It’s Handy Andy
NHL's oldest goalie lifts Capitals to OT win as Cup playoffs kick off with a bang
A 39-year-old third-string goalie, who has played in just four games in the past 14 months, might not have been in the Washington Capitals' post-season plans when the Stanley Cup playoffs began.
But that's the beauty of the playoffs: Whatever your plans are, the hockey gods have other plans.
And so it was that Craig Anderson, who in a week will be celebrating his 40th birthday, found himself called into duty after Vitek Vanecek pulled his groin in Game 1 of the East Division first-round series on Saturday night in Washington.
It was a tough position for any goalie. But especially for one of Anderson's age.
Not that he wasn't up to the task. The longtime Senators goalie, who signed with Washington only after Henrik Lundqvist had to undergo heart surgery shortly before the season even began, was the unlikely hero in a 3-2 overtime win against the Boston Bruins.
“You could say I'm wellrested for not playing,” joked Anderson, who stopped 20 of 21 shots in relief. “Coming into the year, I knew the situation, I knew the role that I was asked to do. Opportunity knocks and you make the most of the opportunity. I've been here before.”
Nick Dowd scored the overtime winner when he redirected a T.J. Oshie onetimer that beat Boston's Tuukka Rask. But it was Anderson who won the game for Washington by turning back the clock for his first playoff win in four years.
Who knows? It might have been his last.
Whether Anderson plays in
Game 2 was not immediately clear. But anything is possible, considering he was not even supposed to have dressed for Game 1.
“There's a lot of confidence in Anderson,” said Capitals head coach Peter Laviolette.
“It was great to see
Andy come off the bench and play the way he did in a big game like this. But I don't think anybody expected anything different.”
Slotted third on the team's depth chart, Anderson climbed up the positional ladder after Ilya Samsonov landed on the COVID-19 protocol list and Vanecek got hurt in Game 1 while stretching to try to make a save on Boston's first goal.
It's crazy to think that Washington can win the Cup — much less advance past Boston — if Anderson remains in the net. And yet, it might not be that crazy considering what he's done in the past.
Unlike Vanecek, who was making his post-season debut, or Samsonov, who has yet to appear in a playoff game, at least Anderson has plenty of experience at this time of year. Saturday night's game was his 47th career playoff game. And though it had been four years since his last playoff appearance, it had come in OT in Game 7 of the 2017 Eastern Conference final.
At times, he looked like the same goalie who was a goal away from leading upstart Ottawa to the Stanley Cup Final. Or, who had defeated the Bruins in the first round four years ago.
“It doesn't matter what happens, somebody gets hurt … we have to find a way,” said Washington captain Alex Ovechkin, who had an assist. “You can see Andy come out and play a solid game. He made some big saves and he gave us a chance to win.”
It helped, of course, that Boston made it easy on him. Anderson only faced 21 shots through nearly three periods, as the Capitals outshot the Bruins 32-26 in a game that was more of a physical grind than a run-and-gun offensive showcase. This one had all the feel of a conference final — right down to the crowd noise, which seemed particularly loud for a rink that was filled to 25 per cent capacity.
Game 1 was rough. It was nasty. It was the kind of game you'd expect from two physical teams that had played each other eight times already, having split their head-tohead series 4-4-0. Whatever hate was left over from the regular season spilled over.
The physical tone was set early on, when Ovechkin absolutely flattened Boston's David Krejci with an open-ice hit. From there, the hits and the cross-checks just kept on coming.
“You can tell with Alex that it was playoff hockey,” said
Laviolette. “His gear went up.”
Tom Wilson gave the Capitals a 1-0 lead in the first period when he played giveand-go with Oshie and then snapped a shot over Rask's left shoulder. But six minutes later, Boston tied things up on a set faceoff play that seemed to catch Vanecek by surprise.
With Anderson in, the Caps went ahead 2-1 in the second on a wobbly wrist shot from defenceman Brenden Dillon that seemed to redirect off Boston's Jeremy Lauzon's stick. But once again, Boston answered back on a bouncing puck that redirected in off Nick Ritchie's chest.