Red Hot Capitals Defeated Rangers 6-5 in Heartbreaker at Garden Thursday

It was a tough loss for the home team at the Garden where Alex Ovechkin thrives on the boos and loves playing. The Blueshirts defense gave up too many odd man rushes and a ridiculous 9 penalties. The Rangers alternate captain Vinny Prospal had a 4 point game with 2 goals and 2 assists, his best as a Ranger. New addition Olli Jokinen had a 2 point game with 1 goal and 1 assist. The best part of the game was seeing the Ranger power play score 4 goals where they hadn’t had one in the previous 7 games. Unfortunately one of the best penalty killing teams in the NHL couldn’t stop the amazing barrage from the Capitals on their power play as they Caps scored 3 in the game. A horrible goal was given up with 9 seconds left in the 2nd period as Ovechkin got the puck, came down the left side, pushed the puck through Michal Rozsival’s legs and shot the puck towards the net with one hand. The puck hit Henrik Lundqvist’s stick and flipped over his shoulder into the net. A nightmare goal that cut into the Rangers lead and the score was 5-4 after at the 2nd intermission. The Rangers outshot the Capitals 38-32 and got bodies to the net. The Caps Niklas Backstrom was a monster who had the winning goal in the 3rd period with 4 assists for a 5 point night. The Blueshirts needed that game and it would have helped going into the Saturday night game against the hated division rival New Jersey Devils. The Blueshirts giving up 9 minor penalties is terrible and that gave the game to Washington. Olli Jokinen took 3 of those unfortunately. Jose Theodore (aka Three-or-More, as in goals allowed) has been stellar in the past 2 plus weeks, with last nights game the most allowed in that stretch. The three stars of the game were Alex Ovechkin, Niklas Backstrom and Vinny Prospal.