The Washington Capitals avoided losing two home games to start their second round series with the Pittsburgh Penguins.
That meant heading to Pittsburgh, they still surrendered home ice advantage to the Pens but were in the series.
On Tuesday night, the Caps wrestled home ice back with a gutsy 4-3 win in Pittsburgh.
Alex Ovechkin batted the puck into the net with 1:07 left in regulation after it hit the left post and hung in the air.
“I hit the post, and it’s a good thing I didn’t raise my arms up. I finished up the play and got lucky,” Ovechkin said. “It’s a huge, huge goal. Obviously for our team, you know we want to win tonight and we did. It doesn’t matter what, it doesn’t matter who scored. We sacrifice, we play hard, and we have to do the same moving forward.”
Ovechkin’s reaction was pure excitement and the Pittsburgh arena was stunned into silence.
“[The Penguins] had some extended zone time and they almost had some looks, and they were buzzing and they were making us defend,” Capitals coach Barry Trotz said. “There are two good teams going at it right now and there wasn’t much room. After two periods, there weren’t a lot of shots. … Both teams were battling and pushing.
“This series is what it’s going to be. It’s going to be nose to nose, keep pushing for inches and working for inches. And it is a game of inches.”
Braden Holtby made 19 saves to pick up the win.
Jake Guentzel, Patric Hornqvist and Sidney Crosby helped give the Pens a 3-2 lead in Game 3 but there was not the energy that might have been expected from across the bench.
“We played well. We didn’t give them a lot,” Crosby said. “We’ve got to make sure we stay out of the box and don’t give them a chance on the power play. Other than that, we did some really good things, I thought. Every line was creating pressure and chances. It was just one of those nights where any little breakdown, they capitalized.”
That may feel true but the Caps were not out of this game at any point.
“It’s hard to win in the playoffs. No one knows it better than this team. We played a hard-fought game tonight. That game could’ve went either way. We have to make sure we put it behind us and we look to the next game and try to put our best game forward,” Pens head coach Mike Sullivan said after the loss.
Instead, the energy was on the Caps’ bench as John Carlson and Chandler Stephenson struck for the Caps and Matt Niskanen tied it 3-3 early in the third period.
“It’s a big win. It was tough sledding out there tonight. It was a physical game. We battled hard and showed a lot of character to come back in the third. … The guys played really hard. We earned that one,” Niskanen said after the win.
[WATCH: All Capitals vs. Penguins highlights | Complete Capitals vs. Penguins series coverage]
Matt Murray made 18 saves in taking the loss.
“I thought it was a pretty tight game for the most part,” Murray said. “Not many shots either way, but every shot seemed to be a chance. It was just one of those kind of games where it could’ve gone either way. So obviously there’s room to improve, but I think for the most part we played a pretty solid game.”
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