Ryan McDonagh scored at 9:37 into overtime as the New York Rangers beat the Washington Capitals, 2-1, in Game 5 of their Eastern Conference semifinal series at Madison Square Garden in New York. The Rangers staved off elimination and forced a Game 6 at Verizon Center in Washington on Sunday night with the Capitals leading the series, 3-2.
“We’re just trying to continue to play the right way. I think we’ve been playing some solid hockey at both ends of the rink against a very good team. Our starts have been good and we’ve been getting some good looks [and] not getting rewarded for a lot of our good plays. But at the end of the day, that’s it, we’re still breathing. We’re going to go into Washington on Sunday and give it our best shot,” said New York head coach Alain Vigneault. 
After receiving a cross-ice pass from Jesper Fast, Derek Stepan laid it off to McDonagh between the circles. McDonagh beat Braden Holtby with a wrister.
“Obviously, Step makes a great play to pump fake and kept his ears open. He heard me coming and he was able to drop pass, so I could get something towards the net,” said McDonagh.
“It looked like he was going to shoot it, and I lost him a bit with the bodies in front. I saw that he dropped it back and didn’t know where it went. I heard it hit a stick. And that was it,” said Holtby.
Down a goal with the season winding down, Chris Kreider scored with 1:41 left in regulation after the Rangers pulled Henrik Lundqvist. Kreider beat Holtby from the left circle after Stepan laid it off. “It was nice. Obviously, we don’t really care who scores that goal as long as it gets scored. I’m just happy to be able to play a little more hockey,” said Kreider.
Curtis Glencross gave the Capitals the lead with 9:06 left in regulation on a 2-on-0 breakaway goal. Tom Wilson stripped Kevin Klein in the Capitals zone and caught both Rangers defensemen up ice. Matt Niskanen took the loose puck and fed Glencross, who found himself in on Lundqvist alone with Niskanen trailing. The first shot was saved, but Glencross followed up and chipped the puck over Lundqvist.
The Capitals had initially thought they had scored with 2:09 left in the second period when Niskanen’s shot from the point beat Lundqvist, but the goal was waved off for goalie interference by Joel Ward. “On that one, I felt two things — that Lundqvist came out outside the blue and engaged a little bit of contact and then Ward was pushed in,” said Washington coach Barry Trotz.
Holtby made 41 saves on 43 shots for the Capitals. Lundqvist made 28 saves on 29 shots for the Rangers.
“We were close. It would have been nice to close it out, but we know we played a game that we need to be better at. I thought we were a little bit fortunate to be in the situation that we were to be able to have a chance to close it out. In the end, if you keep doing that, luck is going to turn the other way. We tend to respond to adversity well. We know how to bounce back and prepare,” said Holtby.
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