Chimera shot. Cam Ward made sure he missed.

But the rebound came out just in time for Orlov to reach back as he skated past the net, and stick the puck past Ward for his first NHL goal. The smile that flashed on Orlov’s face afterwards pretty much rendered the red goal light unnecessary.  And he put his team up 2-1, which would be the final score.

“Right then and there, you remember your first goal, when you scored your first NHL goal,” said Chimera, who had an assist and a hand in the initial on-ice celebration. “And it’s pretty cool. It’s a cool moment for him. … You wish you could have a camera at that point, ‘cause it’s priceless.”

Capitals forward Troy Brouwer chuckled when being asked about the expression of joy on Orlov’s face after the game.

“I think everyone’s that excited [about their first NHL goal], to be honest with you,” Brouwer said. “It’s such a huge accomplishment. We’re very proud of him.”

Chimera reflected on that first-goal reaction: “When you get your first, a lot of emotions go through your head, a lot of time spent getting there, so it’s a fun moment when you get it.”

Chimera also brought up, unsolicited, how hard Orlov had been working—a compliment in and of itself for the rookie.

It may be only one goal in a 82 (plus?) game season, but it took 20 years of hard work to make it happen. Hopefully more are on the way for the young defenseman.

Meanwhile, on the flip side of the game, team captain Alex Ovechkin had a hit that’s too good not to share on the Carolina Hurricanes’ Tuomo Ruutu, who could only be described as being at the wrong place at the wrong time on this one.  Pass the Tylenol, please.

On Friday, however, Beagle was merely an observer to teammate and good friend Karl Alzner’s first NHL bout against Steve Downie of the Tampa Bay Lightning.

“Anytime there’s a fight happening, you never know what’s gonna happen, so you’re obviously hoping for the best, hoping that the guy does good,” Beagle said. “He did well. I was happy for him.”

Alzner himself was fairly calm about the ordeal afterwards talking to the press. He explained the jawing at Downie afterwards in the box by Downie taking a final punch when Alzner was on the way down (perilously close to breaking one of Matt Bradley’s rules of gentlemanly fighting: never hit a guy when he’s down).

It earned him a nod from coaches Dale Hunter and Jim Johnson as well.

“Him and Jimmy both came down and said ‘good job,’” Alzner said. “I think they appreciate when anyone does something like that for the team.”

Despite Alzner’s effort, however, it was Tampa who made waves after the Downie-Alzner fight, putting up a goal to make it only 3-1 in the Capitals’ favor. The Capitals had scored two of their goals early after Tampa got three penalties back-to-back-to-back at the start of the game.

The late push by Tampa that continued into the third closed the scoreboard gap even more. Tampa scored twice, including once within the final minute of the game.

Fortunately for the Capitals, forward Troy Brouwer had his first multiple goal game of the season. He upped it to a hat trick late in the third and still managed to lead the Capitals in hits, with seven.

The shoving and hat trick in the third managed to mask what was otherwise a somewhat disappointing third period for the Capitals, who saw their lead get shortened to one with 11 seconds left and were outshot 7 to 15.  The end result was a mixed bag—the Capitals got the needed win, their power play went 2 for 4, their penalty kill was 4 for 5, but they allowed Tampa to stay in the game until the final seconds.

Check out additional analysis with Ted Starkey on the game in the video below.

Photo Caption: Photo by Clyde Caplan, clydeorama.com

Take the stats sheet with a grain of salt on this one. Wednesday saw one of the Capitals’ best third period performances, at least effort-wise, so far of the season.

Going into that period against the Pittsburgh Penguins on Wednesday, the Capitals were beating the black and gold in just about every statistical category, including the most important—the scoreboard, which had the Capitals leading 1-0 thanks to a Jason Chimera goal (he needs three more goals this season to tie his NHL career-high). There was one big exception to that rule: the shots on goal, which the Penguins were leading 20-12.

But the Capitals in the third played anything but sit back and protect the lead (narrow though it was) hockey. At one point, they had closed the shots on goal gap to only 2. They played like the team down by one, and seemed to find that next-level energy gear which has often eluded them this season—an encouraging sign after their two disappointing performances in second and third periods out on the West Coast.

And it’s an example of how the stats sheet doesn’t always tell the full story. Though by the end of the third period, the Penguins were able to pass the Capitals in hits by one and end up with a final shot total of 30-21, it still wasn’t enough. In fact, there was one shift in the third period where the Capitals stayed so long in Pittsburgh’s offensive zone that the crowd roared with approval as loudly and sustained as if Ovechkin had just scored.

The Capitals players themselves felt it was one of their best third period efforts of the season, too.

Capitals forward Jay Beagle said that between the second and third, head coach Dale Hunter told the team to stick to their game plan: keep Pittsburgh in their zone.

“He came in and he just said, ‘Keep playing our game …  be smart on the wall and get it [the puck] out, and make it come 200 feet,’” Beagle recalled.

Straightforward, and the Caps executed.

Hendricks responded in the affirmative when asked if it was the team’s strongest third period performances.

“I think it was a combination of us executing really well, great goaltending, and them being tired. Back to back games is hard to play, especially with the travel. So we executed our game plan, we tired them out through the course of the game, and by the third period, you could really tell they were struggling,” Hendricks said.

Of course, one good third period does not the rest of a season make, but it’s a new look at what ‘exciting’ Capitals hockey might look like under the new regime.

The excitement wasn’t limited to the third period, though. Hendricks and the Penguins’ Craig Adams dropped gloves before the game was three minutes old. And the crowd responded enthusiastically.

“I figured that them riding a losing streak that their scrappers were going to try to get the energy going in their favor. Adams came right at me right away. I figured we were on a two-game losing streak, we’re at home,” Hendricks said, and then finished with a  line that probably isn’t used much to describe fistfights: “It was a great time.” [He won the fight, of course.]

On a personnel note, there were other observations to keep in mind, particularly as Dale Hunter gets to know his team and personnel better: Jeff Schultz and John Erskine were both scratched, and, even more important, there was an abnormally high amount of team scouts present at Wednesday’s game.

As far as the debut of defenseman Tomas Kundratek, who was called up from AHL Hershey yesterday, Hunter gave what seemed like a positive assessment for the young player: he said Kundratek kept it simple and didn’t make any mistakes.