Junior Capitals in Stalemate With Sabres

The Washington Junior Capitals tied the Buffalo Junior Sabres 2-2 on Day 56 for their second straight draw and fourth straight game without a loss. Washington improves to 10-14-3 with the point.

Washington jumped out to a 2-0 lead in the first period behind goals from Sean Kotary and Mikhail Kuleshov. Kotary scored his on the power play from Branko Radivojevic and Jakub Cutta at 7:10. Kuleshov's marker came 1:38 later from Greg Mauldin and Henrik Tallinder. The Capitals killed off two penalties later in the period and outshot Buffalo 9-4 to keep the lead going to the intermission.

Buffalo got on the board at 8:19 of the second period when Semenov scored from Locke and Gusev. Neither team scored over the last 11:41, but there was still action for the fans. Igor Shadulov dropped the gloves with Buffalo's Vagner at 11:26. The result was a draw, but it seemed to get the Sabres going. Washington took two minor penalties and a major penalty later in the period, but the penalty killers did a great job keeping Buffalo off the board.

Another penalty early in the final period proved to be the Caps' undoing as Steen scored an unassisted goal on the power play at 2:31 to tie the game. A fight later in the period between Patrick O'Sullivan and Knopp was also a draw and neither team could draw any momentum from the scrap. Once again the Washington special teams did a great job killing penalties as two more power plays in the third period and one in overtime wound up scoreless for Buffalo.

Daniel Taylor made 33 saves to improve to 4-4-1 for the Capitals. Maxime Daigneault stopped 23 shots for Buffalo.

The Junior Capitals are back on the ice on Day 57 against Pittsburgh.