Rangers Make It a Long Day for Ovechkin at BetLM

Rangers Make It a Long Day for Ovechkin

NEW YORK — Alex Ovechkin is one of the most dynamic play­ers in hockey. He com­mands atten­tion from top defen­sive play­ers every time he steps on the ice. For seven games in the first round of the 2012 Stan­ley Cup Play­offs, he bat­tled with Boston’s Zdeno Chara and Den­nis Sei­den­berg, exchang­ing huge body blows with each while try­ing to find space to pro­duce offense.

Ovechkin isn’t likely to face the same phys­i­cal war­fare in the sec­ond round against the New York Rangers, but Dan Girardi and Ryan McDon­agh were the best defen­sive pair­ing in hockey at neu­tral­iz­ing tough com­pe­ti­tion this season.

For Game 1 of this series at Madi­son Square Gar­den, NHL.com focused on Ovechkin, how Wash­ing­ton coach Dale Hunter tried to get him ice time away from Girardi and McDon­agh, and how the impres­sive duo was able to keep the Caps’ super­star in check dur­ing a 3–1 vic­tory for the Rangers.

“It is big respon­si­bil­ity,” McDon­agh said. “He’s a big-time player on their team and a guy they look for to step up. We really just try to do it in [groups of] fives. It really helps when our for­wards are back pres­sur­ing him. It allows us to stay up on him. We just keep it sim­ple against him.”

Here is a shift-by-shift recap of Ovechkin’s long after­noon at the Garden:

FIRST PERIOD

20:00 Ovechkin started for the Cap­i­tals, but not with his nor­mal line­mates — he opened with check­ers Jay Bea­gle and Troy Brouwer. Hunter has to put his lineup in first, so New York coach John Tor­torella coun­tered with his top line (Carl Hagelin, Brad Richards and Mar­ian Gaborik) and the guys Ovechkin should expect to see a lot of, Girardi and McDon­agh, on defense.

Hunter was expected to want the Bea­gle line against Richards and Gaborik, but throw­ing Ovechkin out there may have forced Tor­torella to start Girardi and McDon­agh. Ovechkin went to the bench after the open­ing face­off, but Girardi and McDon­agh stayed out — which is exactly what Hunter was look­ing for.

19:25 Ovechkin came right back out for the sec­ond shift of the game with his reg­u­lar line­mates — Brooks Laich and Jason Chimera — after a stop­page of play for a defen­sive face­off. Because it had only been 35 sec­onds, Girardi and McDon­agh stayed out to play against Ovechkin and they ended up with a long shift (1:38) in the process.

Chimera was a sur­prise addi­tion to the top line — Brouwer prac­ticed with Laich and Ovechkin on Fri­day, and they took pregame warmups together as well. Chimera said he found out he was play­ing with Ovechkin and Laich on the bench just before the game started.

A big prob­lem for Ovechkin’s line in the Boston series was get­ting out of its own end, and that was the case on this first shift against New York as well. The Rangers gen­er­ated a cou­ple of near misses, while the Cap­i­tals strug­gled to get the puck out of dan­ger. It was a bit of foreshadowing.

16:58 Ovechkin’s line got out for an offen­sive zone face­off against Rangers’ defense­men Marc Staal and Stu Bickel, but Girardi and McDon­agh jumped on almost imme­di­ately. The Cap­i­tals earned a power play when Mike Rupp ran into goal­tender Braden Holtby.

“The coaches are watch­ing it. We’re try­ing to match him a lit­tle bit in this series, but you’re not always going to get the matchup,” McDon­agh said. “It is other guys out there against him too. [Stall] and Del Zotto and Stral­man, Bickel too — they all did a good job against him.”

16:37 Ovechkin stayed out for the power play on the left point, but Alexan­der Semin short cir­cuited the man advan­tage by tak­ing a sense­less penalty near the benches 28 sec­onds later.

13:44 Ovechkin’s line hopped on the ice on the fly, but Girardi and McDon­agh joined them almost imme­di­ately. It turned out to be a quick shift — the Wash­ing­ton cap­tain was back on the bench after 31 sec­onds of … not much.

12:00 The Cap­i­tals had an offensive-zone face­off after an icing by the Rangers, and this was the per­fect spot for Hunter to get Ovechkin away from Girardi and McDon­agh. Staal and Stral­man were out for essen­tially an entire 37-second shift against Ovechkin, but the Rangers won the face­off and cleared the puck out of dan­ger; the Cap­i­tals never really threat­ened before another change.

9:24 Ovechkin’s line rejoined the play on the fly and it ended up being the trio’s best shift of the period. Girardi and McDon­agh joined in progress, but the Cap­i­tals were able to keep the puck in the New York end and estab­lish some pres­sure. Ovechkin had a chance at a one-timer near the top of the left cir­cle but whiffed on it.

