The Washington Capitals secured a playoff victory on the road at the incredibly loud Bell Centre on Sunday night. The Caps’ 5-2 victory pushes the Montreal Canadiens to the brink of elimination, with the series coming back to DC on Wednesday.
They left it late, but most importantly, they just got it done. Winning in that building is a feat.
- The Capitals returned to their successful five-on-five formula from the first two games in Game 4. They built a figurative fort around their net, allowing the Canadiens just five total five-on-five high-danger chances in the game. The Caps owned 71.5 percent of the total expected goals and would have likely had this game won much earlier in the night if their power play hadn’t been completely nullified. The Habs pushed in the third but couldn’t find the same sustained pressure they had earlier in the series. Great stuff.
- Not so great stuff from the power play, which I already referenced. The Caps went 0-for-5, including failing to convert on a decently long five-on-three opportunity. They created a grand total of one high-danger chance in 8:31 of power-play time. Yeesh, yuck, gross, bad, eww, and please figure that out.
- Tom Wilson fueled this win. He finished the game with one point, an empty-net goal, but deserved a spiritual assist for just absolutely de-skating Alexandre Carrier before Brandon Duhaime’s game-tying tally. Most importantly, zero penalty minutes and he played the most of any Capitals forward (21:16).
- Logan Thompson executed the old Undertaker rising up from the mat spot to perfection. He didn’t have a ton to do, making 16 saves on 18 shots faced, and gave up a truly bad goal to Cole Caufield, but he did enough to keep the Capitals in the game and never in a two-goal hole. Per MoneyPuck, he saved 0.14 fewer goals than expected, which basically means he came out even, and on most nights, that’s all you can ask for from your goalie.
- We’ve been talking a lot about the Capitals needing to find an answer for Nick Suzuki’s line. I have to admit, I was quite worried when I saw that Spencer Carbery changed nothing about his lines for the game. Turns out, he’s a head coach in the NHL for a reason. Alex Ovechkin’s line, which got beat up by the Habs’ top trio in Game 3, decided not to do that in Game 4, and instead, delivered punishment of their own. In the 5:02 of five-on-five ice time that Suzuki’s line spent on the ice against Ovechkin, the Capitals owned heavy advantages in shot attempts (14-2), shots on goal (4-0), goals (1-0), expected goals (0.84-0.06), scoring chances (9-0), and high-danger chances (3-0). It went so poorly for Montreal that I think Martin St. Louis actually went away from the matchup in the second half of the game.
- Brandon Duhaime really showed up after he struggled in Game 3, notching two goals. He came into the night with just one playoff goal in 26 prior games.
- Dylan Strome (1g, 1a) and Anthony Beauvillier (1a) also got on the scoresheet again. Strome is first on the team in scoring with seven points (2g, 5a) in four games, while Beauvillier is second with five points (1g, 4a).
