Skip navigation
Favorites
Sign up to follow your favorites on all your devices.
Sign up

Washington Capitals end Philadelphia Flyers’ six-game winning streak, take top spot in East

57758_mike_green

Rookie goalie Sergei Bobrovsky did a heck of a job merely getting the Philadelphia Flyers into overtime, but eventually the high-powered Washington Capitals’ power play was too much for him. Mike Green scored a power-play goal in overtime to give the Capitals the win, powering them to a narrow lead over the Flyers for the top spot in the East Conference.

Washington 3, Philadelphia 2 (OT)

The Flyers managed to snag three out of four points in two hard-fought back-to-back contests with the Islanders and Capitals, but they might kick themselves a bit for losing this one. They squandered two one goal leads and were out-shot in each period as they lost for the first time after reeling off six straight wins.

Washington is on quite the hot streak themselves, winning six out of their last seven matches as they clearly rekindled the positive energy from their Presidents Trophy winning 2009-10 season. Three of those six wins happened in overtime or shootout, indicating that this team is really rising to the occasion right now. The best part might be that they’re doing so well against tough opponents, as they foiled hot goalies in Boston (Tim Thomas) and Philadelphia (Bobrovsky).

While Bobrovsky is garnering some serious Calder Trophy attention, he was bested by the Capitals’ barely known other rookie goalie: Braden Holtby. He is now 2-0 since he earned a win after relieving Michal Neuvirth in a win over the Boston Bruins.

Green extended his goal scoring streak to four games while Alexander Semin earned his team-leading ninth goal and Eric Fehr also notched a nice one for the Capitals. Nicklas Backstrom earned two assists while Alex Ovechkin assisted on one goal. Meanwhile, Ville Leino and Nikolai Zherdev scored for the Flyers.

As Joe pointed out earlier today, the Flyers and Capitals are developing an intriguing under the radar rivalry. Was this game a possible preview of the Eastern Conference finals? We’ll have to wait and see, but such a series could be awfully entertaining.