The Washington Capitals broke out to a 3-0 lead over the Pittsburgh Penguins and then needed to withstand a typical Penguins’ rally to escape with a 4-1 win Sunday in Washington.
The victory tied the series at 1-1 as the two teams shift to Pittsburgh for Games 3 and 4 this week.
Braden Holtby made 32 saves and was solid in the final 40 minutes of the game as the Pens shook off a dreadful start to the game in the fist period.
“I thought Braden was real solid all game,” Capitals head coach Barry Trotz said. “I thought he made some timely saves. He moved well. They were trying to make everything very difficult and he responded the way he always has.”
Alex Ovechkin, Jakub Vrana and Brett Connolly scored for the Caps to give them 3-0 lead early in the second period.
That three-goal lead was shaky in the middle frame when Kris Letang scored to cut the lead to 3-1.
The arena was quieted by the threat of one more Pens rally; they rallied in Game 1 to erase a 2-0 deficit to win 3-2.
“We knew we let them back the last game,” Backstrom said. “That was huge. That’s what we wanted to do. That’s a big win for us.”
The first period was all Caps with two goals in the period.
“They came out flying,” Pittsburgh’ Matt Murray said. “We didn’t have an answer for it.”
The Penguins were disorganized and had no push back through 20 minutes of play.
“We need to have a better start,” Penguins head coach Mike Sullivan said. “We need more pushback from the drop of the puck. Listen, we knew they were going to come out hard. We’re up 1-0 (in the series) after the first game, we knew they were going to come out hard. We didn’t match the urgency.”
Nicklas Backstrom sealed late with an empty net goal.
[WATCH: All Penguins vs. Capitals highlights | Complete Capitals vs. Penguins series coverage]
Matt Murray made 28 saves in the loss.
“We have to do a better job of being more difficult to play against and limiting some of the chances they get. But having said that, we had a number of quality chances as well. At some point, we have to find a way to score goals. That’s something we’ll get to work on,” Sullivan said after the game.
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