WASHINGTON _ The Carolina Hurricanes have done it to the Washington Capitals again. In overtime, again.
It wasn't as dramatic as the beating the Caps in Game 7 of a Stanley Cup playoff series, in double overtime. But Carolina's 3-2 victory Saturday, in the Caps' home opener of a new season, again left the Canes celebrating when it over while the Caps slowly, glumly skated to their locker room.
Jake Gardiner's goal at 4:04 of the overtime decided it, the defenseman ripping a shot past Caps goalie Braden Holtby. That came after the Canes had killed off a Jordan Staal penalty to begin the overtime _ Carolina was six-for-six on the penalty kill in the game _ and after Canes goalie James Reimer had stopped six shots in the OT.
The Canes trailed 2-0 in the third but tied the score on Erik Haula's power-play goal and then Jaccob Slavin's first goal of the season. Caps fans, in a festive mood much of the night, fell silent.
The Caps had taken the lead on goals from Garnet Hathaway and T.J. Oshie. But Washington was playing its third game in four days to start the season, beating St. Louis and then the New York Islanders on Friday, and the Canes were the fresher team in the third period.
Reimer, in his first start for the Canes, had to make some tough saves in the third to give his team a chance as the Caps gamely kept grinding.
Some expected the Caps to come out swinging, literally. There's some bad blood between the teams after last year's heated series and there was some war-of-words sniping this past week between Caps coach Todd Reirden and the Canes' Rod Brind'Amour.
The Canes trailed 2-0 in the third but tied the score on Erik Haula's power-play goal and then Jaccob Slavin's first goal of the season. Caps fans, in a festive mood much of the night, fell silent.
The Caps had taken the lead on goals from Garnet Hathaway and T.J. Oshie. But Washington was playing its third game in four days to start the season, beating St. Louis and then the New York Islanders on Friday, and the Canes were the fresher team in the third period.
Some expected the Caps to come out swinging, literally. There's some bad blood between the teams after last year's heated series and there was some war-of-words sniping this past week between Caps coach Todd Reirden and the Canes' Rod Brind'Amour.
The game was hard-fought but without incident. For the first two periods, it was more about Holtby's goaltending and some timely goals by the Caps.
In the first period, Holtby calmly denied the Canes' Sebastian Aho and Martin Necas on breakaways. In the second, the Canes' Warren Foegele had some good looks late in the period that Holtby stopped.
The Canes finally broke through in the third on a power play, Haula going to the front of the crease and getting his stick on a Teuvo Teravainen pass.
Haula has goals in each of the first two games, tying the score 3-3 in Thursday's opener against the Montreal Canadiens as the Canes won 4-3 in a shootout at PNC Arena.
Hathaway scored his first goal with the Caps and Oshie, who had the winner Friday against the Islanders, scored again.
Oshie's goal had to be reviewed. The forward got his stick on a high bounding puck near the crossbar, knocking it down and then backhanding it past Reimer. Brind'Amour had a few words, with referee Chris Rooney, about the Oshie goal but was told there was no high-sticking call to be made since Oshie didn't knock the puck into the net.
Brind'Amour did win a coach's challenge later in the second when Hathaway appeared to score again on a shot from the right wing while Brendan Leipsic crowded Reimer in the crease. Brind'Amour claimed goaltender interference and won the challenge, keeping the score 2-0, a turning point in the game.
Hathaway had given the Caps a 1-0 lead in the first, taking advantage of a turnover by Canes defenseman Joel Edmundson to beat Reimer.
The Caps played without forward Evgeny Kuznetsov, who served the final game of a three-game NHL suspension for "inappropriate conduct."
For the Canes, it was a first look at Reimer, who Carolina picked up in a late-June trade with the Florida Panthers, anticipating goalie Curtis McElhinney leaving in free agency on July 1. Petr Mrazek was the winning goalie in that Game 7 showdown against the Caps in April, but Brind'Amour decided to use him Sunday against Tampa Bay at home and go with Reimer.
"We have a back-to-back situation and you don't want to overload Petr here early on," Brind'Amour said Saturday morning. "It's early in the season and just felt that extra day of rest might be beneficial for (Mrazek). You've got to pick your poison, right? You've got Washington or you've got Tampa. We need obviously both guys to play all year, so this is kind of the (way) we're going to go, especially early on."
Brind'Amour wasn't sure how the game would be played out, given last year's playoffs.
"Certainly there's going to be a lot of emotions, opening night and all that," Brind'Amour said after Saturday's morning skate. "That always brings that element into it and obviously the history, just playing them in the playoffs. I'm sure there will be a lot of emotion and it should be a fun game that way."
