The Washington Capitals once again came close to winning their third game of the Eastern Conference Finals, but in the end lost yet another home fixture in this year’s playoffs, falling 4-2 to the Tampa Bay Lightning in Game Four. As the saying goes, close is only good in horseshoes and hand grenades.
The Caps out-shot the Lightning 38 to 20 and out-attempted them at five-on-five 45 to 39.
- I cannot lie, I was thoroughly livid after this game concluded. That’s special because this team, or really any sports team that I root for, hasn’t made me feel that way in a very long time. The Caps almost doubled up their opposition in shots, had four fruitless man advantages, and held the Lightning shotless for a full twenty minutes. Yet, they still came out losers. It’s a best of three now, a situation the Caps have already been in twice this postseason. I’m still all-in.
- Evgeny Kuznetsov‘s goal marked his seventh-straight game with at least one point and was his 21st point of this playoffs. That ties Alex Ovechkin‘s 2009 campaign for the most points in a single playoffs in franchise history.
- I would be remiss to not mention the goaltending from this game. Andrei Vasilevskiy stopped 36 of the Caps 38 shots and Braden Holtby stopped 16 of the 19 shots he faced. You cant really blame this loss on Holtby, but you can definitely attribute Tampa Bay’s win to Vasilevskiy. The tides seem to be turning a little bit in both nets.
- Since 1985, the Capitals have lost a playoff series that they led either 2-0 or 3-1, 10 different times. They have also never won a playoff game after winning the first two games of a series on the road, their record is 0-10 in those series after the first two wins. It’s time to do some more “curse-killing”.
- The Lightning are now 6 for 14 on their power play chances in this series. That’s a ludicrous 43-percent conversion rate. The Caps need to stay out of the box and their penalty kill needs to wake up before it’s too late.
- The fourth line was to put it simply, pretty horrendous. One part of that trio, Andre Burakovsky, played a team low 8:30. That was deserved. I don’t know what planet he’s been on this season, playoffs, series, etc. Either his injuries have completely derailed his season or he’s just lost. Either way, he would not be in my lineup for the rest of this series.
Numbers thanks to Hockey-reference.com, Hockeystats.ca, NaturalStatTrick.com, and Corsica.hockey.
Full RMNB Coverage of Game Four
Headline Photo: Patrick McDermott
