Blues Thump Capitals 4-1

Photo by Patrick McDermott/NHLI via Getty Image

The St. Louis Blues beat the Washington Capitals 4-1 Monday night at Capital One Arena. With the exception of an Alex Ovechkin power play goal, it was all St. Louis in this one. The loss drops the Capitals record to 27-13-5 (59 points) for the season. The Capitals are back in action tomorrow night (Tuesday) when they visit the Predators in Nashville. Puck drop is set for 8:00 PM ET.

The Capitals opened the scoring with a power play goal from Alex Ovechkin for a 1-0 lead at the first intermission. The Blues would strike for three quick goals to open the middle frame for a 3-1 lead at the second break. Vladimir Tarasenko would stretch the Blues lead to 4-1 with a power play goal midway through the final frame, and that would be the final.

STARTERS
Pheonix Copley (10-2-3, 2.56 GAA, .916 sv%) started between the pipes for the Capitals. Jake Allen (14-14-4, 3.07 GAA, .896 sv%) got the start in goal for the visiting Blues. The starting forward lines and defensive pairs for the Capitals:

Ovechkin-Kuznetsov-Wilson
Vrana-Backstrom-Oshie
Connolly-Eller-Burakovsky
Stephenson-Boyd-DSP

Kempny-Carlson
Orlov-Niskanen
Orpik-Bowey

Scratches: Jonas Siegenthaler, Nic Dowd and Dmitrij Jaskin.

FIRST PERIOD
The Capitals would start the scoring with a power play goal from Alex Ovechkin 7:50 of the opening frame. Dmitry Orlov and Travis Boyd were credited with the helpers.

And that would be all of the scoring in the opening frame. The Blues out-attempted the Caps 27-13 and led in shots on goal (SOG) 15-7 for the first 20 minutes. The Capitals were 1 for 1 and the Blues 0 for 0 on the power play in the first period.

SECOND PERIOD
The Blues would tie things up early in the middle frame with a tally from Ivan Barbashev at 3:18 of the second period.

The Blues would grab their first lead of the evening with a goal from Vince Dunn at 5:11 of the middle frame, making it 2-1.

The Blues would stretch their lead to 3-1 moments later with a goal from David Perron at 8:00 of the second period.

The period would conclude with the Blues leading 3-1. The Blues out-attempted the Capitals 17-14 and led 14-13 in SOG for the second frame.

THIRD PERIOD
The Blues would add a power play goal midway through the final frame from Vladimir Tarasenko at 10:24, giving the Blues a 4-1 lead.

That would be the final.

SHAVINGS

With his power play goal, Alex Ovechkin now has 238 power play goals in his career, passing Brendan Shanahan (237) for sixth place all-time. Ovechkin is now nine power play goals shy of passing Phil Esposito (246) for fifth place all-time.
With jis power play goal, Ovechkin (640g, 533a) is now seven points away from passing Sergei Fedorov (483g, 696a in 1,248 games) to become the highest scoring Russian-born player all-time.
Brooks Orpik played in his 1,000th career NHL game.
The NHL box score is here.

SCENES FROM THE DISTRICT

View this post on Instagram

Divyne and the Metro Maple Leafs in the building! #HockeyIsForEveryone

A post shared by Washington Capitals (@capitals) on Jan 14, 2019 at 5:00pm PST