For Caps, just another ‘bad bounce’ for a pantheon filling up fast with them

By Barry Svrluga

https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/capitals/

May 3, 2017

Dmitry Orlov kicks the puck into his own net in the second period of last night's game to give the Penguins a 2-0 lead.

PITTSBURGH — It’s a terrible state of existence when every odd bounce that works against you has to be woven into the tapestry as part of some generations-long drama — and a depressing one at that. But it is the very existence of the Washington Capitals, and who knows when — or if — that will change. Welcome, then, Dmitry Orlov and his right skate to this disaster. They’re part of the story now, like it or not.

This is what you need to know: Orlov, one of the Capitals’ very own defensemen, deflected the puck into his own net Wednesday night. He was not pressured to do so. There were no Pittsburgh Penguins within three rivers of him. Goalie Braden Holtby was happy to allow Orlov to play the puck, to clear the puck, to do anything other than — oh, I don’t know — kick the puck into his own yet.

Yet that’s just what Orlov did.

“It was just bad bounce,” Orlov said. “I don’t think if he [was] going to, like, throw 20, 30, 40 pucks — I don’t think it’s going to go in.”

Yet these are the Capitals. So, somehow, it did.

Mull that over for a bit. While your brain is thawing out, we’ll get to the impact of it all.

The Capitals lost, 3-2, in the fourth game of their second-round playoff series against the Penguins. They now trail the series 3-1. The Penguins won the game without Sidney Crosby, their captain and their conscience, who sat out with a concussion. To save their season, the Capitals must win Saturday night in Washington just to force a Game 6 on Monday in Pittsburgh, which they must win just to force a Game 7 next week back in D.C., which they must win to have any hope of altering their national reputation as chokers.

[Capitals can’t cash in on chances, and now find themselves on brink of being done]

“Right now, it’s Game 7 every game for us,” said captain Alex Ovechkin, who was — rightly — critical of his own lousy play Wednesday.

The Capitals will point to a thousand little things that cost them Game 4 before they hang Orlov out to dry. “We overcame it,” Justin Williams actually said.

What we do know: If the world ends and it does so without the Capitals winning a Stanley Cup, Orlov’s own goal will be preserved in the time capsule sent to other civilizations to explain the Capitals’ entire tenure on Earth. Not many more details will be needed, and it won’t matter whether the aliens understand English — or Russian. Watch that clip. That’s about the extent of what you need to know.

This isn’t to blame Orlov for the loss. Freaky things happen in hockey, in the playoffs. It’s all rather maddening.

But it can’t feel coincidental that this happened to a player wearing a Capitals sweater. It might be coincidental. But it doesn’t feel that way. It feels like it’s springtime, and the Caps had the best record in the sport during the regular season — again — and they outshot Pittsburgh 38-18, and they lost anyway at least in part because one of their own players kicked the puck into his own net.

“It’s kind of just a perfect storm,” Holtby said.

This hurricane, then, feels like it’s raged for 40 years.

[D.C. Sports Bog: Best and worst from Penguins-Capitals Game 4]

The play in question came with the Penguins holding a 1-0 lead, but with the Capitals right in it. Something, perhaps Crosby’s absence, left PPG Paints Arena feeling a little lackluster, and the teams largely felt each other out for most of the first period. Less than four minutes into the second period, Pittsburgh rookie Jake Guentzel corralled a puck along the left boards in the Capitals’ zone. He really had no play.

“The guy basically has nothing but to shoot short-side,” Holtby said of Guentzel. “The pass option’s so far wide that I can commit to that and get over.”

Guentzel flung the puck across the crease, ostensibly for fourth-line center Carter Rowney, who was playing only because Crosby was out. But really, the puck was all Orlov’s.

“He’s in the proper position,” Washington defenseman Kevin Shattenkirk said, “where he needs to be to take away that pass.”

And yet, instead of playing the puck with his stick, Orlov allowed it to bounce off his skate.

“It’s one of those you’re supposed to expect the unexpected,” Holtby said.

