The Washington Capitals and the New York Islanders are set to square off in the quarterfinals of the Eastern Conference Stanley Cup Playoffs. The best-of-seven series will get underway at 7 p.m. Wednesday from the Caps home ice at the Verizon Center.
In the regular season, the Capitals went 2-0-2 versus the Islanders. Three of the four matchups required extra time. Of those three overtime games, the Capitals came away only once with the extra standings point.
Capitals defenseman Matt Niskanen spoke about the upcoming series saying he thinks it will be “entertaining.”
Entertaining?
That’s a good possibility as the series will have the NHL’s goal-scoring champion, Alex Ovechkin and the NHL’s points-scoring runner-up, John Tavares, facing off against one another.
Tavares finished his regular season with 86 points, which was one short of the Dallas Stars’ left winger Jamie Benn. Benn finished the season tallying 19 points in seven games, which included two four-point games to close out the season to win the Art Ross Trophy for the most points in the NHL. Tavares also finished fourth in the NHL scoring race with 38 goals.
Ovechkin finished his season with 53 goals which won him the Maurice “Rocket” Richard Trophy as the NHL’s top goal-scorer for the fifth time in his career. He finished the season five points behind Tavares.
“They take lots of chances in their game,” Niskanen said. “They are comfortable playing a real high paced game. They have some risk in their game. I think we have the ability to do that but, as best we can; we want to slow it down, clog things up in the neutral zone when we don’t have the puck and play as fast as possible when we do have the puck.”
Both New York goaltenders are also former Washington Capitals’ net minders. The presumed starter, Jaroslav Halak, spent the post trade deadline part of the 2013-2014 season in D.C. after being acquired from the St. Louis Blues. He was then traded to the Islanders in the offseason after the Capitals failed to make the playoffs.
“I’m sure he’ll be geared up and ready to go to get some revenge on some of the guys,” Capitals right winger Joel Ward said about his former teammate.
Islanders’ goaltender Michal Neuvirth spent the better part of six seasons as a Washington Capital bouncing between starter and backup roles before being traded from D.C.
The success of Washington will rely heavily on neutralizing the Islanders’ speed. That can be achieved by using and finishing a heavy fore-check, dump-and-chase hockey and getting backpressure from the forwards in the neutral zone on the backcheck. The Caps will need to pressure the Islanders to the point where they will want to chip the puck to the Capitals blue line, where the defense can pinch the Islanders and transition the puck going the other way.
“It’s going to be a fast paced game. They are going to be close for sure. We played quite a few overtime games against them so they are going to be tight games and there’s not going to be a lot of mistakes,” Ward said. “Special teams are going to a big part of capitalizing when you can.”
The Capitals were 60 for 237 (25.3%) on the power play during the 2014-2015 regular season, which was good for first in the NHL. It marked the third straight year that Washington finished a season ranking first in power play percentage.
Ovechkin was a huge part of the Capitals’ man advantage success during the regular season. Of his 53 goals, 25 came on the power play which is a Caps’ single-season franchise record. It is also the most by an NHL player since Teemu Selanne recorded 25 in 2006-2007 with the Anaheim Ducks.
Center Nicklas Backstrom’s 30 power play assists were the most in the NHL in 2014-2015 and 17 of his 30 man advantage assists were to an Ovechkin goal.
“This is the best team we’ve had since I have been here,” Capitals defenseman Mike Green went so far as to say.
General Manager Brian MacLellan said of his team, “We are definitely moving in the right direction. We are more consistent, more structured, better defensively and the goaltending is better. It’s a pretty good feeling going into the playoffs.”
MacLellan also attributed much of the Capitals resurgence to first-year Head Coach Barry Trotz and his 16 years of coaching experience.