Penguins even series with Capitals
PITTSBURGH — Jake Guentzel scored twice to push his playoff total to a league-leading 10, Matt Murray stopped 20 shots and the Pittsburgh Penguins beat the Washington Capitals 3-1 in Game 4 to even their tense Eastern Conference semifinal on Thursday night.
Evgeni Malkin added his fourth goal of the playoffs for Pittsburgh as the two-time defending Stanley Cup champions pushed back following a chaotic Game 3 that included an illegal hit by Washington forward Tom Wilson that led to a three-game suspension.
T.J. Oshie scored for the Capitals, but Washington struggled to find much operating room. Alex Ovechkin failed to register a shot on goal for just the third time in 107 career playoff games. Braden Holtby finished with 21 saves but couldn’t quite get a handle on Malkin’s belly-flop shot attempt Pittsburgh Penguins’ Jake Guentzel (59) gets the puck past Washington Capitals goaltender Braden Holtby (70) for a goal during the second period Thursday in Pittsburgh.
late in the second period that put Pittsburgh in front to stay.
Game 5 is Saturday night in Washington.
The Capitals grabbed brief control of the series amid all of the Wilsonled Game 3 chippiness when Ovechkin baseball-batted home the winning goal with 1:07 to play.
True playoff momentum for Washington, however, has been
problematic for decades. The franchise is 6-11 in series in which it led 2-1 after three games, the worst mark in NHL history.
Given a chance to push Pittsburgh to the brink of elimination, Washington instead struggled to generate much pressure outside of the power play. Devante Smith-Pelly replaced Wilson on the top line with Ovechkin
and Evgeny Kuznetsov, but Pittsburgh kept the clamps on, and Murray, who admitted he was “shaky” in Game 3, looked far steadier this time around.
TORREY, GM OF ISLES’ 4 STANLEY CUPS, DIES AT 83: Bill Torrey, the jovial bow-tie wearing Hall of Famer who was the general manager of the New York Islanders when they won four consecutive Stanley Cups in the 1980s and eventually became the first president of the Florida Panthers, has died. Torrey died at his home in South Florida on Wednesday night, the NHL said. He was 83. No cause was immediately revealed, though he was not known to be in any sort of poor health. Torrey, who spent the last several years of his career as an advisor to Florida general manager Dale Tallon and also serving as the franchise’s alternate governor, was at work like usual in his Panthers’ office earlier this week. COYOTES ACQUIRE KRUGER FROM HURRICANES FOR MARTINOOK: The Carolina Hurricanes have acquired left wing Jordan Martinook from the Arizona Coyotes in exchange for center Marcus Kruger. Under terms of the deal announced Thursday, the teams also swapped laterround draft picks and the Hurricanes will retain 10 percent of Kruger’s salary, or about $300,000 of the roughly $3 million Kruger is set to make in 2018-19.