Nicklas Backstrom scored 11:09 into overtime for the Washington Capitals as they defeated the New York Islanders, 2-1, on Tuesday night at Nassau Coliseum in Uniondale in Game 4 of their Eastern Conference first round series. After a split on Long Island, the Capitals tied the series at 2-2 with Game 5 upcoming at the Verizon Center in Washington on Thursday night.
“It’s a better feeling to go back home when the series is tied. Hopefully [the] Washington 
crowd will be excited. It’s going to be a good feeling coming home,” said Backstrom.
After a faceoff, Backstrom took the puck from Joel Ward in the right corner to the top of the slot. John Tavares had broken his stick trying to defend the play. Backstrom beat Jaroslav Halak with Ward camping out in front of Halak’s net. “[Islanders center John Tavares] had no stick, so I knew something was coming in front. As [Backstrom] came up, top of the circle-ish, [he] threw a shot, found some traffic and it went in,” said Ward
The Islanders went 0-for-4 on the power play, including three minor penalties the Capitals took in the second period. Two of them were on Tom Wilson, including a charging penalty for a severe hit he put on Lubomir Visnovsky behind the Capitals net.
Visnovsky didn’t return to the game after the Wilson hit. Visnovsky had already taken a big hit from Alex Ovechkin in the first period. “Our guys gave it everything they got, but you’re not going to play a 60-plus minute game … it gets real grueling on our defense. They played a lot of minutes. We had a lot of guys play a lot of power-play time too. I give credit, but it is tough when you go down to five. I thought they did a pretty good job for us,” said New York head coach Jack Capuano.
The Capitals penalty kill is now 10-for-10 in this series. “You get a power play, you want to score. We had some shots, had some looks. Obviously, we’ve got to find a way to get one,” said Tavares.
Alex Ovechkin put the Capitals on the board first with his second tally of the series. Ovechkin redirected a John Carlson shot from the point. Joel Ward was also in Halak’s line of sight.
Casey Cizikas tied the game up with 12.6 second left before the first intermission, continuing the strong contributions from the Islanders’ bruising fourth line with their hitting and scoring. Braden Holtby spilled a big rebound on Cal Clutterbuck’s initial shot, which Cizikas cleaned up on.
Holtby saved 36 out of 37 Islanders shots. “The first two games, we didn’t have the real Holtby, and he didn’t even play in Game 2. I think he looks really strong right now and hopefully it will continue,” said Washington head coach Barry Trotz.
Halak saved 28 out of 30 shots for the Islanders.
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