Dennis Wideman celebrates Alexander Semin's game winner against his former mates. (C.Nichols/Caps News Network)

The Washington Capitals, with their fathers and mentors on hand for the annual "Father's Trip", came to south Florida knowing that a win would give them possession of first place in the Southeast Division and draw them within four points of the Philadelphia Flyers for the top spot in the Eastern Conference, as Philly was destroyed by the New York Rangers, 7-0, earlier in the day.

They took care of business, though not without some tense moments.

Alexander Semin, on his only shot on goal of the game, scored 48 seconds into overtime to give the Capitals a 3-2 win over the trade-depleted Florida Panthers.

Overtime was necessary because the Panthers got a five-on-three got from David Booth at 17:34 of the third, with John Erskine in the box for a questionable tripping call, and Dennis Wideman off for a slash during the original penalty kill.

So coach Bruce Boudreau, were you happy the Caps answered so quickly in overtime after leading for so long in the game, then giving up the tying goal with less than three minutes left?  "Any time from the one second to the five minute mark would have been fine.  I'm glad we just answered."

The Capitals have found themselves in a bunch of one-goal games lately, and Nicklas Backstrom, who scored off a one-timer for the Caps first goal of the game, addressed the closeness of the recent victories.  "Obviously we want to see ourselves score more goals so we don't have to put ourselves in this situation, but they had a lot of power plays tonight and a five-on-three there and tied the game.  It's a close game, but you can't let emotions slow you."

Bottom line though was that the Caps escaped with two points.  "Exactly," Backstrom said.  "That was our goal.  We're looking forward to a big game [Monday] night [against Tampa Bay]."

Boudreau was happy with his team's effort and performance in a third period that saw the Caps take just six shots on goal.  "I don't think [the Panthers] had too many chances in the third period.  We were understanding what we had to do.  I thought we played a pretty solid period.  We weren't really trying to score."

If that statement seems odd from a coach known for all-out offense, well, it is.  It's a strange trip the Capitals have been on through 66 games, going from a team that averaged almost four goals a game to a team that now doesn't try to score with a one-goal lead in the third period.

Boudreau's confidence comes from his goalie's performance. Michal Neuvirth -- as he has been all season -- was outstanding. 

The 22-year old Czech made 32 saves, none bigger than a glove save late in the third against Booth during the remainder of Wideman's slashing call.  Boudreau complemented his goalie, saying, "That's why we kept telling people we didn't need any goaltending at the trade deadline.  We've got good goaltending."

Florida opened the scoring on a broken play.  Wideman got tangled up at center ice with Panthers center Mike Santorelli, setting up a two-on-one with only Erskine back.  Michal Repik slid the puck to a streaking Bill Thomas, who made no doubt about it, beating Michal Neuvirth blocker side to take a short-lived lead.

The Caps got on the board less than two minutes later.  Mike Knuble got control of a loose puck and shuffled it to Alex Ovechkin in the corner, who wheeled and hit Backstrom right on the tape in the high slot.  The pivot fired a bomb of a one-timer past Panthers backup goalie Scott Clemmensen for his 19th goal of the season.

"It was a good pass by Alex there," Backstrom said.  "I was just trying to get it on net there, [Clemmensen] wasn't ready.  There were people in front of the net there too.  But it was a good feeling."

Washington took the lead at 10:02 of the second, when Boyd Gordon backhanded a rebound of a John Carlson shot past Clemmensen at the end of a very good cycle by the energy line, with Matt Hendrick picking up the secondary assist.  Gordon gave an exaggerated fist pump after, celebrating his second goal of the season.

Boyd Gordon scores his second goal of the season in 3-2 OT win. (C.Nichols/Caps News Network)

Gordon won the hard had for his efforts, including blocking four shots.  "It was is best game of the year," Boudreau said.  "He blocked shot, he won faceoffs, he paid the price.  That's why he won the 'helmet' tonight.  It did what it took. Scoring a goal for him is a luxury, that's a bonus.  Everything else he did was great."

Gordon summed up this win, but he might as well have been talking about the season since the shift in philosophy sometime during the December eight-game losing streak:

"It's good to get the two points, big game for us.  We were kinda off-and-on there tonight but we did enoguh to win and at the end, a good result.  We're not scoring as much so our defense has a little bit more emphasis on it.  You don't want to give that led up.  Our margin for error might not be as big as it was last year.  But if that's what it takes to win, that's what we gotta do."

Strange days, indeed.

So its off to Tampa for a matchup Monday with the Bolts, who could not take advantage of a 12-game homestand in February to put any distance between themselves and the Capitals.  Now that the divison lead rests in D.C. once again, they probably wished they had.

