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Green's OT tally helps Capitals edge Rangers

Dec 13, 2007 - 4:54 AM WASHINGTON (Ticker) -- Defenseman Mike Green emerged as a hero as the Washington Capitals remained hot.

Green scored the game-winning goal in overtime and added two assists as the Capitals edged the New York Rangers, 5-4, on Wednesday.

Joe Motzko scored two goals and Alex Ovechkin and defenseman Jeff Schultz also tallied for Washington, which improved to 3-0-0 on its current four-game homestand.

The Capitals also raised their record to 6-3-1 under interim coach Bruce Boudreau, who took the helm when Glen Hanlon was fired following a 6-14-1 start.

"The effort was great," Boudreau said. "They never thought at any point that they were out of it, which is important. When you believe that you can come back, then that's half the battle. The next thing is doing what you're supposed to do and keep pushing and pushing. I thought we pushed really good tonight."

The Rangers, who had creeped to within one point of Atlantic Division-leading New Jersey after shutting out the Devils, 1-0, last Sunday, have dropped four of five.

"We're lucky we got a point," Rangers coach Tom Renney said. "We scored two goals and thought it was going to be easy. This team just got better and better and came after us.

"I'm not sure if I'm perturbed or disturbed. We weren't very smart. We moved the puck poorly and managed it poorly. We had disjointed line changes and had defensemen on ice for too many minutes because we couldn't get the puck out of our end. We weren't very bright tonight."

In overtime, with the puck in the offensive zone, New York's Brendan Shanahan tripped on the ice as he was just receiving the puck 40 feet directly in front of the net.

"I just reached back for the puck, and that's just part of the game sometimes," Shanahan said. "You get a bad bounce like that or you step in a bad groove. Whatever it was, my skate dug in and I lost my footing."

The loose puck was gathered by Brooks Laich, who led a 2-on-1 rush before quickly passing to Green for a shot that found its way between the pads of goaltender Henrik Lundqvist at 3:41 for the game-winner.

"I thought (Shanahan) was going to have some room to walk in there and tee it up, but he just tripped," Laich said. "When he fell down, I just pounced on it. All of a sudden, the eyes just light up with a chance, and I drove it down and got a timing pass across to Green. He knocked the (water) bottle off (the top of the net), so we're pretty excited."

Green got excited as soon as he saw Shanahan go down.

"I saw him trip and I just raced up the ice," Green said. "As soon as he fell, I took off and Brooksie made a great pass to me. I saw the top half of the net, so it was just a matter of shooting it there. To get the win was the icing on the cake."

Boudreau was excited by the play of Green, who also had two assists and spent a team-high 30 minutes, 5 seconds on the ice in his first career three-point game.

"He's going to be good," Boudreau said. "I have all the confidence in the world in him. He's smart with the puck."

Washington rallied from a 2-0 deficit in the first period when Motzko scored his first two goals of the season. The 27-year-old tallied at 15:51 of the opening session before knotting the contest with 4:13 remaining in the second.

"It's definitely a step in the right direction knowing we can come back from two goals down," Laich said.

Ovechkin gave the Capitals their first lead at 4:36 of the third, when he deflected a snap shot from Green past Lundqvist.

Martin Straka netted his second goal of the game at 8:13 to knot the game at 3-3, but just 78 seconds later Schultz fired from 61 feet out to restore Washington's one-goal edge.

Shanahan sent the game into the extra period when he redirected a shot from blue-liner Michal Rozsival with 7:17 remaining in the third past Olaf Kolzig as the netminder had yet to recover from making a save.

"We kept on having to play catch-up hockey," Shanahan said. "Unfortunately, we had a bad break to end the game. We weren't happy with some of the chances we gave up. Sometimes we had full control of the puck in our end and turned the puck over, and it ended up in our net."

Kolzig managed to stop 19 shots for Washington, which had not won three straight at home since last January.

Lundqvist made 30 saves for New York, which saw its four-game winning streak against Washington come to an end.

"They got a couple weird goals - a couple deflections, a screen," Lundqvist said. "The last one, I tried to find and it went right through me."