Ovi, Caps’ three-goal first too much for Wings

By Michael Caples –

DETROIT – As the old saying goes, “close only counts in horseshoes and hand grenades.”

The Red Wings fell behind early to the Washington Capitals Monday night, only to make a bid at a late comeback. But when the final buzzer sounded at Joe Louis Arena, the scoreboard still read 5-3 in favor of the visiting Eastern Conference squad.

“In the end, we had a push and all that, but we came up short,” said coach Mike Babcock. “With the line-up we have, I don’t think we can race anybody to four or five. You’ve got to win 3-2 or 2-1, so you’ve got to give up as little as you can and be sound defensively. I thought we had lots of effort; I had no problem with that. We just can’t get behind, especially to a good team. We dug ourselves a hole tonight.”

Washington captain Alexander Ovechkin had a pair of power-play goals in the first period, while Michigan native Mike Knuble scored his sixth goal of the season to build the Capitals a 3-0 lead in the first 15 minutes.

A second-period goal by Kyle Quincey and third-period goals from Todd Bertuzzi and Dan Cleary brought the Wings back into the contest.  But Keith Aucoin’s goal late in the second period turned out to be the difference-maker for the Capitals.

“We said between the second and third just to give ourselves a chance, and we did that,” Quincey said. “We couldn’t get anything going on the last power play, but we gave ourselves a chance, and we made it close. That’s all we try to do, and we came up short. Obviously it wasn’t good enough.”

However, Quincey pointed out that the strong third-period showing is something the injury-depleted Red Wings can build on moving forward.

“For sure. You’ve got to look at the positives. We didn’t roll over and die, we didn’t make it five, six, seven nothing, so we battled back, and we’ll build on that.”

The Wings take on the Rangers in New York on Wednesday.