Down one goal with 7.5 seconds left in the first period, Tampa Bay’s Nikita Kucherov had a partial breakaway and miraculously flipped the puck past Braden Holtby for what he thought would tie the game.
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The Washington Capitals experienced a great turn of fortune late in the first period of Game 1 of the Eastern Conference finals against the Tampa Bay Lightning on Friday night. The Capitals have the second-best power play percentage in the playoffs, running at 30.9 percent. “He’s a great example for young kids and someone to look up to”.
And as has been the case throughout the postseason, the Capitals’ power play has been on fire – scoring in 11 of their 13 games.
Tampa Bay replaced goaltender Andrei Vasilevskiy with Louis Domingue after the starter allowed four goals on 25 shots through two periods.
“That’s the great part about competition”, Maurice said. “And we’re going to do that”.
“Obviously the one at the end of the first, it hurts, but it’s a bang-bang play”, Girardi said.
The Washington captain, who as the gap-toothed face of the franchise had probably worn the previous post-season disappointments more so than any other player, had one of his best games of this year’s playoffs. “We’re gonna keep going here”. “Washington is very similar in that regard”.
“I’ve had some teams that have been very, very talented and they weren’t necessarily the best teams”, said Trotz, who is in the third round for the first time in 19 years as an National Hockey League head coach.
“That has to be in our mind and we have to play as a group, not play individually”.
Speaking of upsets, the Washington Capitals finally dethroned the Pittsburgh Penguins in a six-game series.
He skated Thursday at the Capitals’ practice facility in Virginia, working on some stickhandling and passing, but he did not practice. Tom Wilson needs to be the energizer bunny for the Capitals and he is coming off a three-game suspension.
Capitals coach Barry Trotz said that when Backstrom says he’s ready, he’ll be in the lineup. “We’ve got to get back to what got us to the conference final”. He leads the Capitals in playoff points (15) and goals (8). Evgeny Kuznetsov got to the puck and fed Ovechkin, who one-timed it into the net.
If there is anything we can guarantee fans heading into this series it’s that both teams will be looking to leave everything out on the ice in the hopes of making their way to the final round. “The more you can see, and the more familiar you get with something, if you’re a good player you have to take advantage of it a little more”. They will open up the third round tonight on the road as they travel to Tampa Bay, taking on a Lightning team that lost to the Chicago Blackhawks in the 2015 Stanley Cup Finals. The Lightning won in a sweep before losing in seven to Boston in the East final.
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“The whole game wasn’t good enough for where we need to be at this point of the season”, Lightning forward Ryan Callahan said. I know the Bruins had a lot of injuries but I was expecting that to be a closer series than it was, especially since their top line was relatively quiet.
