NHL playoff series tend to become an ultimate chess match between two head coaches as each seeks to get a leg up on the other, and that was no different in the Washington Capitals’ 3-1 victory over the Carolina Hurricanes in Game 2 on Thursday night.
As the home team, the Capitals controlled matchups and benefited from having last change, allowing Spencer Carbery to maximize protection of the 2-0 lead the Caps had built in the third period. Part of that strategy led to captain Alex Ovechkin sitting out the last 5:42 of regulation, as more defensively adept personnel filtered over the boards instead of him.
“Yeah, he’s fine,” Carbery said Friday when asked if the decision was health-related. “It’s just protecting a lead late, deployment. He’s fine.”
Ovechkin skated just 14:36 of total ice time in the win, firing three shots on goal and going without a point for a second straight game. The 39-year-old winger is averaging just 15:59 of ice time per game through seven games of the playoffs, which RMNB’s Ian Oland pointed out is the lowest of his postseason career (16 separate playoff runs).
Carbery may be forced to limit his usage of Ovechkin even more when the Capitals travel to Raleigh to play the Hurricanes on the road in Games 3 and 4 on Saturday and Monday. The Caps have already seen a home team successfully target Ovechkin’s less defensively sound line in this year’s playoffs, with Montreal Canadiens head coach Martin St. Louis deploying his high-powered top line against them in a 6-3 win in Game 3 of the first round.
With first-line center Nick Suzuki on the ice at five-on-five in the win, the Habs owned significant advantages in shot attempts 26-9, shots on goal 16-4, scoring chances 12-5, and high-danger chances 5-2. Canadiens head coach Martin St. Louis most often deployed Suzuki at five-on-five against the Capitals’ top line of Anthony Beauvillier (6:37), Dylan Strome (6:19), and Ovechkin (5:04).
“Matchups play a role, a significant role in the series, and it’s our job to navigate it, whether we get the last change or not, and the things that I can do to manipulate some of the matchups,” Carbery said Friday. “It’ll be an in-game thing, and we’ll see where it goes. I’m sure I have an idea of what [Hurricanes head coach Rod Brind’Amour] is looking for, having played against them in the regular season and what he looked for in those scenarios, having gotten to know (that) the last couple games.”
Carbery primarily matched Ovechkin and Strome up against Jordan Staal’s line in Games 1 and 2, while Carolina’s top line saw almost exclusively Pierre-Luc Dubois’s second-line trio. Brind’Amour may look to swap those assignments now that he controls more of the game flow at Lenovo Center.
“Even when you’re at home, you can get a feel for the types of deployment he uses in certain situations — after special teams, all that sort of stuff — so you sort of get into a rhythm of what to expect at certain moment in the game and you see where it goes,” Carbery said. “Sometimes you get away from a matchup because you feel like it hasn’t gone well that night, and then you go back to it the next night.”
The Capitals head into Raleigh on Saturday, last beating the Hurricanes in their own barn on December 17, 2023. Carolina did not lose a single home game (3-0) in the first round against the New Jersey Devils and also did not lose one against the Capitals during the two teams’ 2019 playoff series (3-0).
