PITTSBURGH, Pa – In round one the Washington Capitals got a brief scare by the Philadelphia Flyers. After losing Game Two Monday night to the Pittsburgh Penguins 3-2, the Caps just might be a tad nervous from here on out.
The Caps came into the playoffs with high expectations as the top seeded team in the league but Washington has a Stanley Cup or bust attitude this series far from over heading into Game four on Wednesday night.
One of the major story lines for the Pens this playoff season is the play of rookie goaltender Matt Murray. He had yet another great night in net making 42 saves on 44 shots. His counterpart Braden Holtby did not making only 16 saves on 19 shots.
“I don’t think I’ve had that many shots in quite some time,” the 21-year-old said. “That was a busy one. … I wouldn’t say it’s any easier or any harder whether you face less or more shots. It’s all mental, I think, at that point, so they’re just different challenges.”
The Caps outhit the Pens 58-25 as the two teams continued to pound each other all over the ice. Neither team scored on a combined seven power chances.
“I thought [Murray] was terrific, and the disparity in shots were because they had the puck all night and we didn’t,” Pens coach Mike Sullivan said. “And obviously that’s an area where in the first two games, we felt that we had the puck for long stretches of the game. Tonight was a different story.”
Patric Hornqvist scored his team leading fourth goal of the playoffs. Carl Hagelin got his third and Tom Kuhnhackl got his second of the playoffs off of his back as he skated in on net only to have a pass deflected into the air and off his back to go in the net behind Holtby and things looked like it might be a sign of things to come.
After being down 3-0 the Caps got goals off of an Alex Ovechkin blast from the point and Justin Williams who turns into Mr. Playoff with his first of the playoffs to cut the lead to one with only 56 seconds left in the game.
Murray kept the Caps off the scoreboard the rest of the night setting up a huge showdown on Wednesday night in Game Four in Pittsburgh.
“I thought Murray was really good in the first. I thought he was good all game, there was no question,” Trotz said. “He’s the reason they had success, but our game reminded me a lot of our Game 3 [against the New York Islanders] last year. It took us a couple games to find our game, but once we found our game, I thought we were good.”
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