The Washington Capitals made it further than they have in recent memory. But it all came to an end as the Carolina Hurricanes took Game 5 to win the series by a final of 3-1.
At 9:38 of the opening period Jordan Staal put the Hurricanes up 1-0. At 13:41 Anthony Beauvillier scored his second goal of the playoffs to tie it up on a nice drive backhander to the net.
1-1 was the score after the first period as well as the second. Caps were outshot 8-4 in the first and 8-5 in the second. In the third the Caps outshot the Hurricanes 10-5 but were outshot 21-19 overall.
At 18:01 Andrei Svechnikov struck to break the tie. Seth Jarvis added an empty net goal and there it was. The Capitals 50th anniversary season has come to a close. It was a fun season but they certainly could've gone further.
Logan Thompson told the media he lost sight of the puck before it was too late.
"There was kind of bodies coming in between, and it's my job to find the lane and get my eyes on it and he sifted it through. It was a terrible goal to give up to end a season and I've got to wear that."Logan Thompson
Thompson finished with 18 saves. Washington gets eliminated in the second round despite having the number one seed in the Metropolitan Division as well as the Eastern Conference.
"It's awful. I told them that. It's awful, yeah, because you did feel this team was capable of doing something special and potentially going tot he Cup finals and making some noise. We knew we had our work out for us. We knew it wasn't going to be smooth sailing through this, but we believed," said Spencer Carbery.
Alex Ovechkin added, "Yeah, it's tough obviously. We have a special group but obviously we have our chances. Maybe we don't execute, maybe luck was not on our side because I don't think we played bad hockey. I think we have lots of great chances to get the lead, but it's tough."