7:48 Staal got called for inter­fer­ence and Ovechkin came on as the extra attacker. He’s always the sixth guy — unless he’s already on the ice for Washington.

7:44 Ovechkin stayed on for the PP and assumed his spot at the left point. He broke his stick on a one-timer and had to race to the bench for a new one. Nick­las Back­strom hit the out­side of the post with a shot but oth­er­wise all the Cap­i­tals cre­ated were a few harm­less shots.

3:27 Ovechkin hopped over the boards on the fly; Girardi and McDon­agh were already wait­ing for him. There was a neu­tral zone face­off with 2:53 left, and Ovechkin’s line stayed out for it — as did Girardi and McDon­agh. It ended up being Ovechkin’s longest shift of the period (1:18).

At one point, the Rangers suc­cess­fully exe­cuted a break­out and gained the Wash­ing­ton zone by send­ing an attacker right by Ovechkin and putting the puck out in front of him. That led to some pres­sure and a great chance for the Rangers, but it also led to a coun­ter­at­tack by Washington.

Ovechkin got the puck and moved in 1-on-2 against Girardi and McDon­agh, but after try­ing to slip the puck past McDon­agh he dragged his stick behind him and tripped the defense­man before head­ing to the penalty box.

0:06 Ovechkin came out of the penalty box to fin­ish the period. He ended it with 10 shifts, though two were less than 10 sec­onds because of whis­tles. Ovechkin had 7:40 of ice time, but was cred­ited with no attempts on goal — even though he tried to shoot twice, whiff­ing on one and break­ing his stick on the other.

SECOND PERIOD

20:00 Ovechkin started the period on the bench, replaced by nor­mal third-line wing Matt Hen­dricks. Tor­torella also replaced Girardi and McDon­agh — dur­ing a regular-season game it is not uncom­mon for teams to use the same five guys to start all three peri­ods. This was not a regular-season game, though.

18:19 The Cap­i­tals broke out of their own zone shortly after Ovechkin came onto the ice, but his cen­ter­ing pass was between two play­ers and noth­ing came of it. New York went the other way and had a 4-on-3 break — in part because Ovechkin let up just after cross­ing cen­ter ice.

14:31 Ovechkin came on the ice and had a few sec­onds against Michael Del Zotto and Bickel before Girardi and McDon­agh joined him. The shift lasted only 21 sec­onds because of a face­off in the defen­sive zone — one that Hunter opted to go with the Bea­gle line for.

13:40 Staal was called for hold­ing, so Ovechkin came on for six sec­onds as an extra attacker. He stayed on for the start of the power play, which became a 5-on-3 with 12:07 remain­ing because of a board­ing call on Bran­don Prust.

Ovechkin stayed at the left point for the two-man advan­tage, but he first fired a shot over the net, then Rus­lan Fedotenko blocked his sec­ond attempt to ignite the Gar­den crowd. He later tried to feed a diag­o­nal pass to Back­strom that was tipped into the cor­ner. It ended up being a 138-second shift for Ovechkin, but the Cap­i­tals failed to cap­i­tal­ize and missed a key chance to pull ahead.

“We made poor deci­sions,” Chimera said of the power play. “We need to shoot the puck more and get more traf­fic there. Our power play has got to find ways to win us good hockey games. We could have been up 1–0 or 2–0 for us in the first two peri­ods with our power play.”

8:28 Ovechkin started this shift with Bea­gle and Brouwer, then it turned into a dou­ble when Laich and Chimera joined him. The Rangers also turned this shift into a 1–0 lead. Artem Anisi­mov won a one-on-one bat­tle with Mike Green and came out from behind the net to the left of goal­tender Braden Holtby. Ovechkin was there, but tried to knock the puck away from Anisi­mov with one hand on his stick.

3:10 McDon­agh and Girardi started a shift with 4:24 left, but McDon­agh got stuck out while Girardi changed. Ovechkin came onto the ice just before McDon­agh left, so he had a shift against Girardi and Staal, but it ended after 33 sec­onds because of a defensive-zone faceoff.

0:33 Ovechkin’s line finally found some space in tran­si­tion and made the Rangers pay. Laich lofted a per­fect saucer pass to Chimera, who in his words “whacked at it” and it went in. Ovechkin was dri­ving toward the net in the mid­dle of the ice. The Rangers got caught try­ing to get Girardi and McDon­agh on the ice — Girardi came on but Chimera got a step on him and scored just four sec­onds into his shift. McDon­agh never made it out.

Ovechkin fin­ished the sec­ond period with seven shifts for a total of 5:46 of ice time and three attempted shots — but none were on target.

