Photo: John Clark

You didn’t think it was gonna be that easy, did you? Without special teams dominance and a convincing performance at even strength, the Washington Capitals dropped Game Four to the Flyers. It’s just prolonging the suffering is what it is.

Shayne Gostisbehere, the Ghost Bear, got his first playoff goal with a blue-line slapper in the first period, deflected off Karl Alzner up front. The Flyers made it 2-0 in the second period with a goal by — I’m not making this up — Andrew MacDonald.

The Caps finally got something going early in the third, with TJ Oshie putting a backhand tuck past Philly goalie Michal Neuvirth. What followed was a barrage of Caps offense, but no goals.

Flyers beat Caps 2-1. Caps still lead the series 3-1.

• First things first: Scott Laughton was hurt badly in a crash into the boards, and it’s terrible. Here’s hoping for a good diagnosis and a speedy recovery for the youngster.
• Laughton was the only player injured, though not for lack of trying on Brayden Schenn‘s part. Dude was trying to chop down a tree, and that tree was a deciduous conifer called Evgeny Kuznetsov‘s right knee.
• Okay, now to the actual hockey.
• Tonight we were reminded that Braden Holtby is mortal. Holtby allowed two goals, the same number he allowed in the three prior games put together. I have a feeling he’ll say some self-castigating things in the locker room, but really he was just fine. The problem was ahead of him.
• The Capitals were a mess in the first 40. In the neutral zone backcheck, they were passive. On the attack they were sloppy. It’s as if the high shooting percentages had conditioned them to think the only way to score is at the end of a fancy passing sequence.
• Then again, the Caps top six has been remarkably strong through four games but just don’t have much in the way of even-strength goals to show for it. Andre Burakovsky in particular was a man possessed (8 shot attempts).
• The most effective Caps skaters in those miserable first two periods: Jay Beagle, who drove play and got rubber on net.
• But hitting the back of the net is what matters. Well, I’m not sure TJ Oshie‘s top-shelf backhander actually hit the back of the net, but it, ya know, counted as a goal. The important thing is that the Caps started attacking the crease after that.

Crash the Net t-shirts are available in the RMNB store

• We had heard for the last ten days that Shayne Gostisbehere‘s power-play slap shot was a fearsome thing that could change the series. On Wednesday we finally saw it, and yeah, he’s good.
• Barry Trotz challenged that goal on the premise that Wayne Simmonds interfered with Braden Holtby, which totally holds water if Simmonds crop-dusted him, but there was no video evidence, so instead it was just another ennervating coach’s challenge.
• I just wanna say that Steph, aka @myregularface, was on fire tonight.

idk why this makes me laugh so pic.twitter.com/yVaSjcymOT

— steph (@myregularface) April 21, 2016

• The Caps ruled in games one through three thanks in part to dominant special teams. Game Four saw precious little PP time, and the Caps PK finally cracked after being so impossibly good for so long.
• Andrew MacDonald. Ugh. That guy is a pylon. A very expensive pylon with a playoff goal to his name.
• Tom Wilson is hated in Philadelphia. Brandon Manning‘s hit on Wilson in the final two minutes was huge and rousing, but it was also clean. There, I said it. (For his part, Wilson has been nicely restrained this series.)
• Wayne Gretzky weirds me out, you guys.

Joe B suit of the night

You’re gonna hear some noise about the Caps lacking killer instinct in their institutional memory. That’s nonsense. The teams of past heartbreak wore the same uniform, but they weren’t the same team. This team is special. You’ll see.

The Caps will get it done on Friday. Mikey’s going down.

Full RMNB Coverage of Game Four