The name came up again Monday night when the Washington star scored career goal 544, tying Richard’s total late in the Capitals’ 4-1 victory over the Canadiens.

”It’s nice to be in history, it’s nice to be tied with the legend,” Ovechkin said. ”Still, I have lots of years to go and I’m going to try to do my best.”

Richard retired in 1960 as the league’s all-time goals leader and his total ranks only 29th now, but the 31-year-old Ovechkin looks like he has plenty of seasons left to add to his total. Next targets up are Michel Goulet at 548 and Ron Francis’ 549.

The Russian star also picked up two assists to leave him one short of 1,000 points in his career, which he can reach Wednesday at home against the Pittsburgh Penguins.

”It means I’m getting older,” Ovechkin said. ”I remember my first year, my first game, like it was five minutes ago.

”Time moves forward and time moves quick, so you just have to enjoy every second and every moment and, when you have an opportunity, try to do something special.”

Ovechkin got his special moment with 3:24 left in the third period when, on a power play, he whipped a wrist shot to the top corner past Carey Price from just beyond the top of the left face-off circle.

His long-time linemate Nicklas Backstrom said nothing Ovechkin does on the ice surprises him anymore.

”It’s impressive how he shoots,” Backstrom said. ”First of all, he’s got the best wrist shot in the league.

”It’s so quick. You see, he snapped a wrist shot from the blue line there and it went in. So that’s just the way he is. It’s always exciting to play with him because anything can happen out there. He’s so dangerous. He scores from all angles. It makes it fun to play with him.”

Backstrom, Evgeny Kuznetsov and Brett Connolly also scored for Washington while Braden Holtby finished with 22 saves. Holtby’s career-best shutout streak ended at 169 minutes 12 seconds when Tomas Plekanec scored at 7:18 of the third period.

On a night of milestones, Capitals coach Barry Trotz worked his 1,400th regular season game, tying Pat Quinn for eighth place all time and picked up his 684th win, tying Quinn for sixth. Trotz can catch Ron Wilson for seventh place with 1,401 games against the Penguins.

The Capitals were the sharper team in the first period and took the lead with just under 9 minutes remaining when Ovechkin faked a slap shot from the point and moved in for a wrist shot that produced an easy rebound for Backstrom to tuck in for his 10th of the season.

Former Canadien Lars Eller was serving an interference call when Plekanec tied it with 1 second left in the power play as he first hit the post with a backhand, then scored during the resulting scramble in front of Holtby in the third. The Capitals called for a review for goaltender interference, but video showed it was Holtby’s teammate Brooks Orpik who knocked him over.

Only 54 seconds later, Kuznetsov turned Jeff Petry inside out and beat Carey Price on a rush.

Kuznetsov stole the puck from Price at the side of the net and fed Connelly for a goal from the right circle with 9 minutes to go.

The Capitals were on a power play when Ovechkin picked the corner with a shot from the top of the left circle with 3:24 remaining.

The post Ovechkin ties Richard, Capitals beat Canadiens 4-1 appeared first on IdealCapper.

Owner Ted Leonsis and former general manager George McPhee’s concerns were about possible injury. But now that Ovechkin is one point away from 1,000 for his career, he has eased their concerns.

Few players over the past decade have been as durable or productive as the rough-and-tumble 6-foot-3, 245-pound superstar, who hits almost as much as he scores.

”I never had any issues about whether the fire would die,” McPhee said by phone Tuesday. ”I never, ever thought he would cheat us on effort because he was such a hard-working kid on the ice. … The only concern was, `What if he gets hurt?’ And that’s everybody’s fear with long-term deals. But in terms of ability and desire, I never worried about that.”

A year ago Ovechkin became the fifth-fastest player to 500 goals, and if he reaches 1,000 in his 880th game Wednesday against longtime rival Sidney Crosby and the Pittsburgh Penguins, he’d be the second-fastest active player to that milestone behind Jaromir Jagr, according to the Elias Sports Bureau. Crosby, who’s at 982 points in just 740 games, could bump him to down the list very soon.

While concussions interrupted Crosby’s prime, the 31-year-old Ovechkin has never missed more than 10 games in 12 NHL seasons despite countless bumps, bruises and assorted other injuries. He played through a broken foot in the 2013 playoffs, came back with no ill effects from a knee injury in 2014 and battled a back injury on the way to scoring 50 goals (again) last season.

