After picking up an assist on Monday night’s game winning goal in game 3, rookie Andre Burakovsky took it to another level on Wednesday night scoring both Washington goals to give the Caps a come from behind 2-1 victory, and more importantly help them take a 3-1 series lead.
Young Burra was the game’s number one star, but Braden Holtby was right behind the 20 year old stopping 28 of 29 shots, including a penalty shot by Carl Hagelin in the third period to earn the second star.
At the other end of the rink, Henrik Lundqvist played stellar saving 28 of 30 shots to get the game’s third star. He also received some help from the post in period three when Joel Ward came very close to making it 3-1 after a good point shot from Brooks Orpik.
The Rangers came out flying in the opening frame, as they’ve done all series, and outshot attempted the Caps, 26-14. When it came to shots on goal, though, it was only 13-8. Coach Barry Trotz commented on his team’s start afterwards stating, “I liked our 1st period better…we didn’t get anything, but they didn’t get anything either.”
Trotz was correct and in the middle frame the Caps were the better team, but they fell behind first by allowing a Rangers rush that Derrick Brassard finished. It was another stretch pass that New York likes to use because of its’ speed and it worked on this play. It also clicked again in the third period when Hagelin broke free and Mike Green had no choice but to hook him leading to Holtby’s penalty shot glove save.
Once it was 1-0 Rangers, the Capitals took over for most of period two, outshot attempting New York, 22-16. Burakovsky’s first goal came as a result of forechecking pressure that led to a turnover by Chris Kreider. The young Swede moved to the center of the slot and with Mark Staal diving to the ice and putting himself out of position, Burakovsky ripped one by Lundqvist.
Shortly thereafter, #65 nearly gave the Caps the lead when he was all alone in front after a great pass from John Carlson, but Lundqvist somehow got his shoulder on the shot. But Burakovsky would make no doubt about things just 24 seconds into period three as he stole the puck at the offensive blue line and went in alone on King Henrik and beat him with a sweet backhander.
At that point the Verizon Center went nuts. The Caps would have some intermittent pressure, but most of the last 19 minutes were spent in the Washington end as the Rangers tried everything to score. They had a penalty shot and also started a post whistle melee that, to no one’s surprise, didn’t lead to a Caps power play. In fact, the Caps ended up losing Tom Wilson to a misconduct for 10 minutes because he pulled down Keith Yandle after #93 hit Willy in the back of the head a couple of times. Coach Trotz said afterwards that referee Brad Watson came over to tell him why only Wilson received the misconduct, but Trotz said he couldn’t make out what “Wats” said because it was just too loud in the Verizon Center.
Loud it was and the Capitals crowd did another super job of giving the Washington players extra energy down the stretch to close the victory out. The Caps did another good job of keeping the Rangers on the perimeter and Holtby only had to stop nine shots on net out of 24 shot attempts in the last 20 minutes. For the game, the Capitals blocked 25 shots, including a huge one from Karl Alzner in the last two minutes.
This was superb goaltending and great team defense once again by the Capitals.
It’s also another victory where someone other than Alex Ovechkin or Nicklas Backstrom stepped up to be the offensive hero.
So now it’s on to game five on Friday night at Madison Square Garden. The fourth victory is always the hardest to obtain so the Caps have their work cut out for them against the Presidents’ Trophy winners. New York was down three games to one to Pittsburgh in the second round last year before rallying, so this series is far from done.
The Caps will need to weather the storm in the opening frame and stick to their system to try and grind out another hard fought victory like they did in games three and four at the Verizon Center.
Notes: Washington won the face off battle, 38-29. Backstrom was 16-10…Ovechkin only had seven shot attempts but five of them were on goal…the Caps out hit the Rangers, 37-31…Washington had 25 blocked shots to just seven for the Rangers. Orpik blocked a team high six…The Caps played with only 3 defensemen for about a minute in period three in a four on four situation. Gleason and Green were in the box after the big melee and then Orpik was called for holding, but he took Brassard off with him (slashing). Orpik stated that the even up call was correct.
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