WASHINGTON — If anyone knows the value of a game-day puck, it’s Washington Capitals winger Brett Connolly, who earlier in these playoffs tossed three over the glass to make sure one ended up in the hands of a little girl in a Capitals jersey.
But his first-ever playoff goal puck? Forget about it. Connolly has no idea where that one is.
“Nah,” the 25-year-old from Campbell River, B.C., said, grinning, after his Capitals earned a 4-1 win on Sunday afternoon, evening the series with Pittsburgh at one game apiece. “It doesn’t matter.”
That’s probably a good approach. No, after Connolly’s wrist shot trickled in off Matt Murray’s glove to give Washington a 3-0 lead early in the second period of Game 2—the red-clad crowd went bananas at Capital One Arena—Connolly’s focus was exactly where it needed to be, even if it was a long-awaited first for him in the post-season.
“I was just thinking about getting another one,” he said.
That’s because when you’re up against the two-time defending Stanley Cup champions, no lead is ever comfortable.
And though Connolly’s goal didn’t stand as the winner, it was especially big on Sunday because the Capitals have been dismal with 2-0 leads. Three times in their previous seven games, Washington has been up by a pair and blown it.
“You can see what happen last game when we get the lead 2-0 and they come back and win the game,” said Alex Ovechkin, who opened the scoring with his seventh of the playoffs—a laser-beam, glove side—just 1:26 in.
So you couldn’t have blamed Capitals fans, or players, for that matter, if they were a touch nervy with that 2-0 start in Game 2 on Sunday, which included a power-play goal from Jakub Vrana late in the first, his first-ever in the post-season. Near the end of that frame, it should have been 3-0, but Murray dove across the net and somehow got his stick on Ovechkin’s shot on a near-open net.
You had to be thinking: Here we go again.
Penguins defenceman Kris Letang breathed life back into his team when his wrist shot through traffic made it 3-1 at the 13:04 mark, and then Sidney Crosby flew around the net for a wrap-around attempt, which linemate Patric Hornqvist appeared to knock in, which would have made it 3-2.
The Penguins all celebrated, thinking they’d cut Washington’s lead to one, but after a lengthy review, the no-goal call on the ice stood.
No Penguin was happy about that. Coach Mike Sullivan was yelling a lot. Crosby looked at the ref and said: “Impossible,” twice.
“My view was that it’s 100 per cent a goal,” Sullivan said later. “When you blow it up, and you see the white. It’s behind the post. Whether you use deductive reasoning or you can see the white, whatever it may be, that’s how we saw it.”
But, as Hornqvist said, “What can you do?”
Nicklas Backstrom, who potted the empty-netter that made the fans go bonkers again, called it “a good break for us.”
It wasn’t the only one, either, in a game that had its fair share of controversy. Just before Vrana scored to make it 2-0, Connolly whacked Murray’s pads with his stick, which he called “a quick reaction.” The goal was reviewed and the league determined it wasn’t interference.
Murray didn’t agree.
“As a goalie, you just want to be able to do your job,” he said. “When something like that happens, you just want to see the rule be upheld.”
The other controversy in this game came in the second, when Capitals winger Tom Wilson—who’s no stranger to borderline hits—sandwiched Penguins defender Brian Dumoulin, along with Ovechkin, and Wilson’s shoulder ran straight into Dumoulin’s head.
Wilson used the term “graze” to describe his shoulder’s impact on Dumoulin, but that’s a wild understatement, and the Penguins defender didn’t return for the third.
“I’m at no point trying to target the head at all,” Wilson said. “I’ve watched it briefly and I don’t realize what I can really do any different. At the last second I see Ovi coming in and you can see me bracing too, as well, and I end up getting kind of taken out as well. I’ve got to analyze it a little more.”
No doubt the league will, too.
Much is up in the air ahead of Tuesday’s Game 3: Whether Evgeni Malkin will be back in the Penguins’ lineup (he’s missed the last three games with an injury), whether Dumoulin will be able to play, whether Wilson will face a suspension.
But if you ask Lars Eller, who had two assists in the winning effort on Sunday, this series hasn’t been full of surprises.
“So far, it’s been as close as we could’ve expected it to be,” he said. “We’re probably closer to being 2-0 than 0-2, but we know that we’re capable of winning games in Pittsburgh. We have in the past. We’re focused on Game 3, but we’re feeling good about ourselves.”
And so they should. Unlike Round 1, the Capitals don’t find themselves winless through their first two games at home. Rattling off a string of wins against the Penguins is a far more daunting task.
“It’s way better than being down 2-0, even if we were down 2-0 to Columbus,” Backstrom said. “Pittsburgh is a different team.”
Indeed, they are.
For Connolly, he’s encouraged to get that monkey off his back with his first playoff goal—“It was good to get that first one out of the way,” he admitted—but now the focus shifts to Game 3.
“It’s going to take a lot here to beat them,” he said. “We need everybody, all the time.”
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