Across the Pond

Let's take a quick trip across the pond to the NHL where last night the Buffalo Sabres paid a visit to the Verizon Centre in Washington DC to play the Capitals for their penultimate home game of the regular season.

Washington took an early lead in the game through Alex Ovechkin who scored on the powerplay for his 55th goal of the season. The Buffalo side came back just 4 minutes later though and took the lead with two goals within the space of a minute to make it 2-1 Sabres going into the first interval.

Goals at 23:41 and 23:50 both on the powerplay from Semin and Federov respectively regained the lead for Washington. Derek Roy of the Sabres tied the game again on the powerplay with less then 2 minutes on the clock in the second frame. Washington responded just seconds later when Sergei Federov scored his 10th of the year to make it 4-3 Caps.

The third period saw just one goal coming in the last ten minutes from Maxim Afinogenov to push the game into overtime. One minute fifty one seconds into the extra session Jason Pominville put the puck past rookie goalie Simeon Varlamov to secure the win.

As a Capitals fan myself you might be wondering why I'm writing about a loss, the reason in case you hadn't heard was because the 1 point that Washington gained from the overtime loss gave them to 102 points on the season which was enough for the team to clinch their second straight Southeast Division title.

Today also saw a big game in Boston where the Bruins took on the Rangers. It was a closely fought affair with the only goal coming for the home side in the first period when rookie Blake Wheeler netted his 22nd of the year. Boston netminder Tim Thomas put on a first star performance stopping all 31 shots from New York for his 5th shutout this year, he should have plenty more to come in the future as he has recently signed a 4 year contract extension. The game was big news though as it meant that Boston got their 112th point of the season putting them out of reach of the second placed Capitals and therefore clinching the Eastern Conference title.