The Washington Capitals are back in Florida, having accrued precisely zero wins since they last left that blighted state. That might sound catastrophic, but all it means is that the series is tied 2-2. With the puck dropping at 7:15 PM on NBC, the winner of Game Five will take a crucial series lead. The loser will risk elimination next week at Capital One Arena.
So please win.
Peter here, I’ll be your host tonight. Let’s do the thing.
The final regular season stats:
| Record | 54-23-5 | 49-26-7 |
| Shot Attempt % | 52.3% | 48.3% |
| PDO | 102.1 | 101.4 |
| Power Play | 23.9% | 22.5% |
| Penalty Kill | 76.1% | 80.3% |
Projected Lines
Here’s how they looked at Amalie Arena this morning:
Ovechkin – Kuznetsov – Wilson
Stephenson – Backstrom – Oshie
Vrana – Eller – Connolly
DSP – Beagle – Chiasson
Kempny – Carlson
Orlov – Niskanen
Orpik – Djoos
Holtby
Happy Birthday, Kuzy
On this day in 1992, Eugene Smith was born in Chelyabinsk, Russia. Since then, he has scored 80 goals (and 21 more in the postseason),
refused to come to Washington,
and has consistently been the best quote in the National Hockey League.
Have a great day, Kuzy. I’m sorry you have to share today with the wedding and the horses.
Storylines
- We were supposed to hang out with Mike Knuble last night, but this stupid rain. Yechh.
- You saw it above too, but Alex Ovechkin‘s stick-break after Game Four is kind of an iconic moment, no?
- This Wilson-Ovechkin-Kuznetsov scoring sequence is maybe the prettiest I can remember of the season.
- We had some debate about how to describe Dmitry Orlov‘s goal. I was leaning towards calling it an “absolute subaru” of a goal or perhaps a “right good puck-walloping” but we settled on just calling it a cannon.
- Tom Gulitti has a great item on nhl.com about Brooks Orpik as the team dad.
- Nicklas Backstrom has returned from injury. He got better with every shift in Game Four.
- The Athletic has an interesting piece with Tom Wilson‘s perspective on the havoc he wreaks. I found Andrew Gordon’s thoughts on the matter from the most recent RMNB podcast to be fascinating too.
- Alex Semin is back in the K. Haha.
- A year and a half of injuries have taken their toll on Andre Burakovsky, who is still good, just not doing a lot offensively right now.
- On the PP, Ovi is due:
There is no way that Tampa's PK has "solved" Ovechkin. pic.twitter.com/w44ypC8w2K
— Good Tweet Pete 🌮 (@peterhassett) May 18, 2018
Elyse is in Windsor
Quick Penalty Rundown
Lars Eller has received and deserved a lot of criticism for his penalty issues lately, but he hasn’t been the worst at it in this postseason.
The only Caps forwards with a positive differential are Jakub Vrana (plus-3) and Andre Burakovsky (plus-1). Everyone to the right of Jay Beagle have taken at least two more penalties than they’ve drawn. TJ Oshie and Chandler Stephenson have been particularly brutal with minus-3 ratings, and no Caps forward puts his team shorthanded with more frequency than Alex Chiasson (once per hour).
Horses and Weddings and Rain and Lava
It’s a busy day with lots of things going on. I hope you all stay safe, healthy, dry, uncolonized, and not on fire. Let’s meet back here at sundown for some fun hockey.
Headline photo: Patrick Smith
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