Except where the Capitals are concerned, stuff like this is, by now, expected.

The funny thing is, Orlov’s goal — sorry, Guentzel’s goal — seemed to spark the Caps. How weird. Evgeny Kuznetsov beat Pittsburgh goalie Marc-Andre Fleury first, less than four minutes after Orlov’s gaffe. When Nate Schmidt fired one past Fleury 72 seconds later, the Capitals had 21 shots, the Penguins just 10.

“In the driver’s seat,” Williams said. “Going forward. Pushing for the next goal.”

And yet Orlov’s goal — sorry, Guentzel’s goal — was inescapable. When Pittsburgh scored on the power play to go up 3-2, it was impossible to wonder what the game might have felt like if Orlov hadn’t been lumped into Caps’ lore.

“It sucks, you know?” Orlov said.

Yes, we know.

[In Game 4, the Capitals run into a more deadly opponent than Sidney Crosby: Themselves]

It was not, of course, the only bit of indignity on this night. The final slice of embarrassment came just inside of the two-minute mark, when Holtby was skating toward the bench so the Capitals could bring out an extra attacker. It is reasonable, given their skill, that Washington could have tied the game in a six-on-five situation. Heck, the Penguins had scored twice in the final two minutes Monday to force overtime in Game 3.

But before Holtby was over the boards, T.J. Oshie was called for high-sticking — perhaps erroneously, but the call stood nonetheless, and a man advantage for the Capitals turned into a power play for the Penguins. It was, amazingly, the sixth penalty the Capitals had taken in the offensive zone in a catastrophe of a loss.

Blame that, then? The Caps’ own stupidity? Sure. It was a factor.

The stupidity, though, can’t be preserved on video for generations as a lesson about the fortune of this entire franchise. What can be: Dmitry Orlov, his right skate, the puck and an open goal mouth. The only way to remove that bit of evidence from the time capsule — to completely alter the way this franchise is viewed now and far into the future — is to win three straight games against a team that just doesn’t seem to make mistakes, much less put the puck in its own net.

More on Capitals-Penguins series

Ovechkin on Crosby’s concussion: ‘I hope he’s going to be fine’

Svrluga: Crosby’s concussion shakes Pittsburgh — and all of hockey

The Capitals will forever be linked to Crosby’s concussion history

Pittsburgh reporter on Crosby hit: ‘That’s just cheap, it’s dirty, it’s filthy’

No suspension for Matt Niskanen after cross-check on Sidney Crosby

Penguins aren’t happy with hit on Crosby

Pittsburgh reporter on Sidney Crosby hit: ‘That’s just cheap, it’s dirty, it’s filthy’

By Scott Allen

https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports

May 2, 2017

Matt Niskanen cross-checks Sidney Crosby during the first period on Monday. (Gene J. Puskar/AP)

Penguins captain Sidney Crosby’s injury in the first period of Monday’s second-round playoff game against the Capitals prompted all sorts of reactions inside and outside PPG Paints Arena during and after Washington’s 3-2 overtime win. None of the takes has been hotter than the one belonging to Pittsburgh reporter Rob Rossi, who wrote that the purpose of the Capitals’ closed-door meeting after Game 2 was to devise a plan for “eliminating Crosby.”

But Rossi, who had a contentious exchange with Capitals Coach Barry Trotz after the game, wasn’t the only Pittsburgh reporter who suggested that Matt Niskanen’s cross-check was malicious. “That’s how you want to win, Washington? Really?” was the headline Tuesday morning on former Pittsburgh Tribune-Review columnist Dejan Kovacevic’s subscription-based site, DKPittsburghSports.com. Meanwhile, Kevin Gorman, a current Tribune-Review columnist, wrote that the Capitals “resorted to one of hockey’s cheapest tricks: take out the opponent’s best player.”

Kovacevic was given a chance to defend his opinion as a guest on the Pittsburgh-based “Randy Baumann and the DVE Morning Show”, during which Baumann argued that injuries are an unfortunate byproduct of the physical nature of hockey’s postseason.

