Capitals 6, Stars 5 OT
Scoresheet - Wash Post - Dallas News
On a night when all 30 NHL teams were in action on "Super Saturday" the Washington Capitals survive a wild night of goals as Alex Semin nets the game winner in overtime to defeat the Dallas Starts 6-5. Sergei Fedorov had a big night too as he scored twice and moved ahead of Alexander Mogilny in goals in the NHL by a Russian born player.
Semin scored the game winner off of a nice curl and drag after retrieving the puck from behind Dallas' net and also had a pair of assists. Fedorov scored twice and Tomas Fleischmann found his scoring touch scoring twice as well. And Tyler Sloan gets his first NHL goal in his third game. For the sixth straight game Alex Ovechkin was kept from the goal scoring column, although he did contribute with an assist.
Fedorov, always the professional, deflected any praise over the accomplishment of surpassing Moginly. "It's just a record," Fedorov said. "I'd rather talk about Alex than the record. I know his career was shortened by injury. I didn't expect to ever get it. He had a great shot and amazing hands. Realistically, if he'd played more he'd have a lot more stats. He was a powerful forward, a scoring machine. Records are nice on a personal level, but most important was that we finally won a game."
It was a wild game at that. Both teams look completely disorganized at times, the Capitals seize two points on this three game road swing. It's a big two points for the club as the club had to go through some soul searching following their last two losses to Calgary and Phoenix.
"We've always been resilient," Bruce Boudreau told reporters following the game. "You can see the passion we have by how we reacted when we scored the overtime goal."
After Semin scored the game winner he was immediately mobbed by his teammates off the bench not far from where he shot the game winner. While Ovechkin has been kept from scoring, the Caps have made up the offense from different players like Semin and Fleischmann, so far. Flash scored a pair in this game and finally looks as if he has found a way to finish those shots. Plus playing on Micheal Nylander's line doesn't hurt either.
Sean Avery scored the game's first goal, his first as a Dallas Star. He also made it a point to push around Semin all game long. That might have frustrated Semin before, but his maturity level has grown ever since the trade that brought Fedorov to DC. He is a new player, less concerned about diving at the slightest breeze or folding up after a big hit. I would still like to see him take a few less sticking penalties.
On "Super Saturday" in the NHL, all 30 teams played tonight. 99 goals were scored tonight out of 974 shots (including the Islanders' 60 shots on net, they still lost to Carolina). The Caps/Stars game contributed one of the two games that had 11 goals (Detroit and Chicago was the other 11 goal game but technically the 11th goal was the shoot out winner). There were 24 fighting majors tonight, 8 of them just in the Philadelphia/New Jersey game (including two fights simultaneously). Thirty power play goals were scored and only 3 shorthanded goals. There were 3 penalty shots awarded, but all were unsuccessful. 5 games went into overtime, three went to the shootout. Nine home teams won their games tonight, 6 teams were able to win on the road.
Caps/Stars video highlights courtesy of NHL.com:
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