In Toronto, Alex Ovechkin‘s second goal of the game came in the third period and broke a 2-2 tie to send the Washington Capitals to a 3-2 win over the New York Islanders Tuesday night.
“If we’re going to play like that, we have a pretty good chance to come back,” Ovechkin said. “But we’re going to take a game at a time, and we get one. It’s only one and we move on to the next one.”
Braden Holtby made 24 saves to get the win.
Ovechkin’s first goal came on the power play.
“Make no mistake, if we don’t work that hard again, we’re not going to have success,” Capitals head coach Todd Reirden said. “We need to match that work ethic and that compete that we showed for sure in the final 50 minutes of the game.”
Jean-Gabriel Pageau and Mathew Barzal were the New York strikers as they built a 2-0 lead in the opening frame.
“Look, we talked about this being the toughest game to win, that was no different tonight,” the Isles’ Anders Lee said. “We’ve just got to regroup and go back at it. It’s a difficult thing to close out a team, and we’ve put ourselves in a phenomenal position with the first three games. Now you have to take advantage of it.
“But all these series, they’re tough series. There’s a lot of pride on both ends. You expect it to be tough.”
Evgeny Kuznetsov had a single marker for the Caps when he cut the dificit in half in the early minutes of the middle frame.
“We stopped shooting the puck and we started holding the puck,” Kuznetsov said. “We started enjoying the hockey game, and that’s what gives us success. I believe that it’s very hard to defend when guys wear you down for 45 seconds, 50 seconds.”
Ovechkin tied later in the frame.
Game 5 of the series is set for Thursday.
“I think I started to see it [turn] in the second half of the first period,” Reirden said. “We started to get some good visuals of how we have to play if we’re going to continue to be a part of this tournament and be in the playoffs.
“We started to impose our will a little bit and tilt the ice in our favor by getting some offensive-zone shifts. That’s mandatory for us to have success as a team.”
The Islanders are 1-for-19 on the power play in the series.
“We took penalties, unnecessary penalties,” New York head coach Barry Trotz said. “That gave them some momentum, they got back on track and it was a one-shot game after that.”
[WATCH: All Capitals vs. Islanders highlights]
Semyon Varlamov made 26 saves. in the loss.
“They got a big one there with Ovi on their power play, and we had looks tonight,” Barzal said. “We’ve got to find a way to put one in the back of the net. We knew coming into this series special teams was probably going to be a deciding factor in some games, and not that it was tonight, but for them to get that second goal, that was huge for them. … We’ve just got to make an adjustment. Their [penalty kill] has done well with watching video obviously and taking away our options, so we’ve got to do the same and try to find a way to exploit it a bit.”
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