[Penguins aren’t happy with hit on Sidney Crosby]

“I don’t understand the outrage with the physical play, and winning by any means, almost, is acceptable in the NHL playoffs,” he said. “That’s something that we’ve always accepted, right?”

“I think we’ve accepted it,” Kovacevic said. “I also think that the NHL has purported, including just before these existing playoffs, that it wants to get rid of stuff like this. By that I mean, in particular, the idea that when a team is either behind or ahead, whether it’s in a game or a series, that they try to take advantage of situations and just, you know, hurt people. When you see something like this happen last night, and as fast as it was and as much as Matt Niskanen and everyone on the Capitals side were insisting it happened too fast for him to react, well guess what, it happened slow enough for him to raise both of his arms and his stick into the face that he saw coming his way. So, yeah, there’s a whole lot of cynicism about what Washington is saying, justifiably so, and man, there’s no place for it.”

“I’m a little bit leery of the idea of complaining about physical play in the postseason as a Penguins fan,” Baumann replied. “I think there may be some merit to that. We’re constructed differently than that team. They’re the more physical team.”

“You keep describing this play as physical,” Kovacevic said. “This was nothing other than a cheap shot. Physical is lowering your shoulder into somebody. Physical is a big hit. This was a guy raising lumber into somebody’s face. That’s not physical, not in any definition of hockey, going back 100 years. That’s just cheap, it’s dirty, it’s filthy, it’s the worst hit you can have in hockey, if you even want to call it a hit. This is nothing noble or characteristic at all in what Matt Niskanen did, and I can promise you that he knows it and the Washington Capitals know it. Did guys happen to notice that when it actually happened, absolutely no one on the Washington side, so much as raised a pinkie finger or their voice whenever Niskanen was sent off? Officials changed their minds from the minor penalty to the major and it was like, ‘Yep, yep, yeah, definitely a major. Yeah, sure, uh-huh.’”

(Had the Capitals’ bench vehemently protested Niskanen’s game misconduct, there likely would’ve been no shortage of pundits criticizing them for not showing the proper respect following an injury to one of the game’s best players.)

Kovacevic was also asked about Chris Kunitz’s hit on T.J. Oshie, which did not result in a penalty. Trotz described Kunitz’s hit as predatory in his postgame news conference when Rossi grilled him about Alex Ovechkin’s slash of Crosby that wasn’t penalized and preceded Niskanen’s cross-check.

“I disagree with Barry Trotz’s exact characterization [of Kunitz’s hit] as ‘predatory,‘” Kovacevic said, making fun of Trotz’s butchering of the word. “You would think that a guy who had coached the Nashville Predators for a decade and a half would’ve pulled off every possible derivation of the word, right? Uh, no, that play actually happened right below us in the press box. I don’t think either player saw the other guy coming until the very last second and it just so happened that Oshie had less balance in the situation. I don’t even think it was a hit. I think it was just two guys running into each other. If that makes me sound like a homer, so be it. I thought the Penguins got away with a handful of infractions, a couple in particular that the officials could have called. I thought there was one call that went Pittsburgh’s way in particular that was just a terrible, terrible dive on the Penguins part. It was [Bryan] Rust. It was Rust with the dive and they called it. I thought they were just absolutely terrible the entire night, both in their application of rules and their inconsistency.”

Kovacevic laughed when asked what he thought the league’s reaction to Niskanen’s hit would be. (The interview was before the NHL announced that Niskanen will not face any supplemental discipline.)

“We’re talking about the National Hockey League,” Kovacevic said. “You never have to wonder about these things. All you do is you listen to the national broadcasts, because the messages already get sent out, the cue cards. When you hear these guys instantly saying, ‘Oh, it was just a self-defense move by Matt Niskanen,’ they’re already starting to send those waves out. That’s how they work unfortunately. Basically, you just listen to [Mike Milbury] and you have the idea of what’s happening at the NHL’s department of player safety. … Nothing matters to those dinosaurs quite like protecting the dinosaur aspect of the game.”

