"Alexander The Great" Helps Caps Force Game Seven

By The Associated Press

Alex Ovechkin was stifled, shut down and almost silent in his first NHL playoff series.
The league's leading scorer played like an MVP right on time in Game 6.


Ovechkin truly was "Alexander the Great" with the Washington Capitals' season on the line and put them in prime position to win a Game 7 for only the second time in franchise history.

Held without a goal for four straight games, Ovechkin scored twice in the third period to lift the Capitals to a 4-2 win over the Philadelphia Flyers on Monday night and send the series back to Washington for a decisive Game 7.

"The stars, it seems to happen around them, whether it's John Elway and 'The Drive' or great baseball players getting the last at-bat," said Capitals coach Bruce Boudreau. "He was getting frustrated because they did such a good job on him, but he persevered and came through."

The Capitals have rallied back from a 3-1 hole and have a chance to win only the second Game 7 in team history Tuesday night. The other one should be painfully familiar to the Flyers faithful: Dale Hunter scored an overtime goal that led Washington past Philadelphia 20 years ago this month.

"We've won nothing and we know how resilient they are," Boudreau said.

The Caps have a shot to advance on home ice thanks to Ovechkin's timely, clutch goals. They are trying to become the 21st team in league history to come back from a 3-1 deficit and win a best-of-seven series.

Ovechkin never seemed overly concerned that he hadn't scored a goal since the Game 1 winner. The Flyers had frustrated the NHL's leading scorer so much with sticky defense that he wasn't much of a factor the last four games.

"It doesn't matter if I score," Ovechkin said. "If we win, I'm happy."

Ovechkin made the Capitals downright delirious.

After the Caps erased a 2-0 deficit late in the second period, Ovechkin made the Flyers pay early in the third.

Viktor Kozlov picked off a pass deep in the Washington zone and fed Ovechkin at center ice. He took the pass and skated untouched before he beat Martin Biron for the breakaway goal and a 3-2 lead 2:46 into the third period.

"All year I didn't have a chance to score on a breakaway," Ovechkin said. "I probably had one goal on a breakaway, I did what I always do and thank God it worked."

Ovechkin was just heating up. He ripped a one-timer on a cross-ice pass from Brooks Laich eight minutes later to give Washington a two-goal lead.

"It's Hollywood here and the script said he wins the game," said Caps owner Ted Leonsis.

All those Flyers fans who had taunted Ovechkin for three games suddenly fell silent. The only noise heard at the end were the Capitals banging their sticks on the boards in celebration.

"There is still another chance," said Flyers center Danny Briere. "We have to forget what happened and leave it all on the ice over there. We know we can win there, we did it earlier in the series. That is all we have to think about.

The Caps will play Pittsburgh with a series win. The Flyers would get Montreal.

The Flyers won Game 2 at Washington behind Biron's shutout.

The Flyers have lost two career playoff series after leading 3-1. They are 1-3 in Game 7s on the road, with their only win coming at Pittsburgh in a second-round series in 1989

"We just got away from our game," said Flyers center Mike Richards. "Now, tomorrow night's desperation time."

Not even the rowdy home crowd helped the Flyers. The sold-out crowd was dressed in their matching orange T-shirts and they only grew louder as goals from Briere and Richards put the Flyers up 2-0 in the second.

The Capitals, who rallied from a two-goal hole in Game 1 to win on Ovechkin's game winner, pulled through again.

Nicklas Backstrom pulled the Caps within one with this third goal of the series midway through the second.

Alexander Semin's third goal of the series with 1:57 left tied the score at 2. Biron was sprawled in the crease after he made a sensational save to stop John Erskine's shot, leaving Semin with a clear look for the easy goal.

Biron, who made 36 saves, is an abysmal 0-5 in the second of back-to-back games this season.

"They played with desperation and were throwing everything at the net," Biron said. "They skated hard and we got a little casual and I think that hurt us."

Cristobal Huet made 33 saves for Washington, settling in to have a good night after a tough start.

The Flyers best look against him in the third came when Braydon Coburn banged one off the post barely 30 seconds into the third.

The Flyers were cruising when Briere scored his NHL-best sixth playoff goal for a 2-0 lead only 1:18 into the second. The goal made the Flyers 2-for-2 on the power play - Richards scored one 3:49 into the game - after they entered 6-for-26.

Richards' goal was a positive sign that it could be the Flyers night: The team that scored first was 5-0 in the series.

Now make it 5-1.


Notes
Flyers D Jaroslav Modry was scratched. ... Richards has a point his last four games. ... Semin has a four-game scoring streak.

The 2007 New York Mets: One of The Biggest Chokers in Baseball History

The Mets are coming apart at the seams, and if they can't right the sinking ship, there will be no October Baseball for them.

Thank goodness for the Cubs, they are not the biggest chokers in baseball this season.

The New York Mets' lead in the NL East is gone. They might not even be in the playoffs if they can't snap out of their near historic funk.

The spiralling Mets managed just three hits off Joel Pineiro and Jason Isringhausen in a 3-0 loss to the St. Louis Cardinals on Thursday night that dropped them into a first-place tie with Philadelphia in the division.

New York has led the division alone every day since May 16.

The Mets were ahead by seven games on Sept. 12 with 17 remaining but have lost 10 of 14 overall and seven straight at home, a monumental tailspin for a team that counted on being in the playoffs.

No major-league team has failed to finish first after having at least a seven-game lead with 17 to play. But with three games remaining in the regular season - a weekend series at home against Florida - the Mets might fail to win the division or qualify as the wild card.

Philadelphia, which beat Atlanta 6-4 on Thursday, closes the season with three games at home against Washington. San Diego, which beat Milwaukee 9-5 in the opener of a four-game series Thursday, leads the Mets, Phillies and Colorado Rockies by one game in the NL wild card standings.

The Mets are having a historic collapse. The Mets are injured, angry, and struggling. As a result, they have allowed Jimmy Rollins, Ryan Howard and the Philladelphia Phillies to catch up to them. This was a team that everyone expected would be back in the National League Championship Series, particularly since they have the "Thunder and Lightning" combo of Carlos Beltran and Carlos Delgado. Well, Beltran and Delgado have been on the Disabled List, and Jose Reyes and David Wright, as good as they are, can't pick up the slack. The Mets bullpen has also been a huge letdown for them. Last season, the Mets were pitching to use their bullpen. This season, their trying to keep their bullpen out of the game because of the number of leads the bullpen has blown for them this season.

If the Mets don't right the ship, The 2007 New York Mets will go down as the biggest chokers in baseball history. Will the Mets wake up in time of starve off the surging Phillies? Or will New York prove Jimmy Rollins correct when he said in the beginning of the year that the Phillies were the team to beat?