The Capitals played their fifth game this season without star player Alexander Ovechkin against the Minnesota Wild on Friday night, but for the fourth time, his absence did not affect the victorious outcome of his team. The Capitals dominated for a great deal of the inter-conference encounter, and successfully knocked off their opponents by a score of 3-1, as the Eastern Conference leaders continued to show the well-rounded culture that the team has developed.
“We tired them out tonight by keeping them on defense for so long,” noted Capitals’ head coach Bruce Boudreau after his team’s victory, “It’s a difficult thing. Defending is so much more tiring then being offensive. It’s the same in every sport. When you have to keep going back for pucks like that, it can cause mistakes and those can really cost you. Our pressure is what caused that tonight.”
The teams got off to a slower start than the tumultuous first period the Capitals opened to against the New York Islanders earlier in the week, in which both teams scored within the first two minutes of the game. The Wild came in showing they were not just there to mess around, firing seven shots in the first ten minutes to the Capitals’ one. Semyon Varlamov remained rock solid in goal, however, and the Wild would continue to be frustrated early...
