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This stupid, lovable team: Caps beat Blue Jackets 4-3!

By Peter Hassett

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April 21, 2018 6:17 pm

Game Five was chaos. It had everything you “want” in a Caps playoff game: inscrutable penalties and non-calls, improbable and undeserved goals, two blown leads, and yet another long, stupefying offensive lull that made the third period miserable for every fan watching while wearing red. And still, somehow, in defiance of all reason, we once again went to sudden-victory overtime and won it.

Matt Calvert kicked it off in the worst possible way: scoring on a shorthanded chance made possible by Alex Ovechkin’s turnover. Nick Backstrom got a magic puck off David Savard’s skate then Sergei Bobrovsky’s back, nothing but net.

Evgeny Kuznetsov exploited a bad line change to score in the second period, but Matt Calvert got his second of the game on a breakaway soon after. Penalties flourished on both sides after that, but only the Caps exploited it, with TJ Oshie tipping in John Carlson’s shot from the point to put the Caps up 3-2 after 40 minutes.

Early in the third, Oliver Bjorkstrand tied it with a deflection after a failed clear. The Blue Jackets had the puck for pretty much all of the rest of regulation time, but the Caps survived into overtime anyway. There, Nick Backstrom, with a deflection, ended it!

Caps beat Blue Jackets 4-3 in overtime. The Caps lead the series 3-2! I hate this team and what they’re doing to my life!

  • Again, discipline was a problem– or maybe the problem was enforcement? In the first period alone, Lars Eller (4 PIMs) got busted for roughing (should have been coincidentals, but whatever), then Oshie for a slash, then Stephenson for a cross-check. The Caps kept killing anyway, and ultimately it wasn’t those first-period penalties that hurt the team early on…
  • …it was Alex Ovechkin‘s turnover during a Caps PP that led to Columbus’s first goal. Washington has been making some odd choices this series, modifying the formulation to put Ovechkin on point rather than in The Ovi Spot. This turnover happened during transition from one to the other.
  • The second period was a mess. Vrana drew a penalty, no wait, he didn’t. John Carlson got tripped, but not really, but they’re calling it anyway. The questionable calls began in the first period, with Lars Eller becoming the solo punished party for a two-person engagement. Then, I guess, the refs had to keep a mental tally of who is owed for the rest of the game?
  • The whistles went away in the third, as they are wont to do. And, hey! No Tom Wilson penalties!
  • Look at this stupid save by Sergei Bobrovsky. Look at it and see it and think about it and here it is.

  • I have a feeling we’ll be talking about that save for a while. It was very Varly circa 2009 (though I should add that Varlamov was atrocious overall in that Pittsburgh series), and actually that aside should not be in parentheses considering Bobrovsky also goofed in setting up this nifty Nicky Backstrom goal.
  • Did I mention the second period was a mess? Because it was. The penalties were bad, the referees calling the penalties were bad, and the events that occurred in the scant, fleeting moments between those penalties were also bad. Calvert’s second goal and Kuznetsov’s breakaway goal are two things that we should not expect to see from two good teams in the playoffs.
  • I guess I’m obligated to point out that Pat pointed out that special teams would be the deciding factor in this series last week. With their perfect PK on Saturday, the Caps have killed 13 straight Columbus power plays.
  • The game settled a bit following TJ Oshie‘s goal, a tip-in of a shot by John Carlson, who, have we mentioned, is gonna be get paid big-time this summer? Oshie, for his part, absorbed a big hit from Ian Cole in the third period and missed some shifts. We already know he’s nursing some injuries; how bad is it exactly?
  • That third period also found the Jackets pressing on every shift, dominating play and forcing Braden Holtby to make big saves. The Caps looked tired, disorganized, and outclassed by Columbus – a bummer way to end a game. Shots on goal were 16 to 1. All praise be unto Holtby for pushing the Caps to overtime, which, yeah, has happened in nine of their last twelve games. Yuck. Holtby ended it with 39 saves on 42 shots – a 92.8 save percentage.

(This design and a bunch of others are available in our store.)

  • I have compiled some overtime tweets for your perusal:

  • Thats just some happy people enjoying their entertainment product.

This is not my beautiful Joe B suit of the afternoon.

We knew Game Six would be an elimination game. We did not know until the final fraction of a second for whom it would be an elimination game. On Monday, in Columbus, the Blue Jackets will fight for their lives.

Please let it be less exciting than this.

Full Coverage of Game Five

Headline photo: Rob Carr

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