THIRD PERIOD

19:18 Ovechkin got his first — and only — shot on net dur­ing his first shift of the third period, but it was a weak one from the top of the offen­sive zone that Rangers goalie Hen­rik Lundqvist had no trou­ble with. Girardi and McDon­agh changed with 18:09 remain­ing, but Ovechkin extended his shift — 85 sec­onds at even strength in a tie game was pre­cisely the type of thing that frus­trated for­mer coach Bruce Boudreau. It was also a sign of Ovechkin’s frus­tra­tion at not accom­plish­ing any­thing against New York’s dyna­mite duo.

Hunter was crit­i­cized for lim­it­ing Ovechkin’s ice time dur­ing the third period against Boston, and he skipped the top line the sec­ond time through to start this final period. Backstrom’s line came back out after a shift by Beagle’s line, and that group’s inabil­ity to keep the puck in the offen­sive zone, com­bined with a com­mu­ni­ca­tion error by the defense corps, led to New York’s sec­ond goal with 13:00 remaining.

12:37 After a quick shift for the Bea­gle line, there was an offensive-zone face­off so Hunter sent the Ovechkin trio over the boards. The Rangers got the puck out of dan­ger and spent a long shift in the Wash­ing­ton zone that resulted in the third goal.

Chimera took respon­si­bil­ity for Richards hav­ing a free path to the net, but Ovechkin was also par­tially respon­si­ble. He had drifted out toward the blue line at the right point when Richards cut to the net and received a pass from Chris Krei­der. Den­nis Wide­man also had to deal with Gaborik in the slot — a guy Ovechkin raced toward to cover but didn’t get to in time — and Wide­man was stuck in a 2-on-1 sit­u­a­tion. Richards patiently picked a hole on Holtby and scored with 11:30 left.

11:04 With the Cap­i­tals down two goals, Hunter shuf­fled the lines. Ovechkin’s next shift came with Back­strom and Mar­cus Johans­son. It was des­per­a­tion time, but the Rangers were able to thwart the attack with sim­ple plays and sound posi­tion­ing to get the puck out of the zone.

9:45 Ovechkin came out with Back­strom and Johans­son again, but again lit­tle offense was cre­ated. The Wash­ing­ton cap­tain did have a big hit behind the play on Staal that drew the ire of the Gar­den crowd.

7:53 Ovechkin hopped onto the ice in the mid­dle of a loud, deri­sive chant in his honor. Thir­teen sec­onds later, another mis­com­mu­ni­ca­tion by the Cap­i­tals resulted in a too many men penalty, which Ovechkin served.

5:40 Ovechkin came out of the penalty box for another long shift. Near the end of it, he went on a dash through the neu­tral zone with the puck that ended with him stomach-first on the ice in the right cir­cle. He went down, but the offi­cials deemed it not wor­thy of a penalty. He went to the bench yelling at the near­est lines­man about the non-call, and kicked at the bench upon arrival.

2:28 One final shift for Ovechkin, and it lasted nearly two min­utes. Shortly after he came on the ice, Holtby went to the bench for an extra attacker. When the Rangers got the puck out of the offen­sive zone with about 35 sec­onds left, a dejected Ovechkin skated slowly to the bench.

“Well, I have cou­ple chances, espe­cially in [the] third,” Ovechkin said. “One time I just missed the net. It was empty cor­ner. Some­times you have to go a dif­fer­ent way and today was that kind of night.”

Ovechkin fin­ished the third period with 7:37 of ice time on seven shifts, one shot on goal and one other attempt that just missed. He fin­ished the game with 21:03 of ice time, but only one shot on goal and the Rangers took advan­tage of his line at the defen­sive end of the ice.

“We know they want to get up and he wants to play in the offen­sive zone,” McDon­agh said. “We know if we make him defend a lit­tle bit, not just him but that line in gen­eral, it wears on them and tires them down and maybe he doesn’t get that last burst of speed to rush on us. It is great to see us gen­er­at­ing a lit­tle bit there and it has got to continue.”

Added Chimera: “Yeah, I think it wears on you. I think you have to get in their zone and cre­ate more pres­sure. Any­time you spend a lot of time in your zone, bad things hap­pen. They can score goals. Look at the first goal — I think [Holtby] tried to poke it with the stick and it went through him. I think it is a lucky goal, but stuff like that hap­pens when you spend too much time in your own zone.”

Round One was a vic­tory not only for the Rangers, but for Girardi and McDon­agh, who led all skaters with 25:04 of ice time (Girardi was sec­ond with 24:38). Ovechkin spend 71 per­cent of his ice time at even strength against Girardi and more than 65 against McDonagh.

Hunter did try to get Ovechkin away from them in a few dif­fer­ent ways dur­ing the first two peri­ods, but once the Cap­i­tals fell behind it didn’t really matter.

“It doesn’t change,” Tor­torella said of Girardi and McDon­agh. “They just con­tinue to play. They were real good, spent a lot of time on the ice. That’s their job and they do it com­plete almost every night.”

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