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Beagle show: Capitals upend Sharks in overtime

The Sharks got a point out of their homestand, but that’s all as San Jose fell to the Capitals 5-4 in overtime on Wednesday night.

It was a close game, possession-wise, throughout but two goals from Brent Burns and a late equalizer from Joe Thornton weren’t enough to survive the Jay Beagle show in San Jose.

The trouble for San Jose started when the starting lines hit the ice — with the dreaded Burns and Scott Hannan making up the top defensive pairing to start the game. The Sharks carried play early on despite missing Marc Edouard-Vlasic and Justin Braun again, but the Capitals took command of the game midway through the first.

After a decent penalty kill 12 minutes in, the Sharks couldn’t keep the Capitals off the board any longer. A shot from distance deflected off the stick of Matt Tennyson and fell right to Jay Beagle who hammered it home to give Washington the lead.

The Sharks were lucky to escape the second period without giving up another as the Capitals dominated the first period, outshooting San Jose 10-6.

Burns, on a five-forward power play, tied the game after just 20 seconds in the second period. The “defenseman” took a big shot from the point to level the game at 1-1. Then, fewer than 30 seconds after that, Burns gave San Jose the lead with another big shot that benefited from a Logan Couture screen.

The lead wouldn’t last, though, as the Capitals took advantage of their second powerplay of the night. Alexander Ovechkin, looming at the left circle like Godzilla over the Tokyo skyline, received a pass with plenty of space, threw it at the net and Troy Brouwer deflected it into the upper right corner.

Logan Couture gave the Sharks the lead again late in the second period, but Beagle was up to his old tricks in the third as the Capitals benefited from a beautiful screen by the linesman and Beagle beat Niemi for the second time of the night.

Just moments later, noted goal-scorer John Carlson put Washington on top.

Joe Thornton, noted goal-assister, passed the puck directly to the back of the net with an assist from Joe Pavelski with just over five minutes to play.

[Fancy Stats] – [Capitals’ Reaction]
[Event Summary] – [PBP Log] – [TOI Log] – [Faceoff Report]

  • Apologies for the abbreviated recap tonight, but an exciting game ended in the Capitals favor despite the Sharks winning the corsi battle. There are (some) positives to be taken from this one, but they come with the same old negatives (Scott Hannan).
  • Brent Burns, Joe Thornton and Patrick Marleau all had great games tonight.
  • Two instances of bad luck cost the Sharks goals tonight. The linesman pick on the second Beagle goal and a no-call on a hook on Hannan on the game-winner will no doubt leave a bad taste in the mouths of the Sharks.
  • Who am I kidding, Hannan wasn’t helping prevent that goal if he had been given a 10-foot headstart.

FTF Three Stars

1st Star: Jay Beagle
2nd Star: Brent Burns
3rd Star: Evgeni Nabokov

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