Ovechkin makes Capital statement
Victory over Tampa belongs to Caps’ sniper, as does much of credit for semifinal series result
Jon Cooper was talking about the game, but really he was talking about all of us, and how we grow up watching and playing hockey — whether in a rink, on the road or on a pond — and living for moments like this.
Game 7. Winner goes to the Stanley Cup Final.
As the Tampa Bay Lightning head coach said: “You’re writing history.” Well, Alex Ovechkin certainly did. For the first 12 years of his NHL Hall of Fame career, the Washington Capitals forward was known more for what he didn’t do in the playoffs than what he did. He didn’t advance past the second round. He didn’t win a head-to-head battle with Sidney Crosby. He didn’t win a Stanley Cup. He didn’t even get close. After Wednesday night’s 4-0 win against the Lightning in Game 7 of the Eastern Conference final, where he scored the game’s first goal 62 seconds after the puck dropped, he has a chance to correct that last part.
Yes, the Capitals are going to the Stanley Cup Final, where they will play the Vegas Golden Knights. And it’s mostly because of Ovechkin.
Andre Burakovsky scored his first two goals of the playoffs and Braden Holtby stopped all 28 shots he faced for back-to-back shutouts, but the win belonged to Ovechkin. The series did too.
With 12 goals and 22 points in 19 playoff games — including four goals and seven points in the conference final — only Evgeny Kuznetsov scored more. But it wasn’t the offence that stood out with Ovechkin’s game. Even when Ovechkin wasn’t scoring, he was influencing the game, whether it was a hit or a backcheck or a blocked shot.
Ovechkin, who had been criticized for his leadership, has led the Capitals this year.
In some ways, his run to the promise land is as unlikely as Vegas’. No one saw this coming when the playoffs began. Not with Washington starting its backup goalie for Games 1 and 2 and the Capitals relying on as many as five rookies.
They survived a first-round scare against the Blue Jackets, finally exorcised their demons against Crosby and the Penguins in the second round, and in the end were too much for the Lightning to handle.
They deserve to be in the final, where they will play a Golden Knights team that has gone 12-3 in the playoffs and defeated Washington in their two games in the regular season.
The Eastern Conference final had been a back-and-forth affair, with Washington wining the first two games, Tampa Bay winning the next three and Washington forcing Game7.
Once the game started, it was Ovechkin who once again stepped up.
The period had just begun when Tom Wilson created a turnover with a hit on Chris Kunitz and then charged up the ice on an odd-man rush. The puck went to Kuznetsov, but the main target was Ovechkin, whose stick was already cocked and ready for a one-timer that he rocketed into the top corner.
The Capitals scored twice to make it 3-0 on goals from an unlikely source.
Andre Burakovsky had missed most of the first two rounds with an injury and had sat out of Game 5 because of his lack of production. But midway through the second period, he used his speed to strip defenceman Dan Girardi of the puck and then beat Vasilevskiy with a quick snapshot underneath his blocker.
With 3:29 remaining in the period, Burakovsky took advantage of a bad line change and snuck a wrist shot through Vasilevskiy’s pads on a breakaway. Nicklas Backstrom put the game out of reach late in the third period, but it was over well before then.
Tampa Bay, which had been shutout in Game 5, couldn’t score one — much less four or five. Not with the way Holtby had been playing lately.
The chances were there. But the Lightning, who last scored in the first minute of Game 4, couldn’t pull the trigger. Victor Hedman deked around Holtby and put the puck on a tee for Yanni Gourde, but somehow he couldn’t shovel it the few inches needed to put it in the net.
The worst offenders were Tampa Bay’s star tandem of Steven Stamkos and Nikita Kucherov. They had combined for five goals and 12 points in the first four games, but went missing in the last three with just one power play goal and an assist.
It’s the type of history that no one wants written.