During the first intermission on Monday, Milbury and fellow NBC Sports Network analyst Keith Jones agreed that Niskanen deserved a major penalty and a game misconduct for the cross-check, but neither thought Niskanen intended to hurt Crosby or that he should be suspended.

“There was nothing at all about that play that Matt Niskanen needed to do, and he knows it,” Kovacevic said.

Penguins shouldn't retaliate for Game 3 hit on Sidney Crosby unless it means winning the Eastern Conference semifinals

By Mark Madden

http://www.timesonline.com/sports/

May 2, 2017

Sidney Crosby #87 of the Pittsburgh Penguins leaves the ice with trainer Chris Stewart after taking a hit in the first period while playing the Washington Capitals in Game Three of the Eastern Conference Second Round during the 2017 NHL Stanley Cup Playoffs at PPG Paints Arena on May 1, 2017 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. (Photo by Gregory Shamus/Getty Images)

I don’t believe Matt Niskanen skated onto the ice at PPG Paints Arena Monday night intending to behead Sidney Crosby.

But when the opportunity presented itself, the Washington defenseman (and former Crosby teammate in Pittsburgh) certainly didn’t shy away.

There’s a difference between first-degree homicide and manslaughter. But both are murder.

A five-minute penalty and ejection isn’t sufficient punishment for Niskanen’s act. But the NHL’s erroneously-named Department of Player Safety thinks so. Niskanen will play in Game 4 tonight.

Crosby is concussed, will miss Game 4 and his status after that is unlikely. That’s great news for the Capitals. They’re secretly overjoyed, and should be. That doesn’t bother me. Fake sportsmanship and pretending do.

Crosby’s left knee appeared to buckle, but that reportedly isn’t a problem. That’s testament to Crosby’s huge legs and tireless workout regimen.

What do the Penguins do if Crosby misses the rest of the series?

Lose it, probably.

Fanboy optimism aside, the Penguins – minus hockey’s best player and their top defenseman – must beat the Presidents’ Trophy winners twice more. That’s a tall order.

The Penguins persevered and won when Mario Lemieux and Joe Mullen both got hurt during the second-round series against the New York Rangers in 1992. But those Penguins had better defense and more weaponry. These Penguins are running out of bullets.

What can the Penguins do to heighten their chances?

Up front, Coach Mike Sullivan faces a big decision.

Evgeni Malkin and Phil Kessel have skated together during these playoffs and produced mightily. But with Crosby out, it might behoove Sullivan to create depth by splitting up his two remaining big guns. Reunite the HBK line. Put Malkin between Jake Guentzel and Patric Hornqvist (or Bryan Rust).

Guentzel filled the net playing with Crosby. But Crosby is out. A whole host of negative trickledown is generated by Crosby’s injury.

What the Penguins shouldn’t do is retaliate.

Going after Niskanen (or Alex Ovechkin, who whacked Crosby to start dominoes falling) and turning the game into an excrement show isn’t the Penguins’ style. They’re not good at it. Lack of composure negates their talent.

In the 2012 playoffs, under the misguided stewardship of Dan Bylsma, the Penguins tried to out-Flyer the Philadelphia Flyers. That ended bad.

Just play. That’s worked up until now.

Just play. Sullivan kept his team focused after Monday night’s shenanigans, and the Penguins almost pulled out a miracle win.

Just play. That’s what the Penguins are good at.

Sullivan led by example in the media briefing following Game 3. He didn’t stir the pot. He declined comment on Niskanen’s cross-check.

What’s the point of talking about it? Things are a lot tougher now, but there is still a series to be won. The Penguins minus Crosby are underdogs, but lead two games to one with Game 4 at home.

The situation is grim, but not impossible.

Revenge is a dish best served cold – like next year, during the regular season. Winning is a more immediate way to get even, and eliminating Washington despite missing Crosby and Kris Letang would hammer a whole bunch of industrial-strength nails into the Capitals’ coffin of underachievement.

If the Capitals win this series, or even the Stanley Cup, it gets an asterisk. In a perverse way, the pressure is off the Penguins.

