Up next, quite possibly (and truthfully, we can’t see how it won’t happen), a sweep of the Philadelphia Flyers.
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That’s the only way to describe how it must have felt to goaltender Steve Mason and the rest of his Philadelphia Flyers teammates when a harmless tip from 101 feet away trickled all the way down the ice and landed in their net to give the Washington Capitals a 2-0 lead in Game 2.
“It’s not over yet”, said captain Alexander Ovechkin, whose three-point night pushed him ahead of Dale Hunter for the most playoff points (73) in Capitals franchise history.
The Capitals scored 6 unanswered goals, including going 5-9 on the power play to rout the home Flyers and drive the fans from the stands. As promised, the Flyers were hit with a delay of game penalty assessed to the bench.
Why so much trouble on the power play?
The Wells Fargo Center erupted after a moving tribute and spirited play from the home team led to a first-minute goal Monday.
NEW YORK – Thomas Hickey scored 12:31 into overtime to give the New York Islanders a victory over Florida in Game 3 of their Eastern Conference first-round series.
It’s understood that Ovechkin’s shot is rivalled by few on the planet, but when he beat Mason from inside the blue-line on the glove side, it was a shot that the goalie should have stopped.
By the time Evgeny Kuznetsov scored on the power play early in the third, benefitting from the puck bouncing oddly off the boards, the Flyers were down to one answer.
Rarely-if ever-would it be accurate to describe the second of a best-of-seven series as a “must-win”, but the Flyers couldn’t afford to lose this one.
The puck was redirected to Kuznetsov, who quickly deked to his forehand to beat the netminder. Staving off elimination this time will be a Herculean task for the Flyers, because the Capitals are too strong to suffer a massive meltdown like the 2010 Bruins did.
Following a brawl behind the Capitals net – after Pierre-Eduoard Bellemare lit up Dmitry Orlov – Ryan White and Radko Gudas were sent off with game misconducts, as was Bellemare, who was also hit with a checking from behind penalty.
And after Flyers fans were forced to watch their powerplay look like garbage all night, they made a decision to fill the ice with some of their own.
Orpik is an integral part of the Caps’ top four and he won’t be easy to replace.
He carried the Flyers to the playoffs on the strength of a 10-4-3 record down the stretch. Jakub Voracek managed to sneak one of the 42 shots past Holtby in the second period, cutting the lead to one.
But a Braden Holtby glove on a power-play point shot and a save on Claude Giroux helped keep the lead intact. Michael Raffl scored just 57 seconds into the game.
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There was little momentum for the Flyers, who initially had some bite after the Snider video was shown before the game. Caps’ defenseman John Carlson’s shot got deflected in by Johansson 15 seconds into the power play and 4:43 into the game.
