With the franchise’s lack of success in playoff Game 7’s, the Washington Capitals had demons of the past to stare down when they took to the ice Monday night against the New York Islanders. The contest did not disappoint in any way.
Capitals right winger Joel Ward broke the ice with 1:25 left in the second period when he poked in a rebound off a Brooks Oprik shot from the point.
Just over three minutes into the third period, with the Verizon Center crowd beside itself, NY center Frans Nielson’s innocent shot after just entering the Caps’ zone trickled past Washington goaltender Braden Holtby.
“Even when they scored, we were fine,” Capitals Head Coach Barry Trotz said about the mood on the bench during the game.
Later in the final period, a Capitals’ dump-in took a weird bounce off a glass stanchion and caught Islanders’ goaltender Jaroslav Halak behind the net. Washington right winger Jay Beagle had an empty net. But a quick Halak recovery and split pad save kept it a 1-1 game.
With 7:18 left in the game and the score tied, Capitals’ rookie center Evgeny Kuznetsov rolled off an Islanders defender and found a clear path to cut across Halak’s crease. “Kuzya,” as he is called, showed tremendous patience and waited for Halak to go to the butterfly. When he did, he roofed the puck and likely entered himself into Washington Capitals playoff folklore.
“I just checked his shoulder and saw Chimmer [Jason Chimera] was close… Jo Jo [Marcus Johansson] too,” Kuznetsov said about the play. “I just tried to spin a little bit and I see the room and just go to the net and wait. Jaro [Halak] is down and I put puck in net.
“I don’t care about my points,” he continued. “I care about I go to the next round.”
Kuzya even gave a big thank you to Capitals fans that were in attendance for the game.
“Before the series I don’t understand what is NHL home ice advantage,” the rookie said. “Right now I understand. Our building is crazy, people loud; you feel the power and energy. I want to say thanks for everybody,”
With Washington holding onto a 2-1 lead late in the game, Orpik broke his right skate blade blocking an Islanders shot attempt. He couldn’t get to the bench however with the pressure from New York. The defenseman ended up trying to play goaltender, unable to get up before the Caps were able to get the puck out of their zone. Defenseman John Carlson even came to his recue and skated Brooks to the Capitals bench to get a new pair of skates.
“Originally I started going off the ice and I thought about that so I looked back and then just tried to grab him,” Carlson said about the weird play. “It’s not very common but it’s happened before.”
“He was yelling right away to ice the puck so I knew something was going on,” Holtby said about the play involving Orpik. “It’s a tough play to have happen and I thought our guys battled through it really well. Sometimes you need breaks in a hockey game and we definitely got one there.”
With just 2:54 remaining in the game and the Capitals nursing a 2-1 lead, Carlson was called for roughing. It was the first and only penalty in the game. The Washington penalty killing unit had already gone 13-for-13 in the previous six games of the series. The 14th penalty kill proved to be the biggest of them all.
Washington is the first team to not allow a power play goal in a seven-game series since the Montreal Canadiens went 21-for-21 on the penalty kill against the Boston Bruins in 2011, according to the Elias Sport Bureau.
The Capitals only gave up 11 shots to the Islanders. Six of those were in the final 29 minutes of the game, including the one that Nielson got in.
Washington held on to take the series 4-3. It was their third Conference semifinal appearance in their last four trips to the Stanley Cup Playoffs.
The Capitals will face the New York Rangers in the Eastern Conference Semifinals with Games 1 and 2 taking place at Madison Square Garden in New York City. The schedule will be announced at a later date.