Nicklas Backstrom’s last-second goal allows Capitals to rally for win over Leafs
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Version 0 of 1. Alex Ovechkin was airborne, leaping onto Nicklas Backstrom by the glass, swallowing him in a gleeful hug. For an early-November game, this Capitals-Maple Leafs contest had been so emotional, from celebrations to milestones to disallowed goals to last-second equalizers. It looked over Saturday night at Verizon Center, but then Backstrom started swatting at a puck that took a weird bounce and, with less than a second left, the Capitals were suddenly tied with Toronto. The first thing Backstrom did was look at the scoreboard, and when he saw 0.8 seconds remaining, he raised his arms, Ovechkin slammed into him and fans pounded on the glass behind them. “That was perfect,” Backstrom said. Neither team scored in the three-on-three overtime, sending the game to a shootout. There, Ovechkin flicked a puck into the netting one last time, delivering the 3-2 win with the only score of the shootout. It was fitting that Ovechkin should be the one to ultimately finish the game, on a night that he was commemorated for matching Sergei Fedorov’s record for the most NHL goals scored by a Russian-born player. “That’s what Ovi’s done here for a long time: big goals at big times,” Capitals Coach Barry Trotz said. It appeared that he had passed Fedorov’s record late in the third period. With 2 minutes and 39 seconds remaining, Ovechkin stood in front of Toronto goaltender James Reimer and, after Backstrom’s shot toward the net ricocheted away, backhanded the rebound back into the net. There was celebration for the apparent tying goal. But then there was tension, as Maple Leafs Coach Mike Babcock challenged that Capitals winger Justin Williams had prevented Reimer from making the save. Referees stared at a small tablet to watch the replay and deliberated. The decision was no goal, and with that, the Capitals found themselves down again. “Obviously, it sucks,” Ovechkin said. Said Williams: “I thought I went to the net and did everything I could to not touch the goalie. I don’t think I was interfering with him when the shot was taken, but it was disallowed.” Trotz said the bench was calm in that moment. Two minutes and 38 seconds later, a puck bounced off Backstrom and past Reimer. “I said, ‘Okay, let’s just go get another one,’ ” Trotz said. “That’s as simple as it was.” Earlier, Ovechkin had slid onto his knee, screamed, then got shoved into the boards by teammate Evgeny Kuznetsov. He was not only celebrating a goal that tied the score in the second period, but his 483rd career goal, the one that tied Fedorov. Minutes after he scored, he officially acknowledged the achievement, when the Verizon Center video board showed Ovechkin on the bench and announced that he had tied Fedorov’s record. Ovechkin stood up and waved to the crowd, thankful for the applause. The goal was his first on the power play this season. From the goal line, Kuznetsov intended to feed Ovechkin in the left faceoff circle, but the puck was deflected up, a broken play. Ovechkin rumbled toward the net and swatted it in to knot the score at 1. That was a high point. A low point came later, when James Van Riemsdyk scored on a power play midway through the third period to give the Maple Leafs back the lead. Perhaps a lower point was when the Capitals had 1 minute and 1 second of five-on-three hockey and failed to score to tie the game. Then came the coach’s challenge, which wiped away Ovechkin’s second goal of the night. But then there were the emotional highs again, and in the end, there was satisfaction with resiliency. Goaltender Braden Holtby made 23 saves, with three stops in the shootout, and Ovechkin ultimately got his score. “When the game is on the line, there’s a certain thing that he just wants to take over the game,” Trotz said. “Very few people in this league can do it, and he has it.” |