pfft. That’s hardly a specific indictment against Toronto, and more of just a reminder that he’s arguably the best pure goal scorer of our generation.

I still have reservations about Curtis McElhinney’s depth and angles, as evidenced by his play of the Jakub Vrana breakaway.

I haven’t watched him enough this year, though, and I’ve been hearing little birds whispering that these areas have been markedly improved in the last two months. So I’m going to chalk that one up to old habits and their hard deaths, and move along without much complaint.

I don’t love that this game was down 3-0 after two, but battling back to a one-goal deficit was impressive in itself. No room to complain about that, although a win certainly would have been nice.

This VERY REAL (probably) tweet from Josh Leivo:

And lastly, a nice moment featuring cancer survivor Alex Luey, featured frequently in tonight’s broadcast.