Avs fall to Caps
The official game recap Washington Capitals vs. Colorado Avalanche.The Washington Capitals put on a dominating performance Friday at Pepsi Center, yet needed to hold on for a 4-2 win against the Colorado Avalanche.
The Capitals (55-16-6) outshot the Avalanche 47-19 and set a franchise record for wins in a season; Washington won 54 games in 2009-10.
Goalie Braden Holtby, who made 17 saves, won his 47th game of the season, one shy of the NHL record set by Martin Brodeur of the New Jersey Devils in 2006-07.
Holtby is 4-0-1 in his past five starts and 7-1-2 in his past 10.
The Capitals, who have clinched the Presidents' Trophy, are 1-0-1 in the first two games of a three-game road trip that concludes Saturday against the Arizona Coyotes.
The loss was the second in a row and fourth in five games for the Avalanche (39-35-4), who remain five points behind the Minnesota Wild with four games remaining for the second wild card into the Stanley Cup Playoffs from the Western Conference.
Colorado made it 3-2 on Gabriel Landeskog's goal with 5:39 left in the third period. Landeskog knocked in the rebound off of Carl Soderberg's shot for his 20th goal.
T.J. Oshie sealed Washington's win by scoring into an empty net with 9.9 seconds remaining.
The Capitals outshot the Avalanche 15-6 in the second period, and got goals from Jay Beagle, Alex Ovechkin and Jason Chimera in a 5:26 span to build a 3-0 lead.
The Avalanche got on the board when Jarome Iginla scored a power-play goal with 40.2 seconds remaining in the period. After 20 games without a goal, Iginla scored into an open net on the left side after taking a pass from Landeskog.
Iginla reached the 20-goal mark for the 17th time in his NHL career and moved ahead of Dino Ciccarelli for sole possession of 17th place on the all-time list with his 609th goal, one behind Bobby Hull.
Beagle opened the scoring at 8:50 with his eighth goal after he intercepted Avalanche defenseman Chris Bigras' pass behind the net and jammed the puck by goalie Semyon Varlamov and inside the right post.
Varlamov finished with 43 saves.
Ovechkin scored his NHL-leading 45th goal at 12:57 on a power play, 36 seconds after Colorado's Blake Comeau was penalized for hooking. Evgeny Kuznetsov controlled the puck in the right circle and passed to Marcus Johansson in front for a shot that Varlamov stopped with his pad. The rebound went to Ovechkin, who scored into a half-open net.
Chimera made it 3-0 at 14:16. Mike Richards took a long shot from near the right-wing boards and Chimera deflected it into the net for his 19th goal.
The Capitals outshot the Avalanche 15-7 in the first period. Johansson at 0:40 and Justin Williams at 6:00 hit a post with shots, and Williams was stopped on a breakaway at 14:48.
-- by Rick Sadowski for NHL.com --
Eurolanche.com, Worldwide, eurolanche@eurolanche.com
02/04/2016 - 06:30