CAPS NEWS NETWORK THREE STARS:

3.  Nick Backstrom.  The one-timer was a thing of beauty.  65% in the dot too.

2.  Michal Neuvirth.  32 saves.  Stellar. He's been the Caps MVP all season.

1.  Boyd Gordon.  Goal, four blocks, 3:47 of short-handed time.

CAPS NOTES:  The Panthers received seven power plays, including the late five-on-three, to the Caps' two.  "I mean, seven penalties on one, it's quite a discrepancy," Boudreau said.  "Everybody complains about the power play, and rightfully so -- it's not doing that well -- but it's really hard to get a consistency or momentum on it when you're getting one power play a game."

BONUS PHOTOS

Matt Hendricks, doin' what he does. (C.Nichols/Caps News Network)

The Captain during pre-game skate. (C.Nichols/Caps News Network)

Michal Neuvirth is a study in concentration. (C.Nichols/Caps News Network)

***Caps News Network wishes to thanks the Florida Panthers and Justin Copertino for extending us full credentials, including photography, for Sunday night's game. 

"You know, our fans deserve a better effort than what we've been giving them lately. Tonight we had some rough patches, but I think we played pretty well" -- Matt Bradley 

The Washington Capitals did not play particularly well last night, but they did play well enough to defeat an offensively challenged St. Louis Blues team 3-2, before another sold out crowd at Verizon Center.  Coupled with the last minute heroics against the Islanders Tuesday, it's the first time the Caps have won back-to-back home games since their last two in November.

As Bruce Boudreau said, "They're all important." But these four points, heading into a statement weekend in Florida were especially big.  The Panthers are absolutely reeling on the heels of their latest fire-sale, and with Tampa Bay's loss to Boston Thursday night, the Caps are behind Tampa and Pittsburgh by a single point for third and fourth place in the conference.

If the Caps can take care of business Sunday against the Panthers, it will set up a battle for first place in the division Monday night in Tampa.

But the Caps had to take care of home ice first, and for a while things looked pretty sketchy.  Of course, nothing has come easy for these Capitals in this campaign.

A sluggish first period saw both teams fight with bad passing and little cohesion.  Midway through though, St. Louis counter-attacked and Alex Steen beat a lagging Nick Backstrom through the Caps zone to tap in a very nice pass from Chris Stewart and take a 1-0 lead.

With just a minute to go in the period, Matt Bradley decided to take matters into his own hands, and went right after defenseman Tyson Strachan.  Strachan did not back down, but perhaps he wishes he would have, as Bradley pounded him with three right hands, the final an uppercut that sent Strachan to the ice. 

Bradley's effort at least brought some energy to the arena, which was almost as dead as the team on the ice at that point.

"We got down a goal there and I just tried to get the guys going a bit," Bradley stated rather nonchalantly in the locker room after the game.

His teammates took notice though, as he was awarded the Hard Hat for the night.

For the remainder of the game, the Caps played hard at least, if not well the entire time.

The teams traded second period goals, by defensman Scott Hannan and the Blues B.J. Crombeen, before the Caps took control of the game in the third.  Nick Backstrom knocked in a puck out of mid-air baseball style to tie the game at two, and Jason Arnott scored the game-winner with just over five minutes left off a beautiful feed from Alex Semin, on The Enigma's 27th birthday.

It's the type of play we really haven't seen out of Semin for quite some time.  Coming into the game, he'd scored in just four of his ten games since returning from injury, with just two assists in that time frame.  But breaking in on a two-on-one, he settled the puck and put it right on Arnott's tape.  All Arnott had to do was finish.

Boudreau was particularly impressed with the way Arnott swung out a little wide anticipating Semin's feed.  "When Semin gave him a really good pass, [Arnott] didn't have to make a play, he just had to shoot the puck because he was already in a shooting position, which I thought was really good to see."

"We're talking a lot on the bench, even with Sash -- we're talking to him and he's talking to us," Arnott explained about the chemistry he's quickly developing with his new linemates.  "It's important to communicate to find out where and how guys are when they play around the rink.  We keep that up hopefully our chemistry will keep going."

The importance of winning these two games and gaining four points heading into a showdown weekend, especially since this is also the annual "father's trip", was not lost on the room. 

"Seems that every game we play is a big game," Bradley said.  "Obviously we're chasing Tampa right now and we have a good chance, first with Florida then Tampa.  Bruce and the coaches talked about it -- a snowball effect -- getting on a little bit of a roll going into the weekend.  We have our fathers coming for the father's trip, so it makes for a good mood starting the weekend out."

"We want to get back to making this a tough place to play," Scott Hannan said, reveling in his first goal as a Washington Capital.

"It's good for our confidence," said Nicklas Backstrom.  "We haven't been winning a lot at home lately, so hopefully we gave our fans something good tonight.  Hopefully we can continue working on this and get more Ws."

