The Washington Capitals maintained a chunk of the Eastern Conference lead, tied with the Pittsburgh Penguins, by defeating the Montreal Canadians last night in a over time shootout in Montreal.  The Capitals improve to 15-5-6 tied for first with 36 points.  The Caps lead the Southeast Division by 8 points over the Atlanta Thrashers.

The Caps did it in a fashion Caps fans are unfortunately getting used to seeing, a lead washed away.  This time though, the Caps were able to claw back, barely.

Caps jumped out to a quick 2-0 lead in the first period.  Eric Fehr started off the scoring deflecting in a bomb from D Karl Alzner, the Caps 2007 first round draft selection, to give the Caps the 1-0 advantage at the 8:47 mark.  It was Alzner’s first point of the season in his second game since being recalled from Hershey.  A little over a minute later, Caps struck again, this time a wicked slap shot from Alexander Ovechkin, his 18th goal of the season.  That goal moved Ovie to within 1 goal of Marian Gaborik of the Rangers, who leads the NHL with 19 goals.  The goal was assisted by Nicklas Backstrom and Alexandre Giroux.

The second period was all Montreal as they out shot the Caps 9-7 and scored twice to tie it up at 2-2.  Jaroslav Spacek and Tomas Plekanec each scored in the second for Montreal.    Travis Moen scored a little over 5 minutes into the third and Montreal took a 3-2 lead and the Capitals collapse looked complete.  Caps managed some shots on Carey Price in the 3rd period, but could not get the equalizer.  On a late power play, it looked as if the Caps were going to go down to defeat.  A timeout was called with 15.5 seconds left int he game, Caps still trailed 3-2.  But the Eric Fehr struck again on a backhand that went through Price to tie the game up with just 11 seconds left in the game, forcing an overtime.

Washington out shot Montreal 3-2 in over time, but neither team managed to score, sending the game to a shoot out.  Both Price and Caps goalie Semyon Varlamov stopped the first two shooters.  After Varly managed to stop Plekanec on the third Montreal shot, it was up to Nicklas Backstrom.  Backstrom hit it for the win, taking a nice shot right up and over the right shoulder of Price to seal the 2 points for the Caps.  Varly improved to an impressive 10-1-2 in regular season stopping 21 of 24 shots.

Special Teams:

Caps were 1 for 3 on the power play scoring with 11 seconds left in regulation on the backhanded rebound from Eric Fehr.  The Capitals penalty kill unit had a less than impressive night, going only 50%, killing 2 of 4 penalties.

Multi-Point Scorers:

Alexander Ovechkin, 1 goal, 1 assist

Eric Fehr, 2 goals

DCPSR Player of the Game:  ERIC FEHR, 2 goals

Notes:

*  Alexander Ovechkin has a 4 game scoring streak in which he has 5 points.  Ovechkin is heating up since missing 6 games to injury.

*  Mike Green’s 8 game scoring streak was snapped last night as he failed to register a point.

*  Tomas Fleischmann ended a 5 game scoring drought picking up an assist last night.  After a super hot start, Flash has 2 points in his last 6 games.

*  Eric Fehr is starting to heat up for the Capitals.  The former number once draft pick is real good when he charges the net with little care.  In the last three games, Fehr has 3 goals and an assist.  Last night’s 2 goal effort was Fehr’s first multi-goal game of his career.

*  Semyon Varlamov is tied for 11th in the NHL in GAA lowering it to 2.38.  He is tied for 8th overall in save percentage with .919.  He is tied for 4th overall in shoot out saves, saving 84.2% of shots.

*  Caps improved to 7-3-3 in the month November.  Caps play Southeast Division opponents in 4 of their next 6 games.