“If they’re just a hard forechecking hit or a good battle and a hit and a guy gets hurt, then that’s something you can handle a lot better. They were going to play better than they did last game with those guys out”, he said. “That’s how you create momentum”.
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Patric Hornqvist and Tom Kuhnhackl had fired Pittsburgh into an early lead before Carl Hagelin added a third in the second to make it 3-0.
Bill West of TribLive.Com had a great quote from head coach Mike Sullivan in a recent article that highlights exactly what the Penguins need to do.
Five of the last six meetings between these two clubs have been settled by a single goal, however the total has played UNDER just twice over their past nine clashes, according to the OddsShark NHL Database.
But with the way Murray has played this series combined with Pittsburgh’s resiliency, the Penguins have deserved this 3-1 series lead with a trip to the conference finals on the line. It was Schultz’s first game since Game 1 of the quarterfinal series against the New York Rangers April 13.
Later there was a turndown of Alex Ovechkin that provoked some chirping from the Capitals captain.
“It was more of an unlucky play than anything”, Trotz said of Weber’s failed attempt to clear the puck. “I made a couple mistakes here and there. If I get in, I’ll be ready”. He had a similar message two days later.
“That’s why it’s (called) sudden death”, said Trotz. “It’s kind of unfortunate that that’s what we have to talk about, but stuff happens and we’ve got to obviously deal with it”. But I don’t think there was any intention there.
But the Capitals refused to give up, knowing another loss would put them in grave danger of elimination, and John Carlson scored to tie the game towards the end of the second period.
Scooping up a puck dumped deep into the corner of the Penguins zone, Beagle flipped an innocent-looking backhand over the left shoulder of Murray.
But it wasn’t until things were all even three minutes into the second period that the Penguins took the lead through ageless wonder Matt Cullen.
The hit stat has the National Hockey League has has no predictive value and I rarely use it but in 2015-16 the Washington Capitals had 1,994 hits and the Pittsburgh Penguins had 1,947.
Brian Dumoulin was paired with Ben Lovejoy on Wednesday morning, while Derrick Pouliot, who played his first career playoff game on Monday, was connected with Trevor Daley, the 32-year-old who is second to Letang in minutes this post-season.
“We’re excited to have Kris back”, Lovejoy said.
Crosby got his first point of the series with the secondary assist; he was pointless in three consecutive games for the first time since February 10-15.
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Letang was out because he had to serve a one-game suspension for an illegal hit on Washington forward Marcus Johansson in Game 3. During the regular season, Oleksy had 19 points (2G-17A) and was plus-8 in 63 games with WBS. The Caps were facing a Penguins team that was missing its top two defencemen in Olli Maatta and Kris Letang, so it was imperative that they took advantage of the Pens depleted blue line. That did take a while to come and it was definitely frustrating just not being able to play, but (also) not feeling normal every day.
