TORONTO — Wednesday, Washington Capitals coach Barry Trotz tinkered with the lineups of his bottom-six forwards. He wanted Tom Wilson skating on the third line with Andre Burakovsky and Lars Eller, so he swapped Wilson with Brett Connolly, who moved down to the fourth line.
Why? Trotz thought Wilson could bring more production to the third line.
Wilson responded Wednesday night with a pair of goals to push the Capitals past the Toronto Maple Leafs 5-4, tying the best-of-seven first round series, 2-2.
“He’s Tom Wilson. Everybody knows who Tom Wilson is. That’s what he brings,” Trotz said Wednesday after the new lines took the ice for the team’s morning skate.
Everybody here does know Wilson, who grew up in Toronto. No one, not here or in Washington, had ever seen him do what he did in the first period of Game 4 at Air Canada Centre.
First, Wilson made a diving save to stop a puck from rolling into the net. Capitals goaltender Braden Holtby had settled it, but the puck slipped under his pads where only Wilson could see it.
“Those plays kinda go into slow-mo,” Wilson said. “I could see it on his pants and knew with the shape of the puck it’s going to fall down.”
On the same shift, Wilson scored on a play from Eller and Dmitry Orlov. He wasn’t done yet. His next shift on the ice, Wilson scored again on a rush with Burakovsky. The first two-goal game of his career came in the playoffs, against his hometown team in a pivotal game that put the Capitals back into the thick of a surprisingly tight first-round series.
“When you’re a kid you always have big dreams,” Wilson said. “I was lucky enough to fulfill them. It’s a huge privilege. There’s a lot of guys that work hard to get to this level and if you get a chance to play an NHL game it’s special. A playoff game? Even better.”
Instead of being tied at two in the first period Wednesday, the Capitals, thanks to Wilson’s heroics and early goals from Alex Ovechkin and T.J. Oshie, were leading 4-1. It turned out to be just enough of a cushion to allow the Capitals to escape Canada with a win.
With the early 4-1 lead, the Capitals were threatening to have a statement game like the San Jose Sharks, another veteran team backed into a corner, had put together the night before in a 7-0 rout of the Oilers. The Capitals, though, figured the Leafs would put up more of a fight.
“It’s very rare when you see a team waltz their way all the way to the Stanley Cup. It doesn’t happen,” Justin Williams said. “And if it does, it’s very few and far between. You go through adversity on your way there. I’ve been on a couple of championship teams down 0-2, down 0-3, so you rally around it. There’s a lot of times during the playoffs where you need to man up and win a game and the pressure is on. This is one of them, obviously.”
Williams was right. The Capitals got the win they needed to return to D.C. with home ice but, as has been the case in every game this series, the margin of victory was a single goal.
Every time the Capitals started to pull away, the Leafs scored. Just after Ovechkin made it 2-0 with another vintage strike from the left circle, Zach Hyman cut the lead in half.
After Wilson dominated the first period, the Leafs pulled back in the second.
Nicklas Backstrom went to the box for holding the stick and James van Riemsdyk scored from the right circle to make it 4-2 early in the period.
Then, Eller and Brooks Orpik both took penalties within the last 10 seconds of the second period, forcing the Capitals to kill 1:54 of a 5-on-3 to start the third. The Capitals were outshooting the Leafs 24-15 at the second intermission but the penalty kill was shaping up to be a pivotal moment.
The Leafs pressured the whole way but Holtby was sharp and the Capitals killed it off cleanly. The kill swung momentum in Washington’s favor for a few minutes but still, the Leafs wouldn’t stay down. Auston Matthews scored for the second-straight game after 12 minutes in the third, making it a one-goal game again.
Oshie countered with his second goal, taking advantage of a poor defensive shift from Matthews, which put the Capitals up by two again until Tyler Bozak scored with 25 seconds left to give the game its final tally.
The Capitals and Leafs will play Game 5 at Verizon Center Friday night. If it’s anything like the first four, it’ll be a close one.
• Nora Princiotti can be reached at nprinciotti@washingtontimes.com.
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