6-5 OTL: The Game Where the Caps Did Everything, But Win

CK's Hardhat of the Game: Tie. Josh Gorges for his fearless shot blocking and Brooks Laich for earning his first career hat trick with a deke, a snipe and a deflection.

If you want to take something away from the Caps' historic win streak, consider this: The Caps dominated in some games, came from behind in others and won games they had no business winning.

That's what good teams do. They find ways to win when they shouldn't. The Caps managed to do that for about the last four or five games of the 14 games.

You can also take solace in the fact that every game the Capitals won during their streak had shades of playoff situations. So you can't feel too bad about the streak ending in a 6-5 OT game where the score was 5-2 heading into the final period.

Regardless of how much we want to stroke the Caps' egos, the Canadiens did a tremendous job of playing roadblock to the Caps' steamroller-like momentum.

Perhaps what will be lost in all the post-streak talk is that Brooks Laich got his first career hatty, the Gr8 "doesn't" score an incredible grit goal (sidenote: Hal Gill, the defender Ovie leveled, is 6 foot 7 and 250 pounds) and TAY-OH...TAY-OH played lights-out to help send the game into overtime.

Put this game in the invisible "good loss" column on the Caps' record. Yeah, yeah, it's kind of deflating and sure it started sloppier than a D.C. street after a snowstorm, but considering how hard it is to keep winning day-after-day, it's forgiveable.

It's a bittersweet point in the standings, but I'll take it any day of the week.

Thanks for the ride Ovie and Co. Sorry your record as captain falls to a pathetic 17-1-1.

Terrible, just flat-out terrible...