PITTSBURGH — No confetti poured down from the rafters to mark the occasion. Maybe the Washington Capitals wouldn’t have celebrated that way if this happened at home, either.
On paper, winning a second-round Stanley Cup Playoff series shouldn’t be a pop-the-corks moment.
But for this franchise, for the District, of course, there’s more to the story. And now, finally, that context is more than just a heart-wrenching chronicle of losses in April and May.
For the first time since 1998, the Washington Capitals have advanced to the Eastern Conference Finals. For the first time since 1998, a District sports team has made it out of the second round of the playoffs.
Evgeny Kuznetsov’s overtime goal gave the Capitals the series-clinching 2-1 win in Game 6 at PPG Paints Arena on Monday night. The Capitals ended a unique drought that saw Washington’s four major professional teams unable to break through to a conference championship round for 20 years.
Alex Chiasson scored the Capitals’ first goal and Braden Holtby made 21 saves.
About five and a half minutes into overtime, Alex Ovechkin stole a Pittsburgh pass in the neutral zone and poked it ahead to Kuznetsov, already behind the defenders. Kuznetsov shot it past Matt Murray for his seventh goal of the postseason.
“I see Kuzy was over there with space and he did his thing,” Ovechkin said. “He did was he does best.”
“It’s all about the place between the blue lines,” Kuznetsov said. “We got a turnover and then it’s good transition, it’s a breakaway. When you get a breakaway in those type of games you don’t really think what you’re gonna do, you’re just trying to do something. It’s worked pretty well.”
For the first time in Ovechkin’s 13-year NHL career, he will play in an Eastern Conference Finals. The Capitals will face the Tampa Bay Lightning.
“It feels great. I’ve never been in this position before and I’m looking forward,” Ovechkin said.
Capitals coach Barry Trotz said the team had a particularly good feeling all day.
“You know, the great thing about this all day is we knew we were gonna win,” Trotz said. “I don’t know why.”
They held that belief even before the team had to rule out Nicklas Backstrom, who was a game-time decision with an upper-body injury.
The choppy first period was light on shots, and each team killed one power play. The Capitals survived a Pittsburgh rush in the 18th minute, with Holtby stuffing chances from Evgeni Malkin and Patric Hornqvist. He had help from Dmitry Orlov and Matt Niskanen in traffic, and Jakub Vrana blocked a shot and took the puck the other way to end the rush.
The Capitals’ fourth line opened scoring in the early minutes of the second period when Nathan Walker, in his NHL playoff debut, wrapped behind Murray’s net and fed Chiasson at the right circle. Chiasson’s shot snuck between Murray’s glove and the near post for his first goal of the postseason, and Walker became the first-ever Australian to score a point in the Stanley Cup Playoffs.
Walker was in the lineup instead of fellow rookie Shane Gersich as the Capitals played the final game of Tom Wilson’s three-game suspension. Travis Boyd also made his postseason debut due to Backstrom’s absence.
“It’s huge when you lose couple key guys, especially Tom and Backy are both key so we were trying to just regroup,” Kuznetsov said. “I’m really happy about the guys step up like Nate Walker. You know, he play unbelievable, that little (expletive). That’s the only word I have for him.”
Over the next 10 minutes, Murray and the Penguins had to deal with chances from Ovechkin, Kuznetsov, Michal Kempny and Jakub Vrana, the latter on a short breakaway.
But Pittsburgh found its equalizer 11:52 into the period. Sidney Crosby won an offensive zone faceoff and Brian Dumoulin facilitated the puck to Kris Letang at the blue line. Letang’s slap shot glided off Chandler Stephenson’s stick and changed direction too quickly for Holtby to catch it.
Murray and Holtby took turns stopping chances in the third period, both aided by their defenders. Stephenson made an important clear after a Holtby blocker save left the net semi-protected with Tom Kuhnhackl in front of the net. On the other end, Ovechkin and Kuznetsov had a 2-on-1 rush, but Kuznetsov fumbled the puck.
On their way to outshooting the Penguins 30-22, the Capitals did not let Jake Guentzel take a shot all game, and Sidney Crosby only got a shot on net in the third period.
Three minutes into overtime, the Penguins thought the game was theirs for a split second when Kuhnhackl took a shot that avoided Holtby’s glove but careened off the far post.
Asked what the Washington bench’s reaction was in that moment, Trotz joked that “you can’t print what I’m gonna say.”
“But you know, your heart drops a little bit. When they hit a post there, I was going, we’ve got this,” Trotz said. “I just knew we had it.”
They did. The game-winner came about 2:30 later.
It was the first time the Capitals beat their rivals in a playoff series since 1994. Pittsburgh had eliminated Washington the previous seven times the teams met in the playoffs since. The Penguins, the two-time defending champions, are out of the running for the first Stanley Cup three-peat in 35 years.
“All the (playoff) teams are really good, and there’s a fine line between winning and losing. We haven’t tasted that in a long time,” Penguins coach Mike Sullivan said. “I couldn’t be more proud of them as their coach because of that. Obviously, we’re all disappointed. We were hoping we’d get a different result. We’ll have to digest it, see what we can learn from it, so we can be better the next season.”
Murray, who made 28 saves, lost a playoff elimination game for the first time in his career.
No one was surprised that the Capitals said they are already looking ahead.
“We’ve had to work for what we’ve got and I think it’s been a good thing for building our group, building out maturity as a group,” Holtby said. “Now we gotta refocus and make sure we keep that same mindset going forward.”
While the Capitals prepare for the conference finals, the Washington area might linger on this moment for just a bit longer.
• Adam Zielonka can be reached at azielonka@washingtontimes.com.
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