They did it.
After a scoreless first period, and just as we all expected, Alex Chiasson scored, taking a pass from Nathan Walker, no, seriously. Kris Letang scored on a slapper to tie it after two periods. The third period was a grind, and it gave us no goals, so off we went to overtime.
There, in extra time, with the DMV area’s faith in sports on the line, Evgeny repaid us on our investment. Game over. Series over. Curse over.
Caps beat Penguins 2-1! The Capitals win the series 4-2! The Capitals advance to the conference final for the first time in twenty years!
- Braden Holtby is good. I’ll write more about that when my blood pressure gets back to normal, but for now: he’s good. I like him. I like the cut of his jib. He’s got a fresh sound.
- With Andre Burakovsky, Nick Backstrom, and Tom Wilson all out for various reasons, Barry Trotz reached deep into the players bag. Out came Travis Boyd on the third line and Nathan Walker on the fourth. Chandler Stephenson took Ovechkin’s off-wing and looked just fine up there.
- Being forced to change their forwards made for some surprising dynamics. The top line kept clicking even without Vrana, but Eller’s line was dead on arrival. The most pleasant twist: the fourth line had a ton of heat, driving play to the tune of 69 percent through regulation.
- Nathan Walker hadn’t suited up for Washington since November. His life had been a blur since then, which is fitting since Walker seems so comfortable with speed. In his first playoff game, Walker took a pass from Jay Beagle and turned it into a scoring chance for Alex Chiasson. That that chance became a goal seems more a function of Matt Murray not locking down the post.
- The Penguins dominated the Capitals on the faceoff dot. It was just shy of 60/40 in the Pens’ favor as regulation time expired.
- That first period was not good-looking hockey. It was choppy and slow, which perhaps worked well for the Caps given their available shooting talent. I suspected it wouldn’t last. The second period saw that early goal from that great fourth line, then an explosion by the third line (Connolly, Boyd, Smith-Pelly) – but the Pens pushed back. Sidney Crosby won back-to-back faceoffs in the Caps zone before Kris Letang got that set-play slapper past Holtby.
- The third period returned to form as an unrelenting grind without any flow. There were thirteen icings by both teams before the end of regulation time.
- The refs seemed to put the whistle away entirely halfway through the first period. After a power play for each team, this game was left to even strength. I almost respect that as an officiating decision more than what we’ve seen recently.
- The more I look back at the last few months, the more I think that Michal Kempny‘s addition was a tremendous improvement for the Caps. That’s odd since he had a very unfortunate Game Six. In one shift Kempny misplayed the puck in the defensive zone to set up Malkin for a chance, then missed a neutral-zone pass to put the Caps offside. Then he committed a textbook restraining penalty on Jake Guentzel to give the Pens a power play. Meanwhile, Brooks Orpik had a pretty solid game overall. (Though I do believe he got shoeved down by 5’8″, 180 lbs Connor Sheary at one point.)
Nightmare fuel of the night
Evgeny Kuznetsov was already a legend just for being a goofball who is good at hockey, but with a breakaway from Alex Ovechkin and a low-key wrister to the five-hole, he pushed a DC sports team to the third round of the playoffs for the first time since the Cretaceous.
Um. This is new ground for us. I’m not sure what I’m supposed to do with my hands?
Headline photo: Joe Sargent
