Capitals take a 3-2 series lead on Blue Jackets

Overtime came at the perfect time for the Washington Capitals.

Outshot, outskated and outplayed by the Columbus Blue Jackets in a lopsided third period of Game 5, the Capitals went into their locker room at intermission Saturday with no choice but to talk about what went wrong in blowing yet another lead.

“We knew we had to be better,” Nicklas Backstrom said.

Better they were in a dominant overtime that Backstrom ended 11:53 in with his second goal of the game to give Washington a 4-3 victory and a 3-2 lead over the Blue Jackets in the firstround series. Thanks to goaltender Braden Holtby making 15 of his 39 saves in the third period and Backstrom’s first two goals of these playoffs, the Metropolitan Division champions can close out Columbus on the road Monday in Game 6.

“I think we’ve always regrouped at intermissions and came back,” said Holtby, who has stopped 102 of 109 shots since replacing Philipp Grubauer in net two periods into Game 2. “It shows our confidence and our experience in a lot of areas.”

The playoff-tested Capitals took punch after punch when they were outshot 16-1 by the Blue Jackets in the third period, including Oliver Bjorkstrand’s deflection goal 2:30 in that tied it. Holtby made saves in quantity and quality, most notably on Columbus No. 1 centre Pierre-Luc Dubois on a rebound and again on an attempt to bat the puck out of the air, to get to overtime for the fourth time in five games this series.

That’s when everything changed. Suddenly, twotime Vezina Trophywinning goaltender Sergei Bobrovsky was besieged, having to stop Alex Ovechkin and John Carlson from point-blank range early in overtime.

“We just came out as a new team,” Carlson said. “We’ve went out and attacked in every game that we’ve won. That was our mindset, and I think we played a great overtime.”

Overtime has been the difference in this series. Artemi Panarin and Matt Calvert scored the winners in Games 1 and 2 for Columbus, Lars Eller in double OT in Game 3 for Washington and then Backstrom in Game 5, deflecting defenceman Dmitry Orlov’s shot past Bobrovsky to send the sellout crowd in Washington into a frenzy.

“I got a tip on it, and it’s usually what happens in the playoffs,” Backstrom said.

“Tip goals or rebound goals. That’s the way it is.”

The road team won the first four games of a Stanley Cup playoff series for the fifth time over the past 10 years. Holtby’s 39 saves, including a big one on Bjorkstrand in overtime, made sure the home team won Game 5 for the fifth time.