As McPhee put it, Ovechkin ”plays through everything.” The now-Vegas Golden Knights GM remembers Ovechkin needing several stitches to close a bad skate cut on the inseam of his leg during a game in Pittsburgh in December 2007 and then surprisingly playing two nights later in Ottawa and scoring four goals.

Former coach Glen Hanlon said Ovechkin at 80 percent is still great, which is why his scoring prowess has continued into his 30s against the trend of most goal-scorers.

”When we signed Alex to the 13-year deal, did we anticipate that he would remain an elite goal-scorer now going into his 30s, and the answer’s obviously yes,” Leonsis said before this season. ”We had great confidence in him. What I’ve been surprised at is that he’s continued his physical play and still has remained a great goal-scorer. His durability has really positioned him as a really historic player.”

Ovechkin will become the 84th player to reach 1,000 points, a mark that he said means he’s ”getting older.”

”I remember my first year, my first game, like it was five minutes ago,” Ovechkin told The Canadian Press after a three-point night Monday in Montreal that helped the Capitals win their sixth consecutive game. ”Time move forward and time move quick, so you just have to enjoy every second and every moment and when you have an opportunity, try to do something special.”

Coach Barry Trotz said it would fitting if Ovechkin would hit 1,000 at home since Washington is on a three-game home stand against the Penguins, Chicago Blackhawks and Philadelphia Flyers. It would be even more fitting if Ovechkin gets No. 1,000 on an overtime goal to pass Jagr for sole possession of the most in history.

Ovechkin has 19 OT goals among his 544 and his production at such a high level for so long has defied convention, especially with the reckless abandon the Russian winger has played with his entire career. McPhee said Ovechkin among maybe only 10 players in the history of the game with the blend of toughness and scoring – like Gordie Howe, Cam Neely and Eric Lindros.

”When Ovi is best on his game, he’s got the unique ability to play a physical game like no other star in the league can,” Trotz said. ”He has the ability to shoot the puck as good as anybody who’s ever played the game, and he can be a force. He has those two elements.

”When he’s imposing his will, he’s skating, he’s using his big frame to be a hard guy to handle. When he’s got all those things going, he’s very, very unique. There’s not too many guys in the league that have all those elements.”

—

Follow AP Hockey Writer Stephen Whyno on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/SWhyno .

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His Washington Capitals are 9-4-1 despite some inconsistent play, but that didn’t stop the veteran NHL coach from making wholesale line changes. Superstar Alex Ovechkin practiced Monday on a line with former fourth-line center Jay Beagle, and the rest of the lineup was about as jumbled as it could get.

Ovechkin doesn’t have a point in three games, but it was a 5-1 loss at Carolina on Saturday that prompted Trotz to take action.

”I don’t think it’s to wake up Ovi,” Beagle said. ”Just the team in general to kind of shake things up.”

Trotz explained it as a way to generate a combination of will and skill on every line. ”Will over skill” is the team’s motto, a year after winning the Presidents’ Trophy and losing to the Stanley Cup champion Pittsburgh Penguins in the second round.

With Ovechkin, Nicklas Backstrom and Evgeny Kuznetsov around, the Capitals don’t lack for skill. Trotz put the three all-stars on three separate lines in preparation for a road game Tuesday at the Columbus Blue Jackets.

Ovechkin said players accept Trotz’s decisions and that he and Beagle have some chemistry since they’ve been put together a few times in recent years.

”It’s always going to be changing and moving around the bodies,” said Ovechkin, who has seven goals and four assists. ”I think it’s a regular, normal thing.”

Backstrom, Beagle and others consider it something of a wake-up call, given that Washington has lost two of three and not been on top of its game lately.

”I feel like especially the top players, including myself, we’ve got to get going here,” said Backstrom, who’s centering leading scorer Marcus Johansson and T.J. Oshie. ”We’ve got to start playing better. We’ve just got to be better. We have to create more chances, produce more and help the team out a little more.”

Beagle has been helping plenty and is surprisingly fourth on the team in goals. The defensive-minded grinder plays the kind of straightforward style previous coach Adam Oates wanted to see more from with Ovechkin, and that could have something to do with Trotz’s thinking.

”They’ve got a lot of skill and they’ve got a lot of will,” Trotz said of Ovechkin and Beagle. ”Hopefully they can help each other – that combination of someone getting pucks, someone shooting pucks, someone helping along, all that stuff. That line should be fine. All the lines have a unique quality to them. I just think there’s a balance there.”

—

Follow Stephen Whyno on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/SWhyno .

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That’s the main reason the Rangers are heading to the Eastern Conference semifinals.

