Philadelphia Flyers beat Washington Capitals 3-2 in O.T.
Andrej Meszaros lit the lamp with the game-winner in overtime, as the Philadelphia Flyers held on for 3-2 victory over the Washington Capitals, at Wells Fargo Centre on Tuesday night.
Jeff Carter tallied a goal in his fourth consecutive contest and Claude Giroux also found the net for Flyers, who have won three games in a row and improved to 7-1-0. Sergei Bobrovsky turned aside 23 shots for Philadelphia.
Alex Ovechkin and Mike Knuble netted goals for the slumping Washington, who fell to 1-2-2 in their previous five play-offs. Michal Neuvirth started the play on net for Washington, but was pulled after the opening period with a lower-body injury. Semyon Varlamov
took his place and allowed two goals on 22 shots.
Washington Coach Bruce Boudreau said after the game, "He (Neuvirth) is day-to-day with a lower body injury. You could tell on the first goal that he didn't move that well. He was able to gut it out for the rest of the period."
Philadelphia wasted a little time in taking a 1-0 lead just 90 seconds into the first period. Jeff Carter skated down the right-wing side, hustled around Washington defenseman John Carlson, then streaked behind the net and tipped the puck home.
The Flyers then struck again to double their advantage with six and a half minutes left in the middle period. Carter again came up with the assist. Brilliant fore-checking and puck control led to a minute-plus stretch of cycling and steady pressure on Varlamov.
The hard work finally paid off when Carter controlled the puck along the goal line to the right side of the net, and fed a backhand pass into the low slot for Giroux, who gathered his own rebound and knocked it home from close range.
The Capitals then played furiously and created some chances to get back into the game, but could not capitalize on them.
The best chance of the middle period fell to Jason Chimera with four minutes left. Chimera was all alone at the right post and fired a shot after taking a cross-ice pass from Ovechkin, but Bobrovsky quickly blocked the shot with his pad.
Bobrovsky denied Chimera again three and a half minutes into the final period with a glove save. Chimera was beyond the Philadelphia defence in the low slot, but his opportunity was blocked.
Capitals Forward Matt Hendricks praised his opponents after the game. He said, "They’re a good team, they play well, and their record shows it."
The Capitals however, sprung to life in the third period and tied the game with a pair of goals 40 seconds apart.
Knuble reduced the deficit to 2-1 in the eighth minute of the final stanza. A turnover by Philadelphia forward Ville Leino in the defensive zone allowed Marcus Johansson to gain control of the disc. His shot was saved, but Knuble got the loose puck and tipped
it into the net from the right post.
A few moments later, Ovechkin tied the game at 2-2 with his 16th goal of the season. During a mix up in front of the net Ovechkin hardly made contact with his stick, after he carried the disc to the ice with his glove and tucked it over the goal line. The
goal was confirmed after a video review and the game went into overtime.
Hendricks commended the way his team managed to get themselves back into the game. He said, "I don't think we had the start we wanted, but we fought our way back to get a point."
Just a minute into the extra session Matt Carle brought the puck into the zone, controlled near the right circle and threw a pass back to Meszaros, who blasted it home with a wrist shot from the high slot with the help of a timely screen from James van Riemsdyk.
An excited Meszaros, in a post-match interview, described his goal by saying, "I wanted to shoot - I yelled at Carle to pass it. I was just trying to hit the net and I shot it and it went in."
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