The mini playoff series with the New York Islanders has officially begun. The Washington Capitals are playing three straight games vs the Isles and the stakes are pretty high. Have a good showing over these three games and first place is yours. Struggle and you have conceded first place for the first time in seemingly forever.
This is a big game and this is a very, very big “series”. How did game number one of this series and game number forty-seven of the season go?
The first period was clearly won by the Islanders. While the period ended scoreless the Capitals were lucky it was not two or even three to nothing. Washington also had the help of a power play but not much came from it.
Most of the first period was the Islanders speed and aggressiveness causing the Capitals a bunch of problems. They used both of those attributes to win races and keep the Caps pinned in their own zone. It was difficult for the Capitals to exit their zone cleanly.
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While 5v5 the stats were all heavily in New York’s favor. The shots were 15-3, shot attempts were 21-9, scoring chances were 13-4 and high danger attempts were 2-0. The only good thing to take out of that first period was that Ilya Samsonov came ready to play. He made a couple of big stops to keep the game scoreless.
The Capitals used the first intermission to do some waking up. They came out skating much better, slowing the Islanders down while also generating some zone time, shots, and scoring chances. Nearly midway through that second period, the shot attempts were 15-5 in favor of the Caps.
The power play got two more chances in the second frame, but not much changed from the first period in that department. Not many chances to speak of, the best possibly being Alex Ovechkin fanning on a cross ice pass late in the period.
With the Capitals skating so much better in the second period they took control of the stats through forty minutes. Shots after forty at 5v5 were 16-22 NY, shot attempts were 32-30 Caps, scoring chances 17-17 and high danger attempts 2-1 in favor of the Isles.
They looked much better, but the score remained 0-0 with twenty minutes to go.
The third period was more of an even period. The Capitals continued to play well and the effort was there for sure. But the scoring chances went down for both teams and you could sense both teams were just waiting for the other team to make a mistake rather than attack.
There was 17 scoring chances in each of the first two period and in the third period there was only 10 chances. Washington however did have 3 high danger attempts and did not allow a high danger attempt against.
The Capitals penalty kill came up big a couple of times in the third period. Lars Eller and Alex Ovechkin taking penalties late in the game but the PK hardly let up a chance.
The game went into overtime and it was a mostly uneventful 3v3 session. The Islanders skated the puck around for a good portion of time and the Capitals hardly touched the puck in the extra time. No goals were scored in OT.
The shootout came next and the Caps won 2-1 in the shootout. The Capitals goals coming from Nicklas Backstrom and Evgeny Kuznetsov, Samsonov was scored on by Beauvillier.
A win is a win. You’d like to see the Capitals beat a team like the Islanders while 5v5, but right now, a shootout victory is worth something.
We’ll do it again on Saturday night. Capitals @ Islanders in New York at 7pm eastern time.