Led by Lundqvist’s 35 saves in a second consecutive shutout, and goals from some unlikely sources, the Rangers beat the Capitals 5-0 in an anticlimactic Game 7 Monday night, eliminating Washington for the second year in a row.

By winning a Game 7 on the road for the first time in its history, New York completed its comeback after trailing in the series 2-0 and 3-2 — the latest in Washington’s long history of playoff collapses.

“He was really good, but the team was also good, too. I have to give the team some credit. They played hard in front of him,” Rangers coach John Tortorella said, before making sure everyone knew this: “Henrik is our backbone.”

The last NHL goalie with shutouts in Games 6 and 7 of a series was Detroit’s Dominik Hasek in 2002 against Colorado, according to STATS LLC.

Lundqvist, Ovechkin said, did an “unbelievable job; he makes incredible saves.”

Sixth-seeded New York faces the No. 4 Boston Bruins in the second round.

Arron Asham put New York ahead Monday in the first period, before Taylor Pyatt and Michael Del Zotto made it 3-0 early in the second on goals 2:10 apart. Ryan Callahan added a goal 13 seconds into the third period, and when Mats Zuccarello scored with about 13½ minutes remaining, thousands of red-clad fans streamed to the exits.

Soon after, when Lundqvist fell forward to smother a puck, chants of “Hen-reeek! Hen-reeek!” from the no-longer-outnumbered Rangers supporters rose in the arena.

Asked why his team couldn’t score in the final two games, Capitals forward Troy Brouwer replied: “Henrik Lundqvist. Plain and simple.”

From the moment Mike Ribeiro’s overtime goal gave Washington a Game 5 victory, Lundqvist was simply superb.

The Swede stopped all 62 shots he faced in Games 6 and 7, showing exactly why he won the Vezina Trophy as the league’s top goalie last season and is a finalist this season.

“In a game like this, obviously you’re looking for a great start. I thought we set the tone in the first. You just need a couple of good bounces and we got them tonight. A couple of big goals for us,” Lundqvist said. “When we scored the fourth one, I thought, ‘OK, we got this.’ As long as it’s three, you never know with (the Capitals). They have so much skill, they can turn it around quickly.”

But Washington’s offense, led by two-time MVP Ovechkin, managed to score 12 goals the entire series — and zero over the final six periods.

Indeed, Ovechkin was held without a point in Games 3-7. The Russian wing led the NHL with 32 goals but he heads into the offseason after the longest playoff point drought of his career. He had a goal in Game 1, an assist in Game 2, and that was it.

Ovechkin delivered some big hits early in Game 7, but he was credited with only one shot by the end of the second period, which closed with some boos from the red-clad spectators in the stands.

New York’s top scorer in the regular season, Rick Nash, didn’t have a goal against Washington, but the Rangers found other players to pick up the slack.

While Callahan did have 16 goals this season, the other four Rangers who put pucks past Braden Holtby combined for a total of only 14.

The Rangers-Capitals finale began only a little more than 24 hours after the shoving- and wrestling-filled end of Game 6, which New York won 1-0 on Derick Brassard’s second-period goal and Lundqvist’s seventh career postseason shutout. That, of course, was played at Madison Square Garden, continuing the pattern of the home team winning each of the first six games of the series.

That ended emphatically Monday, in a Game 7 similarly anticlimactic to Washington’s 6-2 loss to Pittsburgh in 2009.

Since the start of the 2008 playoffs — when Washington’s core of Ovechkin, Nicklas Backstrom and Mike Green made their postseason debuts — the Capitals have appeared in nine series, and this was the seventh to last the full seven games.

They’re now 2-5 in those, and Ovechkin and Co. have never been beyond the second round. Going further back, to 1985, the Capitals have lost nine series in which the club led either 2-0 or 3-1.

Ovechkin, in speaking with a Russian reporter, said he thinks the league wanted a Game 7 in the series, citing a dearth of penalties against the Rangers, though he stopped short of accusing the NHL of match-fixing.

“The refereeing … You understand it yourself,” Ovechkin told reporter Slava Malamud, who translated his interview from Russian to English. “How can there be no penalties at all (on one team) during the playoffs?

“I am not saying there was a phone call from (the league), but someone just wanted Game 7. For the ratings. You know, the lockout, escrow, the league needs to make profit. … I don’t know whether the refs were predisposed against us or the league. But to not give obvious penalties (in the Capitals’ favor), while for us any little thing was immediately penalized…”

Still, there was not much Washington could do with the way Lundqvist performed, helping New York reverse a little bit of playoff misery of its own: Until Monday, the Rangers were 0-5 in Game 7s on the road.

