Recap

Caps Can’t Clinch, Fall 3-1 to the Islanders

Alex Ovechkin had an assist on the lone goal Sunday. (Caps Outsider)

The Washington Capitals played their last game ever at the Nassau Coliseum on Saturday afternoon with the hopes that it would also be the Islanders last game in their home arena as well. When the final whistle blew, the Islanders extended the series as they beat the Capitals, 3-1.

The first period was a photocopy of every first period of the series. The Islanders came out strong, with the Capitals sitting back on their heels hoping to stave off New York’s attacks. The Capitals did get an early scoring chance as John Tavares lost his stick, giving Washington a 2-on-1 situation. Nicklas Backstrom fed the puck to Joel Ward but could not get the puck past Jaroslav Halak. A few minutes later, Tavares fired a wrist-shot past Braden Holtby to give the Islanders a 1-0 lead.

After the Islanders took the lead, the wheels came off for them temporarily. They were whistled for three penalties in a span of six-and-a-half minutes, with the Capitals scoring on the 3rd power play with time winding down in the period off a powerful shot by John Carlson.

Both teams came out tentative in the second, not wanting to make the mistake to cost their respective team a goal. While neither side got onto the score sheet, there were plenty of fireworks. Plenty of scraps after the whistle took place, with Mike Green, Colin McDonald, Michael Latta, and Matt Martin all going off for roughing penalties. As the period was coming to a close, Matt Donovan was hit with a ten-minute misconduct penalty, thus depleting an Islanders defensive corps even more than they were coming into this game.

The Islanders came out in the third playing with a chip on their shoulder. They forced the Capitals to spend a lot of time in their defensive zone, not being able to create scoring chances. At 10:33 of the period the Islanders were able to regain the lead as Nikolay Kulemin was able to beat Holtby with a wrist-shot from assists by Tavares and Nick Leddy.

The Capitals seemed to tie the game off a Jay Beagle wrist shot that beat Halak high, however, it went to a replay which showed the puck went off the crossbar and not over the goal line. With Holtby to the bench for the extra skater Cal Clutterbuck was able to score on the empty net, making the final score 3-1.

Game Seven will be at the Verizon Center on Monday evening. The start time will be determined within the next 24 hours.

Jeff

He is a college student who majors in finance. As a lifelong Capitals fan, he has endured all of the highs and lows the organization has gone through. Jeff is also a NHL contributor for Puck, Drunk, Love on the Bloguin network.

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