Celebration! (Caps Outsider)
Washington barely won Game 4 in Uniondale, NY on Tuesday in overtime, but brought that momentum home as they fed off the Verizon Center crowd and trounced the Islanders, 5-1 on Thursday. The Caps, who has struggled with secondary scoring in this series, finally found it as they got goals from four different players, none of whom were named Ovechkin or Backstrom.
The Caps controlled the pace of the game from the start. Washington sustained offensive zone time, took plenty of shots, limited the number of shots against, and skated faster than their Long Island counterparts.
Tension carried over from Game 4 – mainly from the steamrolling that Tom Wilson gave to Ľubomír Višňovský – and an inevitable fight happened, as Wilson dropped the gloves with Anders Lee.
Not long after, the Islanders struck first with a laser from Josh Bailey. The referees disregarded John Tavares’ cover of the puck and hand pass, which should have been whistled. But Washington persevered and at 9:05 in the first period, Evgeny Kuznetsov batted in a rebound past Jaroslav Halak for his first career playoff goal. Washington took over from there.
The Caps had some target practice in the second, peppering Halak with an astounding 18 SOG. Only one of those shots found twine. Troy Brouwer stole the puck from Halak who was attempting to covered the puck, and made a pass to a sneaky Karl Alzner, who buried the puck into the open net for his 2nd goal of the playoffs. Washington dominated the period and Braden Holtby stopped the few shots that he faced.
The third period featured an offensive explosion. Soon after Washington’s first power play of the night, Brooks Laich took a pass from Jay Beagle and roofed the puck on Halak, for his first of the playoffs. The Caps scored a similar goal when Matt Niskanen made a beautiful pass to a charging Kuznetsov while the Islanders were changing, and backhanded a shot that beat Halak five hole. Jason Chimera put the icing on the cake when he squeaked a wrister past Halak.
The Islanders were obviously frustrated by their efforts which led to Cal Clutterbuck and Matt Martin taking misconducts. The Caps held on to the lead and remained perfect on the penalty kill after Laich was whistled for interference on our old friend Mikhail Grabovski. The horn sounded and Washington skated to their goaltender and celebrated.
The Caps head back to New York for Game 6 and will try to end the series and advance to the second round. Game 6 will be on Saturday. If the Blackhawks beat the Predators Thursday night, the Caps will play at 8 pm. If the Predators win, the Caps play at 3 pm.
Washington will have to play their heart out on Saturday because New York will come out with a lot of desperation and the Caps want to avoid a do or die Game 7.