On one spirited shift not quite midway through the opening period, Ovechkin delivered hard hits to John Moore, Steve Eminger and Ryan McDonagh, slamming the latter into the boards to draw loud cheers of “Ovi! Ovi!”

Moments later, 19-year-old Tom Wilson had a close, open look thanks to a steal behind the net by Matt Hendricks, but Lundqvist made the reflex save.

The Capitals had more and better early chances, generally keeping the puck at their offensive end, but it was the Rangers who went ahead 1-0 at the 13:19 mark of the first period — thanks to a quick rush when Washington didn’t get back on defense fast enough.

Green, who led NHL defensemen with 12 goals this season and scored the OT winner in Game 2, skated in for a 1-on-1 chance that Lundqvist kicked away. Tumbling to the ice, Green managed to swat the puck back toward the crease.

Again, Wilson was in the right spot. This time, though, the puck bounced over his stick, and the Rangers raced the other way for a 4-on-2. Chris Kreider, scratched for Games 2-5, sent the puck to Asham, whose shot from the top of the right circle zipped into a tough-to-find spot above Holtby’s shoulder and the crossbar.

It was fourth-line winger Asham’s second goal of the series, matching his output for the entire regular season — and doubling Ovechkin’s postseason total against New York.

Soon after, Ovechkin’s nice pass along the boards freed Jay Beagle for an attempt that Lundqvist batted away. Marcus Johansson was in position for a rebound but couldn’t get it in the net, either.

When Del Zotto’s wrister from the top of the left circle appeared to glance off Brouwer’s skate before sliding through Holtby’s legs, there were still nearly 35 minutes of regulation left, and yet the game felt finished.

The crowd, so boisterous earlier, went silent for stretches as Washington’s fans contemplated another early playoff exit.

Game notes

The Rangers will open on the road against the Bruins, who beat the Toronto Maple Leafs 5-4 in overtime in Game 7 Monday. … Ovechkin’s longest span without a point this regular season was three games, something he went through twice: Feb. 14-21 and March 9-12. The Rangers were the opponent in the middle game of both of those droughts.

The post Henrik Lundqvist gets 2nd straight shutout as Rangers ice Caps in 7 appeared first on IdealCapper.

Must have tasted pretty good.

Karlsson spent the evening on the ice for the first time in about 2½ months, and he and the Ottawa Senators are heading back to the NHL postseason.

They might even wind up back in the same arena next week.

Sergei Gonchar scored a power-play goal 47 seconds into overtime on Karlsson’s second assist of his successful and sooner-than-anticipated return from a torn Achilles tendon, and Ottawa clinched a playoff berth by beating the Washington Capitals 2-1 on Thursday night.

“I would have been happy if I sat in the stands and we would have won this game, as well, I think, and that’s the main goal,” Karlsson said. “I’m going to have to work on my stuff, and as long as this team keeps winning, I’m going to be happy.”

The overtime wins by the Senators and New York Rangers eliminated the Winnipeg Jets from the playoff chase.

Ottawa had lost its previous two games.

“I’m just glad to put all the doubters behind us,” said Craig Anderson, who made 19 saves. “We lost a couple games there … and I think that was kind of the talk: Are we going to fold the tent and go home? But I think we all kind of strapped on the belt and went to work and found ways to make people believers.”

The only shot that got past him was Alex Ovechkin’s NHL-leading 32nd goal, which tied the game 8½ minutes into the third period.

But ex-Capitals defenseman Gonchar took a pass from Karlsson and put the winner past Michal Neuvirth, who made 39 saves.

The Southeast Division champion Capitals had nothing at stake. They already are locked into the No. 3 seed in the Eastern Conference.

The Senators, who have two games left, moved up to sixth in the East. If they remain there, Ottawa would face the Capitals, who have won 10 of 12 overall — with the only losses against the Senators.

“If we end up playing them, we’ll be ready,” Washington’s first-year coach Adam Oates said.

Ottawa won all three regular-season matchups against the Capitals.

“We just came out flat,” Washington defenseman Mike Green said. “I don’t know what it is the last couple times we’ve played against them. But it’s the way it’s gone.”

The Capitals secured their sixth consecutive playoff appearance by clinching the division title with a 5-3 victory over Winnipeg on Tuesday.

So while the Capitals didn’t need a victory on Thursday, the Senators most certainly did.

“It was a big game,” Neuvirth pointed out, “for them.”

