Backstrom: This team win is for Brash, Bradley and Erskine

 Corey Masisak, Mar. 10, 2009:

Sergei Fedorov pots the winner in overtime. His response: "I'm no newborn here in that time of the game." No kidding. Fedorov now has 15 career OT goals, which ties him with Jaromir Jagr, Mats Sundin and Patrick Elias for the most in NHL history.

Donald Brashear was moving around with a noticeable limp after the game. Bruce Boudreau said his knee buckled on him when Wade Belak connected with that left hook. Boudreau said his head is fine, but doesn't know how long Brashear could be out.

"I thought it was a great character, courageous game," Boudreau said. "We battled for our teammates. We knew they went to war for us, so our guys took it upon themselves to go back to war for them. I thought we played as good of a game as we have in a long time and we should have won in regulation, but we didn't and we still got the two points.

Tarik El-Bashir, Mar. 10, 2009:

"We just showed those two guys who got in a fight and a little bit hurt, that we're willing to work hard for them," Fedorov said. "We wanted to show to them that we are a team. So we kept plugging away, plugging away and we were able to score."

Added Backstrom: "This team win is for Brash and Bradley and Erskine. That got in those tough fights. That was huge."

Sometimes your guy lose the fight and it encourages the opposite team. This time it was different. And I would say it was different because of Matt Bradley.



When Brashear went down, it was it, never seen him getting knocked out that bad. The crowd gets on their feet, people gloating over Brash behind the penalty box. And right after Bradley goes with Jordin Tootoo. I thought "Oh boy, Tootoo will beat him up, Bradley will lose another fight."



But Matt did great, Tootoo maybe had a slight advantage, but in the end this was what we needed from Matt, not to lose another fight bad after Brash got knocked out. Bradley's face was all blooded by Jordin's headbutt. So much blood that the ice had to be cleaned. He got stitched, he got back and his fight turned around the game.



In the third fight between Wade Belak and John Erskine Belak got a bit cocky, sure, he just won over Brash. Because of that it could end up him being knocked out by Erskine, who did really great, but Wade realized quickly where it was going, and just hang out there.

Fedorov is like a single malt, getting better with age. That slick move à la Ovechkin was sick. But more important was his NHL record-tying 15th career OT goal. Fedorov was +1, 2 shots on goal, 1 hit, won 16 of his 23 faceoffs for a 70% faceoff percentage.


It was not Ovechkin's best game, but his primary assist on Backstrom's goal was awesome.

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