Unlike Sullivan, Washington Coach Barry Trotz put his foot in his mouth after Monday’s game when he labeled Niskanen’s cross-check a “hockey play.” Niskanen’s defenders say he isn’t that type of player.

Well, he is now.

Niskanen did what he did. No excuse suffices. A cross-check to the head is not a “hockey play.” That’s vague phraseology used to justify Neanderthal boorishness and eliminate the notion of malice. It’s stupid. You can’t stick somebody in the melon without some level of malice.

A player who never sold one ticket violated the rules and sidelined the player who sells all the tickets. “Hockey play,” my [expletive].

Mark Madden hosts a radio show 3-6 p.m. weekdays on WXDX-FM (105.9).

Crosby hit a low blow by Caps

By Kevin Gorman

http://triblive.com/sports/

May 2, 2017

Pittsburgh Penguins' Sidney Crosby (87) takes a hitfrom Washington Capitals' Matt Niskanen during the first period of Game 3 in an NHL Stanley Cup Eastern Conference semifinal hockey game against the Washington Capitals in Pittsburgh, Monday, May 1, 2017. Crosby left the game and did not return. The Capitals won in overtime 3-2. (AP Photo/Gene J. Puskar)

Out of desperation, the Washington Capitals could have dug deep and turned to their star winger to score a goal or a defenseman to prevent one.

Instead, they resorted to one of hockey's cheapest tricks: take out the opponent's best player.

There is no sorrier sight in the Stanley Cup playoffs than to watch the world's best player struggle to skate off the ice, not knowing the severity of his injury but certain that he won't return.

A play that could have been the go-ahead goal for the Penguins instead delivered their worst nightmare.

Sidney Crosby was crushed by a cross-check that left him sprawled on the ice at 5 minutes, 24 seconds of the first period of their 3-2 overtime loss in Game 3 Monday night at PPG Paints Arena.

After Crosby took a pass from Jake Guentzel left of the goal, Capitals star Alex Ovechkin slashed Crosby then clipped his helmet on the backswing. The hit caused Crosby to lose balance and his left knee to buckle as he crossed the crease. A waiting Matt Niskanen caught Crosby on the chin with the butt-end of his stick on the way down.

Niskanen crouched over Crosby, who rolled over and used his left glove to adjust his helmet. After lying on his side for a moment, Crosby was helped to his skates by teammates Ron Hainsey and Patric Hornqvist and escorted off the ice by head athletic trainer Chris Stewart.

Was it premeditated?

Only the Capitals can answer that.

“Absolutely not. It wasn't intentional,” said Niskanen, a former Penguins defenseman who once fought Crosby while playing for the Dallas Stars.

“I've seen the replay. In super slow-mo, it looks really bad. He's coming across trying to score. As he's doing that, he's getting lower and lower. When it's happening that fast ... my stick and his head collided. I wasn't extending, trying to hit him in the head. It happened quickly.

“I wasn't even trying to cross-check him with a serious amount of force. A collision was going to happen there in the crease. When the play first starts, I think my stick had about his arm level probably right about where the numbers are on the side of his jersey. Because he's trying to make a play, he's getting lower and lower. He's getting pressured.”

Maybe you'd be more willing to buy that explanation if it wasn't from the Capitals, the same organization against which Crosby suffered a concussion on a blindside hit by David Steckel in the 2011 Winter Classic, an injury that caused him to miss 63 games over two seasons.

Penguins winger Chris Kunitz disagreed with Niskanen's assessment.

“I like Nisky as a person. I don't think it's a very nice hit,” Kunitz said. “I don't think it's something this game is looking for, especially someone who means so much to our team.”

Penguins coach Mike Sullivan refused to share his opinion on the play, nor would he react to Capitals coach Barry Trotz's characterization of the hit as a “hockey play.” Sullivan also declined to reveal Crosby's status or the nature of his injury, whether it was to the head or lower body.

“At the end of the day, it really doesn't matter what either coach's opinion is on it,” Sullivan said, “... or anyone else's, for that matter, except for the authorities.”