Arnott spoke about that elusive confidence as well.  "It's always nice to get confidence going, get on a roll before you go on the road.  You can't take Florida lightly and Tampa's got a fantastic team.  It's going to be another battle again."

Boudreau was a little more big-picture. 

"They're all important.  So how important is it?  Boy, I was thinking all day 'I'd like to win'.  But in the whole scheme of things we won't know how important it is until the end of the season.  It's so important to get to that 80-point level and with the teams above you, now you can see [them].  It's not like you're a big distance away, so it was good to get to there."

With two wins, the Caps have set the table.  Now let's see if they can clear the plates this weekend.

Every win, every game, every shift is important from here on out.

CAPS NEWS NETWORK THREE STARS

3. Michal Neuvirth.  Kept his team in the game until the offense clicked.  He could do nothing with either goal, and he turned away all four shots he saw on the penalty kill.

2. Karl Alzner.  Blocked four shots and I'll say this as politely as possible: He carried his partner tonight.

1. Dennis Wideman.  I know he didn't figure into the story, but he was all over the ice tonight, clearly the Caps best player.  He led the team in ice time for the second consecutive game and finished with five hits and two blocks.  He also led an effective power play -- for the first time in weeks -- though they still did not score.

CAPS NOTES:  Matt Hendricks dished out five hits and won the puck in the corner, leading to Hannan's goal.

Alex Ovechkin registered just one shot on goal but had two assists.

The Capitals improved to 18-16-4 when allowing the first goal of the game.

Arnott's goal puts him at 899 points in his career.

The Caps are 30-0-3 when the score three or more goals.

If you still haven't had enough of the activity surrounding the 2011 NHL trade deadline and the impact the acquisitions GM George McPhee made for the Washington Capitals, check out 106.7 The Fan's Caps Trade Deadline Special.

We were invited to participate, as were fellow bloggers and media members John Keeley from On Frozen Blog, Ted Starkey from The Washington Times, Brian McNally from the Washington Examiner and Ed Frankovic from WNST Baltimore.

Our spot is at 1:20 of the show, but the whole thing is worth the listen.  There's some real valuable insight to be gleaned from the varied and knowledgable independent voices that cover the Caps.

Double Overtime is hosted by Sky Kerstein and J Brooks for The Fan.  Many thanks to them for the invite to participate.

Jason Arnott in his Washington Capitals debut. (C.Nichols/Caps News Network)

Jason Arnott, acquired at the trade deadline to help spur the Washington Capitals as they head down the stretch, said some things from the locker room last night that were very interesting, considering it was his first game with his new team. 

He addressed the topic of his linemates tonight: Brooks Laich and especially Alexander Semin. He talked about the Caps struggles on the power play. He talked about the challenges developing chemistry with his new teammates. And he talked about being responsible in the defensive end and in the neutral zone.

This locker room has perhaps grown a bit too comfortable with the status quo, and maybe GM George McPhee was looking for someone like Arnott -- a Stanley Cup winner and former team captain -- to mix things up a bit, to provide a little bit of gravitas.  If that was an unstated goal, it paid off right from Arnott's first game.

Arnott, 36, is nearing the end of a long, distinguished career and his play isn't what it used to be.  But perhaps his attitude will help this Washington Capitals team as much -- if not more than -- his play on the ice.

Here's a transcription of his session with the assembled media.  You'll recognize the very good parts on your own.

Q: You had a lot of chances early on and cashed in on a big one late and almost again in OT.

A: Yeah, we found a way tonight. We had way too many turnovers. We allowed them to come in and if it wasn't for our goaltending it would have been a different story. But we still had chances in the other end as well, the puck just didn't go in.

Q: This is the first time you've had to chance teams in mid-season in a while, what was this experience like compared to before?

A: It's a little different. Obviously playing with new guys and getting to know how they're playing out there. Getting to know how I play, I thought we moved it around pretty well. The chemistry was there. You know, with Brooksy and playing with Semin, it's very skilled guys that can do a lot of damage in the offensive zone, so I think if we take care of our own zone and the neutral zone a lot better we wouldn't have been in that situation.

Q: You played against the Caps several times this year. it's no secret they've been struggling on offense and the power play. Where can you chip in?

A: I think just working on it and going over the video, and then it just comes down to execution. I mean, just making solid passes, getting in the zone and setting it up and shooting pucks. I think there's so much talent on this team that they move it around a lot instead of just pounding it at the net. You know, a lot of the times that's the way it goes in. If we concentrate on the net a little bit more and talk about it and then execute it we should be alright.

Q: How about the chemistry with guys you haven't had a chance to practice with?

A: I thought it was pretty good. It's tough with new guys, you always want to try and read off of them and see what they do. You know, the talent that Semin has is ridiculous out there with the puck -- just phenomenal plays. And Brooksie just works hard and has great hands. So if we can just combine each other and read off of each other, hopefully we'll be successful.

