Eastern Conference second round Game 4
With top linemate Wilson suspended, Ovechkin held without a shot on goal
The Pittsburgh Penguins’ 3-1 win Thursday night tied the best-of-seven series at 2-2, with two of the next three games in Washington. Though the Capitals said the absence of suspended top-line right wing Tom Wilson would motivate them them, it was also evident how much he was missed, especially as captain Alex Ovechkin was held without a shot on goal for just the third playoff game of his career.
“Trust me, Ovi will get his shots,” Capitals coach Barry Trotz said.
“If you play Pittsburgh, you’re not going to win if you score one goal,” center Nicklas Backstrom said. “You need more.”
The Capitals entered this game more than a little peeved. The team was unhappy with the NHL Department of Player Safety’s decision to suspend Wilson for three games because of an illegal check to the head of Pittsburgh’s Zach Aston-Reese, who broke his jaw and suffered a concussion on the collision. T.J. Oshie passionately defended Wilson on Thursday morning and called a three-game suspension “very extreme.” Oshie said the rest of the team would have to make up for the loss of Wilson’s physicality, and the Capitals had 43 hits to the Penguins’ 25 after one period. Oshie lead the way with eight.
“Any arrogance that we might have had from our last couple of victories has been squashed from the fact that we’re losing Tom, that he’s been taken away from us for a couple games here,” Oshie said before the game. “We’re fired up to play and we want to win the game for him.”
But Wilson’s absence was a hit to a Washington forward corps already missing winger Andre Burakovsky, who recently had surgery for an undisclosed “upper-body” injury. Devante Smith-Pelly moved into Wilson’s top-line right wing spot beside Ovechkin and Evgeny Kuznetsov. That line looked disjointed throughout the game, and Ovechkin, who has eight goals this postseason, never got a shot on goal, held without so much as an attempt for the first 40 minutes. The trio was on the ice when Pittsburgh’s Jake Guentzel punched in a rebound for the first goal 9:21 into the second period.
“I think Devo did a really good job filling in,” Trotz said. “Obviously, Tom is a unique player. But I thought that line was going head-to-head pretty well. There wasn’t much space out there on both sides.”
The Penguins have been hurting for secondary scoring — every Pittsburgh goal this series has had captain Sidney Crosby on the ice — but Guentzel has shined. His 10 goals and 11 assists lead all players in postseason scoring. He added an empty-netter in the last minute of the game, after the too-many-men penalty to Washington. That was the Penguins’ 24th and final shot of the game. The Capitals managed just 21 of their own, both teams unable to get much going offensively.
Oshie tied the game on Washington’s second power play, one-timing a slick feed from Backstrom. But then it was Oshie who helped deliver the lead back to the Penguins. He was called for interference on defenseman Brian Dumoulin, and Pittsburgh took advantage of the power play. Evgeni Malkin dove for a rebound, knocking the puck in the direction of Holtby’s outstretched blocker. Just as in Game 2 of this series, there was a review to see if the puck had indeed crossed the goal line, and this time, the goal counted for the Penguins.
“I shot us in the foot there with that penalty,” Oshie said. “I was trying to make a smart play by taking away their [defenseman’s] stick, and it ended up being a dumb play by clipping his skate there. I think that was kind of the turning point in the game, when they got that goal there when I was in the box.”
Trotz then challenged for goaltender interference, and the league’s decision was swift there, too, once again in favor of Pittsburgh.
“You can complain about this or complain about that,” defenseman Matt Niskanen said. “I think we’re building a belief that we can beat these guys.”
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