Niskanen drew a five-minute major for cross-checking and was ejected with a game misconduct. Whether the NHL will take further action could depend on the severity of Crosby's injury.

Regardless, the league needs to stop this nonsense. It has gone to great lengths to protect its star players since Crosby's concussion. Even if neither Ovechkin nor Niskanen's hits were premeditated, they were most certainly opportunistic.

Worse yet, they were dangerous.

There was no need for Niskanen to cross-check Crosby, especially as he was falling down.

Instead of the infamy of Islanders playoff heroes John Tonelli and David Volek and Florida's Tom Fitzgerald, Niskanen will go down with Steckel and N.Y. Rangers forward Adam Graves as opponents notorious for taking out a Penguins superstar.

Before Niskanen's hit on Crosby, Graves delivered the most menacing blow when he slashed Mario Lemieux in the 1992 Stanley Cup playoffs. It fractured a bone in Lemieux's left hand at 5:05 of the first period of Game 2 of their Patrick Division final. Graves drew only a two-minute slashing penalty, and the Rangers won 4-2.

Those aren't the only similarities. That '92 Penguins team, like this one, was the reigning Stanley Cup champions and Lemieux, like Crosby, was the Conn Smythe Trophy winner as playoffs MVP.

What's worth noting is that while Lemieux missed the rest of that series, which the Penguins won in six games, he returned to lead them to a sweep of the Boston Bruins and a second straight Cup championship.

Trotz acknowledged that Crosby's absence will hurt the Penguins.

“Obviously, he's one of the best players in the world,” Trotz said. “He's a fantastic player. That's a big hole.”

The Penguins have to prove that it's not a black hole. They have shown character in overcoming injuries to starting goaltender Matt Murray and to top defenseman Kris Letang, but losing Crosby would be their biggest challenge yet.

Not only is Crosby their superstar but one who scored two goals in Game 1 and had two assists in Game 2. He'd been the best player on the ice this series, no apologies to Ovechkin, and had 11 points in the playoffs.

The reaction in the Penguins dressing room was ominous as the players said they hadn't seen their captain since he left the ice.

That has cast a dark cloud over this series, one in which the only time the Capitals have shown they can capitalize is when the opportunity to cheap shot Crosby presented itself.

Kevin Gorman is a Tribune-Review staff writer. Reach him at kgorman@tribweb.com or via Twitter @KGorman_Trib.

Caps claw way back into series with 3-2 win in Pittsburgh

By Nora Princiotti - The Washington Times - Monday, May 1, 2017

http://www.washingtontimes.com/sports/

Sidney Crosby #87 of the Pittsburgh Penguins leaves the ice with trainer Chris Stewart after taking a hit in the first period while playing the Washington Capitals in Game Three of the Eastern Conference Second Round during the 2017 NHL Stanley Cup Playoffs at PPG Paints Arena on May 1, 2017 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. (Photo by Gregory Shamus/Getty Images)

PITTSBURGH — Down, but not out. That’s where Capitals defenseman Kevin Shattenkirk was before Monday night’s Game 3 in Pittsburgh, which Washington entered trailing in this playoff series two games to none.

Shattenkirk was a team-worst minus-seven through eight playoff games and both he and coach Barry Trotz had said that he needed to be better. 

Shattenkirk can throw that plus-minus out the window, now. His first goal of the playoffs, scored 3:13 into overtime after the Capitals gave up a 2-0 lead with two minutes left in regulation, won the game at PPG Paints Arena, savedWashington from going down 3-0 in the series, and beat down this team’s spring demons that seemed to have risen yet again.

“He got the big one for us,” Trotz said.

The Capitals had all but won it, it seemed, with less than two minutes to go in regulation and a two-goal lead.Pittsburgh’s best player, Sidney Crosby, was off the ice, hurt. Then Evgeni Malkin scored, Pittsburgh took a timeout, and Justin Schultz scored again.

