Caps Dropped By Canuck Defense

Capitals 2, Canucks 3
Game Summary - Post - Times

The Washington Capitals in the middle of a long west coast swing road trip were not able to get past a stingy Vancouver Canuck defense. The Canucks would battle back from a one goal deficit to beat the a road weary Capital team 3-2.

In a strange first period, the Canucks opened the scoring as Ryan Kessler broke away from the Caps defense and was hooked from behind. The puck hit Jose Theodore, bounced off the leg of Jeff Schultz and into the net. Not long after that Brooks Laich took a hit along the boards after dishing the puck to Alex Semin. Laich was thrown over the boards into the Canuck bench. Semin scored off the play and the game had it's first two goals in very unconventional ways.

The Caps took the lead from there when Chris Clark scored off his own blocked shot. That is where the they would begin to sputter on offense. The Canucks tightened the defensive end and capitalized on opportunities given to them. Rookie Mason Raymond scored on a two on one when the Caps got caught deep in the offensive zone. Then the Canucks would take the lead on a Tom Poti penalty where he took an extra two minutes for unsportsmanlike.

The story of the game was the ineffective power play for the Capitals. They had only one shot on net in all four of their power plays against the Canucks. Alex Ovechkin remained pretty much ineffective against a stingy defense. Through the first two periods, Ovi didn't even have a shot on net. He would finish pointless on the night.

Semin did have a late penalty shot but failed to score on his opportunity. It's a disappointing finish to a game that saw the Caps dominating play through much of the first period. Letting their power play chances slip away, there wasn't much room the Canucks afforded the Capitals as the game wore on.

The Caps have to put this behind them as they travel to Edmonton and face the Oilers for a second late night game in a row. The game against the Oilers will end the four game western road swing for the Capitals as they will play Buffalo at home on Wednesday.