Junior Capitals Skate, Fight to 4-2 Victory

The Washington Junior Capitals earned a hard-fought 4-2 victory over the Colorado Junior Avalanche on home ice on Day 2 of the preseason. Three players recorded two assists each for Washington while Cory Urquhart had a goal and a helper to lead the offense.

The teams wasted little time to get going in the first period as Colorado's Viitanen and Lance Moynch dropped the gloves after just 43 seconds. The Capitals then were shorthanded at 3:13 when Patrick O'Sullivan took a hooking minor, but another fight just nine seconds later took the focus away from the power play. This time it was Oduya for the Avs and Greg Mauldin duking it out. Later in the period the Capitals had a two-man advantage for 1:29 but failed to score on the Colorado goal. Shortly after the end of the power play, Washington went back on the penalty kill after Moynch's goalie interference minor. Once again Colorado failed to score, but there was still more action for the fans. Mauldin dropped the gloves again, this time with Flood, with just one second left in the period. Mauldin was ejected for his trouble-making.

Washington finally opened the scoring at 6:00 of the second period when Gennady Stolyarov lit the lamp from Urquhart and Jean-Claude Sawyer. The Capitals failed to score on another power play just minutes later, and the Avalanche capitalized with a pair of goals to take the lead. Reid tied the game from Morrow and Marjamaki at 14:15, before Klyazmin netted from Graham and Beller at 16:07 to make it 2-1. If Washington was stunned by the quick double-strike, they didn't show it. Moynch scored from O'Sullivan and Zbynek Novak just 48 seconds later to tie the game again.

The final period started quickly as Colorado's Flood took a double-minor for boarding at 1:18, and the Capitals wasted little time to regain the lead. Igor Shadulov made it 3-2 from Novak and O'Sullivan just 17 seconds after the penalty. Washington then killed off nearly four straight minutes of penalties before Urquhart put the game away from Sawyer and Brett Carson at 15:59.

Brad Topping stopped 27 shots to earn the victory. Maxime Ouellet had 27 saves in the loss.

The Junior Capitals are back in action at home on Day 3 against the Junior Panthers.