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Oilers bottle up sliding Caps

Jan 14, 2009 - 6:16 AM By Tim Hipps PA SportsTicker Contributing Writer

WASHINGTON (Ticker) -- Erik Cole recorded a hat trick to reach 300 career points and goalie Dwayne Roloson stopped 34 shots as the Edmonton Oilers rolled to a 5-2 victory over the Washington Capitals on Tuesday.

The last of Cole's four career hat tricks, coincidentally, was against the Capitals on November 9, 2006.

Rookie Steve MacIntyre and Gilbert Brule had a goal apiece as the Oilers picked apart the Capitals, who dropped their third straight.

MacIntyre's first career NHL goal got the Oilers rolling at 12:59 of the first period and they never looked back. Brule started the play by pushing the puck to defenseman Denis Grebeshkov, who flipped it over to MacIntrye, who delivered a long one-timer from directly in front.

"I closed my eyes, shot the puck, and fortunately it went in," MacIntyre said. "You grow up dreaming about playing in the NHL and you go out there against some pretty good players and you happen to get one lucky one. I figure that's pretty good."

Tomas Fleischmann and defenseman Mike Green scored for the Capitals, who outshot the Oilers, 7-3, in the first five minutes of the game but never seriously threatened on the scoreboard.

"I've seen a lot of things happen in games, but this is," Oilers coach Craig MacTavish said with a shake of his head. "Their skill guys had four or five point-blank opportunities and then Mac buries his first. I figured it was going to be a good night. Everybody was energized by that.

"Once Mac scored, I knew it was one of those rare games where you could get away with a few things. Rollie was super-sharp early when he needed to be. We mismanaged the puck early - a little rattled, I think, by the threat and the skill."

Cole's power-play goal off the rebound of a shot by defenseman Sheldon Souray gave Edmonton a 2-0 lead at 14:10 of the first and the Oilers were on their way to their second consecutive victory that snapped an 0-5-0-1 skid in their last six trips to Washington.

"I have played in this building enough to know that the shot clock doesn't always tell the story," Cole said. "But I don't think that you can just sit there and look up at a shot clock and tell how the game is going. They had a step on us early on in the first period and they start strong here, but we were able to weather the storm and bounce back and have a pretty good game."

"Anytime you get down by two in this league, it's tough to come back," MacTavish added. "We got lots of chances, played OK after that."

Brule's backhander made it 3-0 off an assist from Brodziak early in the second period.

"If we're getting discouraged after 10 minutes, then we're in a lot of trouble," Capitals coach Bruce Boudreau said. "When it gets to the point where everyone wants to be the scorer and nobody wants to be the mucker, you are not going to do anything. Everybody needs to do the grunt job. Until we get that happening, we're not going to score a lot of goals."

Green indicated that the Capitals already received that message.

"We're trying to do a little too much individualism and therefore we're not scoring goals, we're not creating anything," Green said. "We're getting shots, but they're not quality shots. The whole bench is down and it's tough to get your momentum back. We can't do that. We can't put ourselves in that position and get down on ourselves.

"Usually we feed off of it and get hungrier to score goals and we come back and win the game. We didn't even have the chance to do that."

In their last two home games, the Capitals outshot their opponents, 81-46, but lost back-to-back games at Verizon Center for the first time this season. They have lost three in a row for only the second time this season.

"We played well in the first 10 minutes but we didn't score goals," said Alex Ovechkin, who matched Green with a team-high seven shots on goal. "They scored two goals and then they started playing well defensively. Nobody played with energy. Our line played terribly. We have to play simple, play smart, and play hard. I think today we didn't play any of that - all four lines."

Cole added his second tally to give the Oilers a 4-1 lead at 3:19 of the third period. He completed the hat trick and capped the scoring with an empty-net goal with 58 seconds left as the Oilers successfully opened a three-game road trip.

"We got some really good goaltending, right on throughout, it really held us in there in the first period until we were about to get our bearings," Cole said. "We were able to get a great goal by Mac, big goal, and it lifted the spirits of all our guys - then the goal on the power play.

"We were lucky to come out of the first period the way we did. We went out in the second period with more conviction and we were able to control the score the way we wanted to."