The Washington Capitals continued their dominance of the Penguins this season, as they beat Pittsburgh for the third consecutive time this season, this time by a score of 3-1 at Consol Energy Center on Tuesday night.
The Capitals used their power play to victimize the Penguins, scoring each of their first two goals with the man advantage. The Penguins, on the other hand, could not find the net with their new-look power play, going scoreless on three chances.
The Capitals got the scoring started at 18:36 of the first when Mike Green forced a turnover from Beau Bennett and Joel Ward found Alexander Ovechkin, who came flying into the Penguins zone on a breakaway and beat Marc-Andre Fleury with a rocketed backhander.
The Penguins answered back early in the second period when Steve Downie scored his tenth of the year on a rebound of a Craig Adams shot. Downie is the eighth Penguins player to reach a double-digit goal total on the season.
An even and hard-fought game through two periods took an ugly turn early in the third. Ovechkin brutally two-handed Penguins defenseman Kris Letang with a baseball-like swing to the back of the legs. Letang fell awkwardly into the end boards, but no penalty was called on the play. Letang left the game, but was able to return.
The next ten minutes saw the rest of Penguins do whatever they could to get at Ovechkin, and then when that failed, just settled for anyone in a white sweater. The teams accounted for 48 penalty minutes in the third period, including 14 from Downie.
The Penguins went on the penalty kill four straight times, and Joel Ward finally made them pay when scored on a beautiful cross-ice feed off the stick of Nicklas Backstrom on a five-on-three advantage at 15:47 of the third period.
The Penguins had one final chance to tie the game when Brooks Laich was called for goaltender interference at 17:53 of the third, but Capitals defenseman John Carlson sealed the win with an empty-net shorthanded goal.
Marc-Andre Fleury took the loss despite making 31 saves, including seven while shorthanded. Braden Holtby earned the win for the Capitals, but saw his personal shutout streak against the Penguins stopped at 156:09.
Photo credit: NHL
