Washington Capitals Open Night! by Dan McHugh

Tuesday night a show down in Chitown, Alex Ovechkin and the boys in Red rolled into the windy city to do battle with the 2013 Stanley Cup defending Champions the Chicago Blackhawks!  The atmosphere in the United Center was exciting! def a big time game atmosphere, and the game being on NBC sports network, and not on Comcast Sports net. It was Ovechkin in prime time, on the big stage! going up against Patrick Kane and the defending champs!  Anticpation for an exciting showdown in Chi Town!

4 Minutes into the game the Hawks struck first  Brandon Bollig getting one past Holtby, but then in 10:42 in the first it was Ovechkin getting a goal! off the power play, followed up by a goal by the Blachawks; Patrick Kane in 11:06 in the 1st period, first period was fast pace and hard hitting the Caps were loosing but batlling hard the whle period.

The 2nd period was a back and forth stalemate for the first 10 minutes, then a goal by Mikhail Grabovski for the Capitals, but the champs would strike back with a goal in 14:32 Brent Seabrook off the power play. The Caps at the end of the 2nd Period trailing 3-2, but still very much in this game.


The 3rd period, The Caps stike hard and fast with goal # 2 for the night for Grabovski 59 seconds into the period. Then in 5:16 it was Grabovski for his third goal of the night! off a power play, however that would be it for our boys in Red as the Hawks would go on to score 3 more goals for the Caps to fall 6-4 to the Blackhawks, in Chicago. Barndon Holtby would have 29 saves for the night, but gave up 6 goals. Coach Adam Oates said after the game that felt the Caps had to many turnovers tonight and its hard to win when you trunover the puck as much as they did tonight.

I think that Caps looked good tonight despite the loss, they battled the Champs hard in a 6-4 loss. However clearly they need to improve on defense you can't give up 6 goals in a game, no matter  how good your offense is and expect to win games, Def a shining light for the game was Mikhail Grabovski with 3 goals for the night, it will be exciting to see what more he does as the season progresses, I will write on tomorrow night's game against the Calgary Flames, gametime 7:00 PM! from the Phone Booth in our nations capital!