Capitals 4, Devils 0

Cristobal Huet stopped every shot he faced, Sergei Fedorov notched two assists and Matt Cooke…was in the building as the Capitals shut out the Eastern Conference leading New Jersey Devils, 4-0.

But it wasn’t just the new players that made the difference for the Capitals - Nicklas Backstrom and Alexander Semin each had two points, Donald Brashear chipped in with a goal and the team allowed only 18 shots on goal.

Also notable was Washington’s play with the man advantage, as the Caps scored each of the two times they had a powerplay. Fedorov is going to be important here; after Michael Nylander’s injury Bruce Boudreau moved Tomas Fleischmann to the first powerplay unit as the system called for two left-handed players down low. No offense to Flash, but the powerplay’s going to be a lot stronger with Fedorov filling that role.

DMG’s 3 Stars
(1) Cristobal Huet - 18 saves on 18 shots
(2) Alexander Semin - 1 goal, 1 assist, +1
(3) Nicklas Backstrom - 2 assists, +1

Quotable

“It was an ideal start, I would say. But we can’t stop here.”

- Cristobal Huet

Quick Hits

• In addition to picking up an assist, Fedorov won 10 of 13 faceoffs (77%)
• Alex Ovechkin has now gone seven games without scoring - a career high (low?).
• Again the Capitals played well in front of their own net (and Huet did a good job controlling rebounds), and again John Erskine was scratched.
• While we’re on the topic of personnel decisions, I thought it was odd that Jeff Schultz saw time on the powerplay and Steve Eminger didn’t.
• Nice to see Viktor Kozlov taking a page out of Quintin Laing’s book, shot blocking-wise.
• Only three Capitals players were credited with giveaways - Ovechkin (3), Mike Green (2) and Shaone Morrisonn (1). To contrast, the Devils had nine players with at least on.