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Ovechkin, Capitals top Flyers, force Game Seven

Apr 22, 2008 - 4:49 AM PHILADELPHIA (Ticker) -- Alex Ovechkin made his statement loud and clear.

The Russian superstar snapped both a tie game and a four-game streak without recording a goal by tallying just 2:46 into the third period as the Washington Capitals evened their best-of-seven Eastern Conference quarterfinal series with the Philadelphia Flyers at three games apiece with a 4-2 triumph in Game Six on Monday.

Ovechkin scored again nearly eight minutes later and rookie Nicklas Backstrom and Alexander Semin also tallied for third-seeded Washington, which hosts Game Seven on Tuesday.

The Capitals are trying to become the 21st team in NHL history to come back from a three-games-to-one deficit and win a best-of-seven series.

"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," Capitals coach Bruce Boudreau said. "(Ovechkin) was getting frustrated because they did such a good job on him, but he persevered and came through."

"Down 3-1, everybody said we are a young team," Ovechkin said. "Then one game down in the series, and it wasn't over yet. Now (Game Seven on Tuesday) will be the biggest game of our career. We don't want to stop, and we want to continue to do what we have to do."

All-Star Mike Richards and Daniel Briere scored power-play goals and Martin Biron made 36 saves for sixth-seeded Philadelphia, which failed to close the series after recording a three-games-to-one advantage.

"It isn't time to think about tonight. It is time to concentrate on the next game and forget about what happened," Briere said.

"We will have all summer to think about what happened in the playoffs. We'll have lots of time in the summer to think about that. Right now, we have to concentrate on one game and leave it all on the ice."

With the game tied at 2-2 early in the third period, Ovechkin intercepted a pass from All-Star defenseman Kimmo Timonen in the Capitals' defensive zone before accepting a lead pass from Viktor Kozlov just after center ice. The leading contender for the Hart Trophy, Ovechkin skated in on Biron and wristed the puck past the netminder.

"I made a block with my stick. The pass went right to 'Kozzy' (Kozlov). 'Kozzy' passed the breakaway. I haven't had a lot of chances to score goals so I just shot when I went over there. I just thought about what I had to do and I did my own thing."

"I tried to make a pass and it hit Ovechkin's shaft," Timonen said. "He got a lucky break from it. I need to make sure it doesn't hit his stick the next time."

Ovechkin struck again after the Flyers were whistled for having too many men on the ice midway through the third period.

The Art Ross and Maurice Richard Trophy winner this season, Ovechkin accepted a feed from Brooks Laich and blasted the puck past Biron for his second goal of the game.

"He is a good player and he is going to get his goals," Biron said of Ovechkin. "He had good anticipation on his breakaway and he has that one-timer on the power play. He is a really good player and he is going to create opportunities for himself."

Despite watching his team rally for four unanswered goals, Boudreau knows there's another game to play.

"We've won nothing, and we know how resilient they are. They had the hardest schedule coming down the stretch, they seemed to win when they had to," Boudreau said.

"We expect them to be great tomorrow, and we told our team that we had five minutes to be happy and then it's business as usual. If we think we've won it, we're going to be in for a bad shock. We're going to have to lay it on the line again (Tuesday) night."

Richards opened the scoring just 3:49 into the first period.

With Philadelphia on the power play, Kimmo Timonen blasted a shot from just inside the blue line which sailed wide of the net. The puck caromed off the end boards right to Richards, who slapped the puck past Cristobal Huet and into the net for his second goal of the series.

Briere doubled the Flyers advantage just 78 seconds into the second period.

With the Flyers carrying a power play into the second period, Briere accepted a feed from Vaclav Prospal in the left faceoff circle and wristed a shot past a screened Huet for his league-leading sixth goal of the postseason.

Backstrom halved the deficit midway through the second session after a beautiful exchange with Semin.

Defenseman Steve Eminger's lead pass hit Semin's stick at center ice and started a 3-on-2 rush for the Capitals. Semin and Backstrom traded passes on two occasions before the Swede slapped the puck under the right arm of Biron for his third goal of the series.

Semin evened the contest with 1:57 remaining in the second period for his third goal in as many games.

The Russian cleaned up a rebound off defenseman John Erskine's blast from the left faceoff circle and beat a prone Biron to knot the game at 2-2.

"We've certainly made the task much more difficult then when we were up three (games) to one," Flyers coach John Stevens said. "We went in there and they steamrolled us the first half of the game (in Game Five). I thought we came out tonight with the start that we needed, but now it's up for grabs.

"Now, it's Game Seven, loser go home. This is our third crack at it but we've certainly have given them some energy. When you win a game like this, you feel energized. When you lose a game like this, you feel like you're tired. There are no excuses (on Tuesday)."