The Capitals beat the Buffalo Sabres on the road 3-1 last night moving them back into 10th place in the conference and kept pace with Carolina who pasted the Thrashers 6-3. The story of the game was Alex Ovechkin. He score two goals to giving him 54 on the season and was a wrecking ball recording 5 hits. Nicklas Backstrom had a goal and an assist and is now 13th in the NHL with 47 helpers. Olie Kolzig played a strong game in net stopping 25 of 26 shots. Buffalo apparently played the cleanest game of the year as the Caps had to kill 5 consecutive penalties before the Sabres were called for holding with 19-seconds left in the game. In the bad news column David Steckel broke his finger blocking a shot and will be out 2 to 3 weeks. Overall, it was a good effort from the team as there was no let down following Monday's game with Boston. The Caps now prepare for a rematch at Boston on Saturday.Of Note:
- Ovechkin's 54 goals passes Bobby Carpenter for the second most goals scored in a season by a Capital. Carpenter had 53 goals in 1984-85. Dennis Maruk holds the record with 60 in 1981-82.
- The Capitals brought there season goal differential down to -3. On a historical note, the Caps have never made the playoffs with negative goal differential and have made the playoffs every season the differential was even or higher.
- The Capitals killed 4 of the five Buffalo power plays and only had 19 seconds of power play time at the end of the third period. Even with the 0-1, the Caps are still ranked 6th in the NHL in power play efficiency.
- With his 2 points last night Nicklas Backstrom holds a 1 point lead over Chicago's Patrick Kane in the rookie scoring race.
- Viktor Kozlov recorded 2 assists, Milan Jurcina and Olie Kolzig each recorded a single assist.
- Buffalo held the shots on goal advantage 26-23 but the Caps won 31 of 48 face-offs (65%).
Game Summary
Super Stats
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