In his first home Stanley Cup Final game after 13 long years checkered with as many disappointments as milestones
Adidas Derick Brassard Jersey , Alex Ovechkin was not going to be denied the opportunity to do something special.
He played with an edge. He played with joy. And he played with the leadership his Washington Capitals have come to expect.
Ovechkin dived to the ice to score his 14th goal of the playoffs, laid down to block shots, dished out hits and, along with Evgeny Kuznetsov, muscled the Capitals past the Vegas Golden Knights 3-1 on Saturday night to take a 2-1 lead in the best-of-seven series.
Showing the kind of emotion on the ice and the bench from his younger days, Ovechkin led the way and now has Washington two wins away from the first championship in the 43-year history of the franchise.
”It’s the Stanley Cup Final,” Ovechkin said. ”What do you wanna do? It’s all in for everybody.”
The Capitals suddenly look in complete control of the series thanks to Ovechkin and Kuznetsov, who fired a wrist shot past Marc-Andre Fleury that made it perfectly clear the injury that knocked him out of Game 2 was not bothering him. Invoking Michael Jordan’s 63-point game on a broken foot and 38-point game with the flu, Kuznetsov said: ”When you’re hurt, you play a little better always.”
It doesn’t get much better than this for Kuznetsov and Ovechkin. As Kuznetsov flapped his arms in celebration of his goal on a 2-on-1 rush, Ovechkin screamed and raised his arms to the bench – showing the same emotion he did in the final minutes of Game 7 of the Eastern Conference final and when Braden Holtby made a stick save of a lifetime to preserve a 3-2 win in Game 2.
”It’s just automatic. You just get excited
James Washington Steelers Jersey ,” Ovechkin said. ”It’s huge moments for us. You just want to give emotion to your teammates and to yourself, as well.”
Fired up for the first Cup Final game in Washington since 1998, the Capitals unloaded chance after chance on Fleury, who made 23 saves but couldn’t backstop a frazzled, disjointed team that lost two games in a row for the first time in the playoff and is trailing in a series for the first time.
At the other end, Braden Holtby gifted Tomas Nosek a goal by giving the puck away but stopped the other 21 shots he faced from the Golden Knights, who looked nothing like the winners of 13 of their first 16 playoff games through the first three rounds.
”All year we’ve had a lot of guys going,” Vegas defenseman Deryk Engelland said. ”That hasn’t been the case. Our goalie’s been bailing us out with huge saves all night and we have to bear down and be better for him.”
The Golden Knights’ historic run in its inaugural season is now in danger of coming to an end with Game 4 back in Washington on Monday night.
”We haven’t been behind in any series,” Fleury said. ”It doesn’t mean we’re out of it.”
They’re not out, but they’re down because Holtby was there when the Capitals needed him by making 21 saves on 22 shots. Of course, they didn’t need him much because they were on the attack for much of the game and also blocked 26 shots in front of Holtby.