Q: Does it take any extra adjustment to play with a guy like Semin who's known to freelance?

A: A little bit. I think for the most part it's talking to him as much as possible. I don't think too many guys talk to him and get him into the play and try and see what he's going to do and what you're going to do and little things like that. So if I can do that and it helps out our line that's what I've got to do.

Q: Did it install confidence in you that your new coach put you out there first in overtime?

A: Yeah. It was great, with our firepower, to go out there first against them. It showed a lot of confidence in us and we had a chance to score, so it was good.

"It's extremely disappointing to lose it in the last 47 seconds.  We battled so hard for 59 minutes.  To come away with just one point in unacceptable."  --New York Islanders goalie Nathan Lawson, who came into the game with a save percentage under 89 percent.

The Washington Capitals got out of the gate early and dominated the first ten minutes of the game with a lineup infused with three significant additions brought in by General Manager George McPhee at the trade deadline.  At one point they led in shots 10-1.

They looked like a different team than the one we've seen slogging their way through the schedule since Dec. 1.

But when they couldn't find the back of the net after the early onslaught, the Caps fell back into the same bad habits that have them looking up at four teams ahead of them in the Eastern Conference:  bad passing, sloppy turnovers, avoidance of the opposing crease, and the nauseating habit of being satisfied with pelting the other team's goalie with 30 foot slap shots without any traffic to speak of.

For that 49 minute stretch, the Caps played as bad as they have all season against a young, underwhelming Islanders team and rookie goalie that, despite his quote of bravado above, is not even in the same league talent-wise as his opponent.

But then, with 48 seconds remaining, it all changed.

Newly acquired center Jason Arnott collected a puck behind the Islanders' goal and fed Brooks Laich where he makes his money, and with a simple flick reversed the Caps fortunes, sending the game to overtime.

"He [Jason Arnott] just threw it in front and found the guy [Brooks Laich]," Lawson said. "I don't know if he was tied up or not but he just put it over my pad."

"I saw Brooksy going to the net and just tried to slide it to him," Arnott said.  "It went to him and he made a great play and put it in."

It really was that simple.

At that point, all that was left was for Alex Ovechkin to do what only he can do, racing the length of the ice, twisting Franz Neilsen inside out twice, and backhanding a shot past Nathan Lawson to send the Verizon crowd into hysterics.

It was Ovechkin's ninth game-winning goal this season.

So coach Bruce Boudreau, was this game important for your team's morale?  "I thought it was very important.  We scored one goal in 11 periods at home [the last four games].  It's important to get the idea that teams can't come into this building and win so easily."

Maybe Lawson was thinking about how easy his first 38 saves were to concentrate on the last few.

The Caps leaned heavily on Arnott, their new second line center.  Just in his first game tonight, you can see he's a leader, in the words that he uses and the way he plays.  And though Boudreau said there was no extra significance that Arnott and Laich took the first shift in overtime, dismissing the question by saying, "I'm not that deep," it certainly meant something to Arnott.

"It was great, with our firepower, to go out there first," Arnott explained.  "It showed a lot of confidence in us and we had a chance to score, so it was good."

"We found a way tonight.  We had way too many turnovers.  We allowed them to come in and if it wasn't for our goaltending it would have been a different story."

He's right there.  All too often, Michal Neuvirth was left to fend for himself. "Every turnover, they had an odd-man rush.  That's the game I don't like to play, but that's what it is sometimes."

"I'm just focusing on my game and trying to stop every shot and hoping that the guys are going to get one  or two in and that's what we did tonight," Neuvirth said.  "It's a huge win for us.  It's good to win for our fans."

Those demanding fans that booed as loud as they have all season at the floundering power play erupted twice in a period of a few minutes as Laich tied the game and Ovechkin sealed the deal.

But the Capitals this season are a game-to-game process, and we'll all just have to wait until Thursday night against the St. Louis Blues to see which Caps team shows up.

CAPS NEWS NETWORK THREE STARS

3.  Alex Ovechkin.  His own coach thought he "looked lethargic", but the last goal was "vintage Alex" and that he "rose to the right moment."  Scored the game winner and assisted on the tying goal.

2.  Jason Arnott.  In the right place at the right time all night long. He's a huge addition to this club.

1. Michal Neuvirth.  The Caps simply would not have been in this game were it not for their No. 1 goaltender.  There, I said it.

PHOTOS

Marco Sturm in his Caps debut. (C.Nichols/Caps News Network)

Jason Arnott in his Caps debut. (C.Nichols/Caps News Network)

Jason Arnott taks a draw against the Islanders. (C.Nichols/Caps News Network)

Dennis Wideman in his Caps debut. (C.Nichols/Caps News Network)