CAPITALS SHOW THEIR METTLE
Gain early lead on Leafs for victory
Better hold off on printing those Round 2 tickets — we’ve got a series again.
You knew this was going to happen. You knew the Washington Capitals, who had been practically written off after falling 2-1 to the Toronto Maple Leafs, were not just going to fold up and go away.
There was far too much skill, far too much pride in their dressing room for that.
Sure, a seed of doubt might have been growing in some of the Washington players’ minds after losing back-to-back games to Toronto. But with all the premature talk of upsets, there had been anger growing as well.
“Obviously you can tell everyone in this town is soaking it in,” Capitals forward Justin Williams said before Game 4 in Toronto. “But sometimes I’m not sure what I like more: a loud arena or a quiet one.”
It was the latter on Wednesday, as the Capitals hung on to beat the Leafs 5-4 and even the bestof-seven series 2-2.
This was the response many had expected from a veteran team that had finished with the best record in the regular season. It wasn’t the San Jose Sharks’ hammering of the Edmonton Oilers from a couple of nights ago, but there was a statement delivered just the same.
And that statement was that the Capitals aren’t going away. If anything, after a hiccup in games 2 and 3, the Presidents’ Trophy winners are back playing with confidence.
“I think we got our heads on straight now on how we want to play and unfortunately it’s taken us a few games for us to get there,” said T.J. Oshie, who scored twice, including the gamewinner. “We want to improve on tonight and get even better. But I think tonight was the right step.”
Washington scored two goals in the first five minutes. When the Leafs cut the lead in half, Tom Wilson scored twice to give the Capitals a 4-1 lead at the end of the first period. They faded in the final two periods and gave the Leafs a chance to tie things up after Auston Matthews and Tyler Bozak each made it a one-goal game in the third period. But this was still a win Washington can build from.
But the Leafs still had that golden opportunity of a near full-term five-on-three to start the final period, and wasted it to make it closer early in the third. They were zero for five in shots and later allowed an Oshie an insurance goal. But Toronto’s shooters looked like they were squeezing old wooden sticks into sawdust. There was also one fumbled exchange at the line, a problem all evening.
“I thought we had good pucks towards the net and stuff like that, but (Braden Holtby) made some good saves and they killed it off well,” said Leafs winger James van Riemsdyk, who missed at least one tap-in.
The Capitals had not been down 3-0 or even 3-1 in the bestof-seven series to the Leafs. It just felt that way — something the team changed Wednesday.
“It was not panic, just a disappointment,” Alex Ovechkin said of coming back after being down in the series. “They get the win and the lead in the series. But I think, how I said, playoffs go to four wins. Right now, it’s tied and we go home and we’ll play in front of our fans and we’re going to win the third win and come back here and try to finish off the series.”
A defiant Morgan Rielly refused to say the Leafs should be content at just giving the Caps a run for their money.
“We don’t think we’re hanging with them, we want to be in the driver’s seat,” Rielly said. “It’s playoffs. I don’t think they should be putting us away. We feel we can come out and control the game, it’s not about hanging in and trying to squeeze one out.
“This was a missed opportunity, but that being said, it’s a best-of-three series now and we’re going into Washington, we’ve won in that building.
“It sucks to lose one but important to realize we have a big one in two days.”
“I thought we looked slow and they looked fast,” said Leafs head coach Mike Babcock, who knows what needs to be done. And then he said: “Maybe we weren’t scared enough of them.”
—With