The Washington Capitals keep chugging along without Great 8, Alexander Ovechkin, and prove they are way more than a one man show.  Tonight, the casualty was the Minnesota Wild.  The Caps defeated the Wild in their only show down this season, 3-1 at the Verizon Center.

Caps and Wild had a pretty wild first period, putting up a combined 25 shots on goal, 15-10 for Washington.  But both teams went into the intermission with blanks on the scoreboard.

Cal Clutterbuck started the scoring off with a quick second period goal at the 1:31 to give the Wild the 1-0 advantage early in the second period.  The Wild lead lasted for a little over 4 minutes before Washington struck on the power play.  Mike Green smacked home his 3rd goal of the season, first power play netter of the year, from a nice centering pass from Tomas Fleischmann to tie the game up at 1-1.  Last year, Green scored 18 PP goals, second only to Ovechkin, but this season, it took 19 games for Green to nail his first PP tally.  The second period ended with a 1-1 tie.  Caps out shot the Wild 16-6.

The Caps took a 2-1 lead off a wicked slap shot center goal by Brian Pothier, his second goal of the season.  The goal was a feed from Mathieu Perreault from the right side of the rink,. feeding Pothier down the center.  Perreault continues to make an impression and impact that will make decision very difficult for the Caps when Ovie and Boyd Gordon each make their returns to the ice.   The 2006 6th round draft pick has 1 goal and 4 assists in 5 games since being recalled from Hershey.    Brooks Laich put the icing on the cake for the Caps with an empty net goal.  It was number 8 for Laich.

Semyon Varlamov had yet another outstanding performance for the Caps making some pretty dazzling saves and stopping 29 of 30 shots top improve to 7-1 on the season and an impressive 11-1 in his very young NHL career.  Nice game for Mr. Varlamov.

Special Teams:

Caps were 33.33%, or 1 for 3 on the power play.  The Caps power play goal came off the stick of Mike Green, his first of the season.  Caps penalty kill unit was a perfect 3-3.

Multi-Point Scorers:

None

DCPSR Player of the Game:  BRIAN POTHIER AND SEMYON VARLAMOV