For Karlsson, last season’s Norris Trophy winner as the NHL’s top defenseman, this was his first game since Pittsburgh’s Matt Cooke stepped on the back of his leg on Feb. 13.

Karlsson originally was expected to miss the rest of the season after surgery, but recently returned to practice. He sat out 31 games, but now is back in time to get into game shape ahead of the playoffs.

“I felt OK,” Karlsson said. “Did battle some issues out there, and didn’t feel quite as comfortable as I’m used to, but overall I think it was a solid game. I still have to work through some mistakes and clean those up.”

Karlsson played a game-high 27-plus minutes and managed to demonstrate just how valuable he is.

With the game scoreless 12:35 into the second period, from barely inside the blue line, he shook his stick to get the attention of Milan Michalek, whose pass was strongly one-timed by Karlsson toward the net. The puck was redirected by Jakob Silfverberg. Then came the set up for Gonchar.

“Obviously, our team was a different team with him on the ice, and the things that he can do that others can’t do. He’s a very special player,” Senators coach Paul MacLean said about Karlsson. “He’s done, obviously, a ton of work.”

Silfverberg briefly stayed down on the ice with about three minutes left after appearing to take a glove to the face from Capitals defenseman Steve Oleksy. No penalty was called.

But Capitals forward Mike Ribeiro was sent to the box twice in the final five minutes of regulation, and teammate Jason Chimera was given a 10-minute misconduct in the last minute. The game was chippy throughout, including a scrum involving eight players along the boards earlier in the third period. The first period had a handful of near-fights and some late hits.

Ovechkin scored his fourth goal in three games, but his first point against Ottawa this season.

He gathered the puck near the boards on the right side — Oates moved him from left wing — and swept in front of the net with defenseman Chris Phillips riding his back, before flipping a backhander past Anderson.

Nearly seated on the ice afterward, Ovechkin spun around and kissed his glove, while fans responded with loud chants of “M-V-P!”

Game notes

It was Ovechkin’s 600th NHL game. … Ottawa will play at home against Philadelphia on Saturday, and at the Bruins on Sunday in a game rescheduled because of the Boston Marathon bombings. … The Capitals finish the regular season Saturday against visiting Boston.

The post Erik Karlsson returns as Senators clinch playoff spot appeared first on IdealCapper.

Yet here they are, postseason-bound with two games to spare, quite the achievement for Alex Ovechkin and first-year coach Adam Oates. Tuesday night’s 5-3 win over the Winnipeg Jets clinched the Southeast Division for the Capitals, who were next-to-last in the Eastern Conference as recently as March 21.

“I remember 20 games ago looking at the schedule,” said Mathieu Perreault, one of five Capitals to score a goal Tuesday. “Like, ‘Man, we’re probably going to have to go 16-4 to get in’ — and basically did it. It almost looked impossible if you look back 20 games, but this team has got so much character, and they found a way to do it.”

If the Capitals win their final two, they will indeed finish with 16 wins in 20 games, but that would be gravy at this point. They’re in the playoffs for the sixth consecutive season, a run that includes five Southeast titles. As a bonus, they will leapfrog several teams with better records and enter the playoffs as the conference’s No. 3 seed for winning their division, even if it is the weakest division in the NHL.

“We had a lousy start,” Oates said. “And I don’t think many of us thought we would come this far. But we obviously put some really good hockey together, and the guys have grown and it’s obviously a good feeling right now.”

The Capitals blew a two-goal lead, survived a pair of replay reviews and exhaled deeply when defensemen John Erskine cleared two shots off the goal line. They also had to kill off a power play with a one-goal lead late in the game, but they held to win for the 10th time in 11 games.

Ovechkin scored his league-leading 31st goal — an empty-netter in the final minute — and Matt Hendricks, Jason Chimera and Nicklas Backstrom also scored. Braden Holtby made 24 saves for the Capitals.

The loss keeps the Jets in ninth place in the East, one spot away from the playoffs but with slim chances of moving up because they have only one game remaining. They trail the New York Rangers and Ottawa Senators by one point, but the Rangers have two games left and the Senators have three.

“It was basically our Game 7 in the playoffs,” said Nik Antropov, who scored Winnipeg’s third goal. “And it’s frustrating to lose that way.”

Evander Kane and Blake Wheeler also scored for the Jets, who had won six of seven but were playing the second half of a road back-to-back after beating the Buffalo Sabres on Monday.

“We played too cute,” Winnipeg coach Claude Noel said. “There was no way we were going to be able to match their skill level and to play the way that they played. We had to do some things that to me that we didn’t do.”

