D.C.’s playoff disappointment continues
Panarin scores winner after Caps surrender late lead
WASHINGTON, D.C. — Artemi Panarin did a victory lap around the Washington Capitals’ zone, outstretching his arms as he skated in a circle and players in red jerseys dropped their heads and moved out of his way. He was this game’s playoff hero, the latest image of a Washington postseason disappointment.
The Capitals squandered a one-goal lead in the last five minutes of regulation before falling to the Columbus Blue Jackets in overtime, 4-3. Washington will have itself to blame for falling behind in the Eastern Conference quarterfinal series, taking three penalties in the third period and allowing two power-play goals.
The Capitals took a 3-2 lead 5:12 into the third period when forwards Devante SmithPelly and Jakub Vrana streaked into the offensive zone, Vrana speeding and spinning around Columbus players before stopping at the goal line to send a perfect pass across the crease to Smith-Pelly. He smacked the puck past Bobrovsky, and chants of “D-S-P” followed, and Washington seemed to have found a new playoff hero.
But playing one of the league’s worst power plays, the Capitals hurt themselves with a lack of discipline. Washington was clinging to a 2-1 lead at the start of the third period when forward Tom Wilson hit center Alexander Wennberg in the corner. Wennberg crumpled to the ice, and Wilson went to the box for charging. Columbus’s power play was the seventh-worst in the league during the regular season, but with Thomas Vanek left alone in front of the crease, he beat Grubauer just 13 seconds into the man-advantage. Wennberg suffered an “upper-body” injury on Wilson’s hit and didn’t return to the game.
Then after Smith-Pelly lifted the Capitals to a lead, Washington was called for two more penalties. Forward Andre Burakovsky’s tripping infraction with less than Columbus’s Artemi Panarin, right, celebrates his game-winning goal Thursday in Game 1 with teammate Cam Atkinson. five minutes left in the game was the costly one, as Seth Jones tied the game to force overtime. Grubauer, in just the second playoff start of his career, had allowed three goals on 25 shots in regulation, and 12 of the shots he faced had been on the power play. Washington’s penalty kill missed center Jay Beagle, the team’s top forward in shorthanded situations; he missed the game with an undisclosed “upper-body” injury.
It had been a Blue Jackets penalty that had cost Columbus dearly in the first period of the game. The Blue Jackets were one of the league’s most disciplined teams during the regular season, called for the secondfewest minor penalties. But the game turned on a boarding major assessed to Columbus’s Josh Anderson, who hit Capitals defenseman Michal Kempny into the glass with 2:37 left in the first period.
Kempny was down on the ice in apparent distress, eventually skating off with the team’s trainer, who held a towel to Kempny’s face. He didn’t return for the rest of the game, and his status going forward is unclear, a potential blow to a blueline that had been stabilized by his arrival just before the late February trade deadline.
Anderson, who scored 19 goals with 11 assists this season, was ejected, and Washington got a five-minute power play. The Capitals man-advantage unit needed just 29 seconds to score, Kuznetsov’s shot getting tipped by Blue Jackets defenseman Ryan Murray to re-direct the puck through Bobrovsky’s legs. Columbus challenged there was goaltender interference on the play because forward T.J. Oshie made contact with Bobrovsky in the crease, but the puck had already crossed the goal line.
Washington still had more than four minutes of power play time remaining, and 29 seconds after his first goal, Kuznetsov scored a second, firing from the left faceoff circle on a rush into the zone. The Capitals went to first intermission with a 2-0 lead and 2:23 of power-play time to start the second period.