Monday night will be an elimination game for the Pittsburgh Penguins after the Capitals secured an unlikely win in a dramatic, up-and-down Game Five. There’s a hero here, and if you’ve been paying attention, I promise you’re gonna like where this story is going.
Two minutes into the game, Jamie Oleksiak scored on Braden Holtby’s stick side to give the Penguins a lead, but a late-period flurry from new dad John Carlson and past playoff escape goat Brett Connolly gave the Caps a one-goal lead headed into the second period, which is where bad things happened. Sidney Crosby re-tied the game with a tip-in of Phil Kessel’s shot during an early power play, then Patric Hornqvist won a crease fight to give the Penguins the lead after forty minutes.
Less than one minute into the third period, Evgeny Kuznetsov took a pass from Jakub Vrana and turned it into a thrilling breakaway goal. Vrana doubled down to put the Caps in the lead with less than five minutes remaining. TJ Oshie and Lars Eller added empty-netters, and that was it.
Caps beat the Penguins 6-3! Caps lead the series 3-2!
.@JVranaa with a great pass and @Kuzya92 with a great finish. pic.twitter.com/UP3ZyeZ2QJ
— NHL GIFs (@NHLGIFs) May 6, 2018
Hey @russianmachine you guys got a shoutout on the HNIC Sportsnet feed! @ianoland @peterhassett @pfholden #FreeWilly pic.twitter.com/tBDywBCKis
— Shea Angus (@Sheangus) May 6, 2018
Joe B suit of the night, courtesy of Andrew
This isn’t about me or RMNB analysts or stats vs old-school or Barry Trotz. This is about Jakub Vrana getting a shot on the big stage and absolutely crushing it.
The Caps have a chance to do something they have not done in 24 years, and it’s all because their coach trusted a young player and was repaid with success.
I dig hockey for lots of reasons, but here’s one: I got to watch a special kid like Jake become a star on national television after months of doubt as to whether he even deserved a sweater. He got one tonight, and he had his moment. He’s gonna have a lot more, and we get to watch.
Let’s go Caps.
Headline photo: 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under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported (CC BY-NC-SA 3.0)– unless otherwise stated or superseded by another license.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