Caps break out in win

Chris Clark repeatedly conveyed the same message during the past week: The chances have been there, and eventually the goals will follow.

Clark had gone 10 games without a point dating back to last season — his longest such stretch since joining the Washington Capitals — but the captain potted a pair last night in a 5-3 victory at Verizon Center that snapped a four-game losing skid.

“With the way Clark plays, he does so many things right — little things in our zone, blocks shots and being a leader in our dressing room — he does too many things right for things to not go his way,” Caps forward Brooks Laich said. “Tonight it was nice to see him finally rewarded.”

The Caps had gone 16 games — tied for the second longest streak in team history — without scoring at least four goals. The last time was in this building against this team in a 7-1 win March 18.

Clark put Washington on the board first after Alex Ovechkin knocked the puck away from Tampa Bay defenseman Brad Lukowich. Shane O”Brien”s backhanded clearing attempt did not have much on it, and Clark collected it, skated to his left and wristed a shot above Lightning goaltender Marc Denis” glove 6:33 into the opening period.

His second marker put the Caps in front 4-2. Michael Nylander whipped a backhanded pass from the left corner to the right point, where Brian Pothier sent a shot toward Denis. It bounced off the goaltender, and then the puck ricocheted off Clark”s hip and into the net.

“I got a couple of those goose eggs off my board,” Clark said. “As long as they go in — I was just trying to weasel my way to the front of the net and hope something happens.”

He wasn”t far from a hat trick. Clark”s best chances might have been the ones he didn”t score on. Midway through the second period, he collected a rebound just to the left of a prone Denis, but Clark couldn”t lift the puck enough to put it past the goalie. Early in the third period he was denied on a breakaway, and late in the period a rebound from Ovechkin’s shot trickled past his stick with an open net waiting.

Clark”s second goal came 61 seconds after Laich put the Caps in front with his second goal of the season. Defenseman Shaone Morrisonn sent a long pass to Matt Pettinger near the Caps” bench. Pettinger knocked it down with one hand on his stick, skated into the offensive zone and fed Laich, who put the puck past Denis just as Boyd Gordon proved to be a worthy distraction by jumping to avoid the shot and a fallen Lightning player.

“It was just chaos,” Laich said. “But it was something we”ve talked about though. We”ve talked about getting traffic to the net and driving the net.”

Dave Steckel scored his first NHL goal to give Washington a 2-1 lead. Steckel accepted a cross-ice pass from Ovechkin through traffic and ripped a shot into the open net to the left of Denis.

“I just went out there for the draw, and they told me to stay out there and play,” Steckel said. “I just got the puck to [Viktor Kozlov], and [Kozlov and Ovechkin] aren”t going to mess up too many plays like that. They are the ones who made the play.”

Ovechkin added an empty-netter with four seconds left to cap a three-point night. The Lightning played most of the final period without star Vincent Lecavalier, who got into a fight with Morrisonn and was assessed 19 minutes in penalties. Morrisonn left the scrap bloodied and went to the dressing room but later returned.

Caps goaltender Olie Kolzig, who was a surprise scratch from the team”s last game against Pittsburgh on Saturday night, stopped 26 of 29 shots and made several key saves during the second period when Tampa Bay had three power plays but failed to convert on any of them.

His effort helped the Caps get back to .500 after opening the season with three straight wins and then not winning for 16 days.

“We”re not accepting playing well — we want to win,” Caps coach Glen Hanlon said. “We talked a lot about adversity, and if you weren”t strong enough mentally to lose four hockey games and come back, Anaheim wouldn”t have been able to win the Stanley Cup last year. … You”re not going to play 82 games without having some adversity, so we learned from it.”

Caps report

Last night at Verizon Center

QUOTABLE

“When your top player can play that well defensively and preserve a lead and you”re playing him every second shift in the last 10 minutes, that is what turns organizations around.”

— Caps coach Glen Hanlon on Alex Ovechkin

BY THE NUMBERS

100 NHL games for 22-year old Caps defenseman Mike Green, who leads the team”s blue line corps with four points.

10,226 Announced attendance — and the actual crowd was about two-thirds of that — the smallest crowd since 10,125 came for a game Oct. 18, 2006, against Florida.