A dead-last team isn't supposed to beat an unbeaten team. Well, sometimes it happens--that's why they play the game.
Last night, the dead-last Capitals spanked the formerly unbeaten Tampa Bay Lightning, and they did it using their supposed missing elements.
Their scorers scored, their defenders defended, and their goaltender tended the goal. Dainius Zubrus had two goals (the first an unassisted shorthanded goal), Jaromir Jagr and Robert Lang each had a goal and an assist, Alexander Semin had two assists, and Sergei Gonchar had three asssists. Jeff Halpern was the only Washington scorer with one point, banking a late-second period shot off of the far pipe into the net. Olaf Kolzig faced forty-two shots, and allowed only one to get by him--a middle-of-the-third-period shot by Martin St. Louis.
Starting Tampa Bay goalie Nikolai Khabibulin only faced eleven shots, but he let four of them into the net, and was replaced by John Grahame at 8:40 of the second period. Grahame faced only 12 shots, letting in Zubrus's second goal of the night.
Tampa Bay would have defeated Washington had it not been for Olie Kolzig's goaltending. Time and again Kolzig stopped all of Tampa Bays shots, be they screened, point blank, wraparounds, or fired from a howitzer. In the previous Capitals games, many of those shots would have gotten by Kolzig; last night, however, the puck apparently was as big as a watermelon and moving no faster than a drugged snail, and Olie stopped shots that any other goalie wouldn't have.
Washington remains in last place, tied with Columbus at seven points. Tampa Bay is in a four-way tie for third place overall.
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