Hendricks and Chimera gave the Capitals a 2-0 lead after the first period, but the score would have been tied if not for Erskine, who cleared Bryan Little’s shot off the line when Holtby was caught out of position and later arrived just in time to get his stick on a bouncing puck that had dribbled down the goaltender’s back on a tip by Aaron Gagnon. The puck was some 90 percent across the line — but not all the way, and the no-goal call was upheld by video review.

“He’s our third goalie right now,” Ovechkin said with a smile.

The Jets did pull even in the second period when Kane and Wheeler scored, but it took just 37 seconds for the Capitals to regain the lead when Backstrom’s right skate neatly redirected a centering pass from Ovechkin. The replay review determined that Backstrom didn’t use a deliberate kicking motion, and the goal was upheld.

Perreault doubled the lead by putting in a rebound late in the second period, but Antropov beat Holtby stick-side with 8:10 remaining in the third to pull the Jets within one.

Perrault was whistled for high sticking with 5:16 remaining, but the Capitals killed off the penalty without allowing a shot. Ovechkin capped the celebration with the empty-netter, prompting chants of “M-V-P!” throughout the sold-out arena.

“The way we started, there were a lot of doubters,” Hendricks said. “Our fans were against us a little bit, the media was hard on us a little bit. But we came and did what we set out to do.”

Game notes

Antropov returned after missing eight games with a lower body injury. Jets F Kyle Wellwood was out with a significant injury to his right hand from blocking a shot during Monday’s win at Buffalo. … Ovechkin set an NHL record with his goal, although it’s one that probably deserves an asterisk. It was his 13th in the month of April, an accomplishment made easier because the lockout-modified schedule is extending the regular season deeper into the month than usual. The previous record of 12 was set by Mario Lemieux in 1993 and tied by Winnipeg’s Alex Zhamnov in 1995.

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Kris Letang, Paul Martin and Matt Cooke also scored, Sidney Crosby had three assists, and Tomas Vokoun made 21 saves against his former team for the Penguins, who have won three straight and four of five to lead the Atlantic Division.

Mike Green, John Carlson and Mike Ribeiro scored for the Capitals — and Carlson’s goal was an accident that took a weird carom off a stanchion along the glass. Two-time league MVP Alex Ovechkin, who said before the game that he was somewhat embarrassed to have only three points on the season, contributed a secondary assist on a third-period power-play goal with Washington trailing by three.

Washington has lost seven of nine games to start the season. Hosting the Penguins as a Super Bowl warm-up for the third straight year, the Capitals no longer look like the formidable team that beat Pittsburgh 5-4 in overtime with a hat trick from Ovechkin in 2010 and shut out the Penguins 3-0 a year ago — both feisty games that included punches thrown by Ovechkin.

Ovechkin was overly physical in this game as well, getting a roughing call in the final two minutes.

Under new coach Adam Oates, the Capitals are feeling their way around the ice, especially on defense. Braden Holtby stopped only 20 of 26 shots, allowing Letang and Kunitz to beat him glove side 37 seconds apart in the second period to give the Penguins a 4-2 lead.

Vokoun, who shut out the New York Rangers on Thursday, made a successful return to the Verizon Center. He was signed to be the Capitals’ No. 1 goalie last season but hurt his groin and was eclipsed by Holtby during the playoffs, prompting Washington to trade him to Pittsburgh.

Martin scored from the point after Crosby won a faceoff in the Capitals’ zone to give the Penguins a 1-0 lead in the first period. Washington tied it less than two minutes later after a nice sequence in which Ribeiro won the puck along the boards and passed it to Wojtek Wolski, who then sent it along to a wide-open Green.

After Cooke made it 2-1, Carlson tied it on a bizarre goal in the second period. The Capitals defenseman was merely trying to dump the puck along the boards, but it rose up and took an odd deflection. Vokoun had already started to retreat behind the net to intercept the puck and tripped trying to change direction to get back to the crease.

Game notes

Ovechkin said before the game that the Capitals were in a “desperate moment.” He noted that he and other NHL players who spent the lockout playing in Russia should be doing better. “Right now I’m standing here, I have only three points, and, you know, it kind of embarrass me.” … The Capitals played the first of three games without D John Erskine, who was suspended for three games for elbowing Wayne Simmonds in Friday’s win over the Philadelphia Flyers. … Washington had been 12-1-3 in its previous 16 regular-season meetings vs. Pittsburgh.

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