As the boys made their way to BAAASTAN for games 3 and 4, I was still pretty confident in their play given they gave game 2 away with a mental mistake. Now is the panic button being pushed yet?….. No, but that button has definitely been taken out of the cabinet.
With the first period going scoreless, the goals didn’t start coming in until the second period where our fearless leader started things off by attacking the net from the left side with a nice dish from Anthony Mantha! Then Taylor Hall answered with a highlight reel type goal of his own to beat Sammy almost immediately before the announcer could announce the Ovi goal.
Then before the end of the second the hottest Capital got another geno Nic Dowd scored on the deflection from the Hathaway shot, which was set up by a beautiful turnover at the blue line.
Then off to the third period we go where on the power play that rat Brad Marchand tied the game with eight minutes left. The Caps had plenty of chances to end it in the final minutes of the third especially when Backstrom rang one off the crossbar. Misses like that will haunt you in a tough series.
In the first OT the Bruins had control what seemed like the whole OT getting tons of chances in the Caps zone, but the boys stayed strong and Sammy was locked in….. for now.
In the second OT, Schultz and Samsonov had a miscommunication behind the net which costed the Caps the game with the goal from Craig Smith! STAY IN THE NET SAMMY!!!!! You could see Ovi screaming that at him as they skated off the ice.
With the Caps losing it brings the series to a 2-1 Boston lead with game 4 in Boston.
In my opinion game 4 is a MUST WIN!
The Caps are no where near as healthy as the Bruins, not making excuses these are just facts. Eller Backy, Carlson, and Oshie are clearly banged up but grinding it out on the ice the best they physically can.
As for the goalie situation people are mad Sammy got the start over Anderson, being that this was Sammy’s first time in net since May 1st, but like I said before we aren’t winning this series with father time in net (Anderson), we need to give Sammy that chance and he was solid the whole game coming into the game cold minus the big mistake that ended the game, but if you had eyes for the two games Anderson was in net when he tried to move around the net he looked like bambi on the ice! Not sure who gets the start on Friday but I think it should be Sammy again, but I guess time will tell.
Also we saw the return of Evgeny Kuznetsoz finally, in typical Kuzy fashion he is either the best on the ice or he is invisible, if you watched he was the ladder he barley did anything the whole game.
Ovechkin’s opening goal was his 800th of his career when you combine regular and playoff games. Lets be honest though Ovi has yet to get an OT winner in the playoffs that is legit bananaland that that hasn’t happened yet! Ovi has to get this weight off his back and end one in OT, because with him getting an OT winner I think it could change the momentum in this series drastically.
Boys we need this one Friday! Lets get the mojo back and play a complete game.
The Morning Skate 