The Washington Capitals swept the home-and-home series with the Carolina Hurricanes and swept the season series, four games to none, with a 3-2 come from behind win on Thursday night. The win clinched a playoff spot for the Caps, the fifth straight season they made it to the big show.
First Period
The scoring started early in this contest. Carolina broke the ice in the fifth minute. The Caps got caught chasing the Hurricanes’
cycle on the left side of the offensive zone, and they lost track of Nino
Niederreiter in the middle of the ice. Justin
Williams found him all alone cruising down the slot, and while Niderreiter got
caught deep, below the goal line trying to stuff the puck past goalie Braden
Holtby, he was able to follow up his initial shot off the side of the post and
stuff it behind Holtby at the 4:31 mark to make it 1-0.
Less than a minute later, the Caps tied the game. Taking advantage of Carolina players running
into one another in the offensive zone, the Caps broke out, Brooks Orpik
chipping it off the glass to Brett Connolly heading up the right side. Connolly
and Jakub Vrana on a 2-on-1 break.
Connoly skated in, curled the puck around defenseman Trevor van
Riemsdyk, and wristed it past goalie Curtis McElhinney 5:13 into the
period. That would do it for the first
period scoring.
-- It was a period of misfires. The Caps had 19 shot attempts, nine of which
were missed shots, while Carolina had 20 shot attempts, 10 of which were missed
shots.
-- Alex Ovechkin had five shot attempts to lead the club;
John Carlson’s two shot attempts led in that category.
-- Carolina was credited with ten hits in the period.
Second Period
The teams skated back and forth over the first half of the
period without damage, but it was the Hurricanes who broke through first in the
second half of the period. Warren
Foegele skated the puck down the right side into the Caps’ zone, slithered the
puck through the skates of defenseman Nick Jensen, deked Holtby to ice, and
ripped it into the back of the net to make it 2-1, 12:30 into the period.
The Caps got a power play, courtesy of a Justin Williams
tripping call 16 minutes into the period, but the Caps managed to exert no pressure
with the man advantage, recording no shots on the power play. The period ended without any further scoring.
-- Carolina out-shot the Caps, 11-9, in the period, and they
out-attempted them, 18-17.
-- Alex Ovechkin had nine shot attempts through two periods,
four on goal…no goals.
-- Carl Hagelin had four shot attempts through two periods,
all missed shots.
Third Period
The Caps wasted little time getting the game-tying goal in
the third period. The Caps broke out of
their end smartly, Christian Djoos sending the puck up to Evgeny Kuznetsov as
the latter was exiting the defensive zone.
Kuznetsov skated to the red line and then sent the puck across to Jakub
Vrana skating down the left side. Vrana
kicked in the afterburners and curled around Micheal Ferland, breaking in alone
on McElhinney. Vrana backhanded the puck
between McElhinney’s pads as he was skating through the low slot, and the game
was tied, 2-2, 1:35 into the period.
The Caps took the lead with less than five minutes in
regulation. Nick Jensen collected the
puck along the right wing boards and flung a shot at the Carolina net. Nic Dowd was curling around the paint and got
the blade of his stick on the puck just enough to redirect it past McElhinney
on the short side to give the Caps a 3-2 lead at the 15:04 mark.
It would be the only scoring of the period, although Alex
Ovechkin almost got an empty netter for his 50th, barely missing
into an empty net in the last minute of play.
Other stuff…
-- With the win, the Caps hit the 100-point mark for the
fifth straight season, extending their team record for consecutive 100-point
seasons.
-- The win also put the Caps into the postseason for the
fifth straight year and 11th in the last 12 seasons.
-- The win was the Caps’ 46th of the season,
putting this club into the top-ten all time in season wins, tied with the
1984-1985 team (46-25-9) for ninth place in season wins.
-- Carolina out-shot the Caps, 26-20, and they out-attempted
them, 57-48.
-- Each of the three players on the top line – Alex Ovechkin,
Nicklas Backstrom, and Tom Wilson – were minus-2.
-- Three different players had one goal; seven different
players had one point.
-- Brooks Orpik led the team with six credited hits. No other Capital had more than two.
-- Each team had 18 missed shots.
-- Ovechkin had 11 shot attempts, four on goal. Both led the team.
-- With 24 saves on 26 shots, Braden Holtby is 111-for-117
over his last four games (.949 save percentage).
In the end…
The Capitals took care of business. They spotted Carolina a one-goal lead twice,
but they never let the Hurricanes get any space – on the scoreboard or on the
ice. The Caps had balance, an especially
welcome development since the first line did not have a point and was on the
ice for both Carolina goals. In an odd
way, it was an entirely forgettable game, but in a good way. It was the sort of game in which players
filled their lanes and did their jobs.
It is that kind of seamless effort, top to bottom, that the Caps are
finding more of as they head into the last few games of the regular
season. In that regard, it was the
perfect sort of game to clinch a playoff spot.