WASHINGTON, DC – Washington rookie Andre Burakovsky’s first two career playoff goals answered a second period tally by Derick Brassard and gave the Capitals a 2-1 victory over the New York Rangers in Game 4 of their Eastern Conference semifinal series at the Verizon Center in Washington. The Capitals won both games at home after coming back from New York with a split, and now hold a commanding 3-1 series lead with the Rangers headed back to Madison Square Garden trying to stave off elimination in Game 5.
“We’ve got to continue to go about the right process. Like we say, it’s always a race to [win] four [games], and it’s a tough feeling right now losing back-to-back [games] but we’ve got a chance to get home ice advantage here [and] use our crowd to our advantage similar to the way they did these last two games and focus on the right things that we can control. It’s definitely not over yet, our group knows that and we’ll continue to lay it all on the line here….We can control everything that has happened this series, so it’s the spot we’ve put ourselves in so for us, we’ve got to find a way to dig ourselves out,” said New York defenseman Ryan McDonagh.
Brassard broke the ice for the Rangers by beating Alex Ovechkin down the ice, taking a feed from Martin St. Louis in the slot and beating Braden Holtby over the shoulder 6:12 into the second period.
Burakovsky stripped Chris Kreider along the side boards in the Rangers zone and skated into the slot after Troy Brouwer took out Derek Stepan. Ryan McDonagh was caught flat-footed trailing the play while Dan Girardi couldn’t challenge Burakovsky because Brouwer was open. Burakovsky beat Lundqvist top shelf at 16:29 of the second period.
Burakovsky struck again 24 seconds after the second intermission. Brouwer’s forecheck forced a turnover. Burakovsky skated in, beat McDonagh and finished the play unassisted with his backhand.
“I’ve been struggling a little with shots and I think I need to shoot more, and the guys have been on me telling me I need to shoot all the time. Today, I think I had a couple of shots on net that worked out pretty well,” said Burakovsky.
“It’s the little things that he’s doing right. At the beginning of the game when we are getting deep, he makes a couple of good dumps where me and [Troy] Brouwer can get in on the forecheck and generate chances from that. He’s got tons of skill and we don’t want to take that away from him. He displayed it tonight. He’s found a really good balance. It’s been really fun playing with him,” said Washington center Jay Beagle.
Braden Holtby stuffed Carl Hagelin on a penalty shot awarded to him after Mike Green hauled him down on a breakaway with 11:59 left in the game. “You’re going in there thinking you’re going to score, and that was my thought process. I wanted to fake shot and then bring it to my backhand and he [Holtby] was in the split there, and he made a good save,” said Hagelin.
Holtby made 28 saves on 29 shots for the Capitals. Lundqvist made 28 saves on 30 shots for the Rangers.
“Well, there is no doubt that he [Holtby] has been good. He has made some big saves and their players, obviously in front of him, have done a good job of blocking shots and blocking lanes. So, it has made it real challenging for us right now,” said New York head coach Alain Vigneault.
“I think both goaltenders have played very, very well. Hank [Lundqvist] on the other side has played extremely, extremely well and it’s a battle out there. I think both teams have confidence there. It gives you a little bit of a security blanket and you rally around those guys. I thought we got some big efforts on the back end. We were down the three defensemen for a while there, for a couple minutes and those guys are really big. We got a couple of big blocks when we needed it and a big penalty kill when we needed it,” said Washington head coach Barry Trotz.
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