Game Two was like Game One except better. Early lead? Sure. Make it grow? Lovely. But then the Caps got an extra goal, and even after the Pens got on the scoreboard it did not snowball. You could even argue that maybe, perhaps, just possibly, the Caps got the better whistles in this one. Either way: happy endings for everybody in red.
Alex Ovechkin opened it up after Patric Hornqvist fed him a perfect pass all the way from the other team. Jakub Vrana won a scramble low in the Pens zone to put the Caps up 2-0 heading into the second. Brett Connolly caught a stretch pass to make it 3-0. Kris Letang threaded the needle to snap the shutout during 4-on-4 play in the second period, and Backstrom added an empty netter late in the third. Goals only tell a fraction of this story, but it’s a good story in the end.
Caps beat Penguins 4-1! The series is tied 1-1!
Dmitry Orlov throwing hands pic.twitter.com/61VoCgJz30
— Ian Oland (@ianoland) April 29, 2018
Parallax effect of the afternoon
A lot to chew on here, and only two days to do so. The Caps played much better, but that progress might get lost in the chaos of the game’s back half. We’ve got possible suspensions, injuries, officiating controversy, and at least one vendetta to fight about, but above all, this: The Caps didn’t repeat history. They did not blow a two-goal lead to lose in tragic fashion. They did not go down 2-0 on home ice. They’re alive and dangerous, and that’s all that matters for right now.
Headline photo:Â Patrick Smith
Russian Machine Never Breaks is not associated with the Washington Capitals; Monumental Sports, the NHL, or its properties. Not even a little bit.
All original content on russianmachineneverbreaks.com is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported (CC BY-NC-SA 3.0)– unless otherwise stated or superseded by another license. You are free to share, copy, and remix this content so long as it is attributed, done for noncommercial purposes, and done so under a license similar to this one.
Share On