NHL Saturday: Eastern Conference showdowns highlight busy NHL schedule

27 seconds. Just like that. Oh, Calgary. Never change.

WASHINGTON -- With the Capitals mired in last place in the Eastern Conference, one of the most outspoken players on the Caps’ roster had a big part Saturday night in helping the team put together perhaps its best effort in the first dozen games of the season. Troy Brouwer scored a pair of goals in a 5-0 win over Florida, including a key goal in the second period to help Washington notch just its third win of the season.

Following a 5-2 loss in Pittsburgh Thursday night, the leaders of the team called a players-only meeting Friday before practice, and Brouwer felt it was a big part of the team’s improved effort Saturday.

“It was good to get things off our chest [in the meeting],” he said following the win. “Guys tend to bottle things up because they don’t want to bring them out and cause controversy within the team. We tried to create an environment within the team where guys could express their concern and not be ridiculed for it, as a result, I think guys took to it positively as you can see with the effort tonight.”

For someone who Capitals general manager George McPhee called “as good a leader as there is in this game,” Brouwer backed up his strong words as of late with good play.

Brouwer got the Caps on the board in the first period, as a John Carlson shot deflected off him past Panthers netminder Jose Theodore.

“The first goal was huge for us,” Washington captain Alex Ovechkin said afterwards.

He then got onto the scoresheet in more orthodox fashion in the second, taking a long pass from goaltender Braden Holtby, then moving in and blasting a shot past Theodore.

“It was a great play and a big goal,” Caps coach Adam Oates said of the tally.

Brouwer, who scored his first two-goal game since last February 28, said the pass from Holtby helped set him up for the break.

“Those aren’t plays you try and plan, when [Holtby] was able to make the play -- and flat [pass] too -- I’m not going to say it was surprising, but good timing,” Brouwer said.

Brouwer is now tied for the Caps’ lead in most goals with five in just a dozen games, tied with Joel Ward and one ahead of Ovechkin. Although he has broken the 20-goal barrier just once back in the Blackhawks’ Stanley Cup-winning season of 2009-10, Brouwer is now on pace for a 20-goal campaign in just 48 games.

“He’s played hard,” coach Adam Oates said of Brouwer’s play so far this year. “He plays with Nick [Backstrom] a lot. I count on him a lot, plays a lot of minutes, he’s produced.”

For Brouwer, he was happier with the Capitals’ effort his evening after having some choice word for his teammates after recent games.

“Tonight, I think it’s easy to say it was our most complete game that we’ve played all season, maybe since I’ve been here,” Brouwer said. “Tonight is a game we need to model the rest of our season after, being tight in our D zone, Holts made big saves for us at big times, we moved the puck forward real well, out penalty kill was good again tonight, power play scored, everything was in our direction because we were working hard.”

For a team that had let points slip away with less-than-60-minute efforts, Brouwer felt it was important for the Caps to keep their foot on the gas.

“We wanted to close out tonight as quickly as possible,” he said. “We’d let teams linger and as a result, we’ve gotten no points out of those games, it was important for us to continue to get momentum in our direction, continue to get shifts in their zone and chances, score a couple of more goals and put distance between then and us.”

And, with the Capitals still needing more wins to climb back into the playoff hunt after a 3-8-1 start, Brouwer said he knew Washington had to keep up the effort that had been lacking most of this season.

“The meeting was more what we expected out of each other,” he said. “Guys not trying too much, guys doing more than they need to, just clearing the air in the dressing room, which may have been a little bit late for what it should have been, but it definitely worked out.

“But we need to continue to go forward from where we are are right now.”

(That’s right, I went there. No pun is off limits.)

But what everyone is talking about right now are two incidents that happened late in the game as things got testy between the two clubs.

Even with that evidence it’s still really, really hard to tell whether or not Grabovski actually clamped down on Pacioretty’s hand. You’ve gotta wonder whether that will be the determining factor in whether any suspension gets handed down or not.

If you heavily outshoot your opponent, you win about 90% of the time. Okay, I just made that stat up, but you get the idea. Wear down the other team with constant pressure and keep them from attacking your own net and you’ve got a pretty good shot at winning a hockey game.

It was a pretty sweet and pretty rare goal. These days you don’t really get to see goaltenders take shots down the ice, and it clearly caught the Panthers flat-footed coming off a line change. Nice to see Troy Brouwer giving Holtby a point of recognition on his way to the bench for that old-school pass.

They always do. And the play found the linesman. He and Kaleta got tangled up, the linesman grabbed the forward’s stick he flailed and tried to keep balance, and suddenly Kaleta was stickless and the linesman was wide open for a one-timer in the corner.

No one was quite sure why he called time a few seconds later, but my hunch is he just wanted to apologize. How nice. And what an odd sequence.

A busy NHL schedule on Saturday just got a little bit lighter. With snow crippling Boston, officials have decided to postpone the evening’s Bruins vs. Tampa Bay Lightning game at TD Garden. The NHL made the announcement around 3 p.m. ET Saturday afternoon, citing the “weather-related State of Emergency” still in effect in Boston.

“Although both Clubs and the assigned on-ice officials are in Boston,” the NHL’s statement read, “travel conditions remain too hazardous for fans, security personnel and TD Garden staff to get to the arena.”

Early in the first period, with the Hurricanes leading 1-0, Wallace caught McGinn with a big hit as he was moving the puck up the boards and out of the zone. McGinn took the brunt of the hit on the back of his neck and head and was forced to leave the game for nearly ten minutes.

Wallace was hit with a five minute major for boarding as well as a game misconduct for the hit, which caught McGinn in a vulnerable position as he slipped along the boards while moving the puck. Whether this is a hit that is likely to lead to a suspension is debatable, especially since Shanahan has shown in the past to defer to the one-ice punishments if the penalties fit the crime.

Buffalo Sabres defenseman Tyler Myers will not be playing Saturday night against the New York Islanders. He’s not hurt. He’s just not playing because he hasn’t been good at hockey lately.

“I was on the right track and then, it’s just all mental for me,” Myers told WGR 550. “I make a mistake, I’m too hard on myself and put too much pressure on myself in the long run. So I think I just need to relax, take a step back and start enjoying myself.”

Each day we ask five questions that need to be answered during the day and night of NHL action. Check here for Saturday’s full NHL schedule:

1. Can the Devils slow down the red-hot Penguins?

Here’s a full look at today’s schedule:

Pittsburgh Penguins at New Jersey Devils

1 p.m. ET | TV: NHL Network, MSG+, ROOT Sports

Goalies: Marc-Andre Fleury, Martin Brodeur

Blog coverage: Pensburgh, In Lou We Trust

The Devils have gotten over any sort of Stanley Cup hangover that might exist as the Eastern Conference champions have gotten off to a 6-1-3 start to the season and currently ride a three-game winning streak. After starting the season 3-0-0 the Devils fell victim to three overtime or shootout losses that led to a disappointing 5-1 loss to the Penguins on Feb. 2.

This weekend’s series will mark six games in eight days for the Devils, treating the loss to the Penguins as a wake up call and going 3-1-0 in the tight stretch of games so far. The Devils are 4-for-11 on the power play during the three-game winning streak and have gone a perfect 19-for-19 on the penalty kill over that span.