“First one I didn’t see anything. Just was right by Karl [Alzner],” goaltender Braden Holtby said. “Just one of those shots, he makes a good shot. Second one was just a bad bounce. [T.J. Oshie] was kind of in the lane, shot it kind of wide, off to the side, probably a deflection. Hit his stick, hit the ice or something else and it’s just, you know, those things happen.”

As 19,000 terrible towels twirled with glee, the Capitals trudged off the ice and prepared to regroup for overtime after a meltdown all too familiar for this franchise in May. 

Crosby was gone after a brutal collision with Matt Niskanen left him motionless on the ice for some time in the first period. Crosby was bent over on himself as he skated, gingerly, off the ice. He missed the rest of the game and is being evaluated overnight. It is unclear when he will return to the series.

If Crosby misses significant time, that will be the worst loss the Penguins suffered Monday.

Crosby was skating in front of the Capitals net when Ovechkin got him in the back of the head with his stick. Niskanen was already bracing for impact when Crosby began to fall and, by the time the two actually collided, Crosby caught Niskanen’s cross-check in the head. Crosby has a history of concussions and has already had one this season.

Niskanen was given a five-minute major and game misconduct, sending him to the locker room for the remainder of the game.

Any significant injury can not, by definition, be considered good fortune, but the Penguins were suddenly in a position familiar to the Capitals in the playoffs: One where everything is going wrong. It seemed that way for 58 minutes of regulation.

The Capitals survived the five-minute major, which was tempered by a two-minute minor on Penguins center Evgeni Malkin, without allowing a goal. 

Trotz elected to dress seven defensemen for the game, adding Alzner back into the lineup in place of Paul Carey, which left him playing with 11 forwards.

Alzner had missed the previous six games with an undisclosed upper-body injury but had been practicing, which led to speculation that he was being held out not entirely due to his health.

Alzner took warmups and, at game-time, he was in the lineup. That decision paid off in an unexpected way: Without Niskanen, Trotz would have otherwise been left with five defensemen had Alzner been scratched. 

“I didn’t expect him to play as much but he played very very well,” Trotz said of Alzner. “He did a really good job. And from that standpoint, good on us to have 7D.”

The Penguins, incensed over the loss of their captain, followed up Crosby’s exit with a few good rushes and a pair of costly penalties. Carl Hagelin was called for hi-sticking after 11:28 and, less than a minute later, Bryan Rust was called for delaying the game. The Capitals got 1:17 of five-on-three to work with, and they didn’t need all of it. After 54 methodical seconds around the Pittsburgh net, Nicklas Backstrom banked the puck off defenseman Ian Cole’s chest and scored.

Capitals goaltender Braden Holtby, who was benched during Saturday’s 6-2 loss, made 28 saves, a handful of which had a degree-of-difficulty in the stratosphere. Holtby was particularly excellent with his boots and his glove. He also got an assist in the first period from left winger Daniel Winnik, who saved a goal by getting his stick on a wraparound shot by Rust just before it crossed the goal-line.

Pittsburgh’s Chris Kunitz nearly evened the score early in the second period. His would-be goal was upheld upon review, but overturned after Trotz challenged that there was goalie interference on the play that knocked Holtby’s net out of place. 

Holtby and the Capitals weathered three penalties in the second period. By the eye test they were chasing, but go figure. The Capitals were dominant for parts of Games 1 and 2 and came away with nothing to show for it. 

“Your best penalty killer is your goaltender I thought Braden was outstanding today. Kept the puck out, they had some really good lucks and he found a way,” Trotz said.

Center Evgeny Kuznetsov’s goal in the third period that stretched the lead to 2-0 came via a play with linemates Marcus Johanssen and Justin Williams that required the most deliberate patience. It seemed that Washington had rebounded from Saturday’s loss with commendable poise, before they fell to pieces in the final minutes and needed Shattenkirk to play the hero.

It is hard to tell if this win strengthened the theory that the Capitals are destined for playoff failure or contradicted it but, either way, they will take it. Wins are hard to come by in the playoffs, whether or not you’re being chased by ghosts.

The Capitals remain in Pittsburgh for the time being. Game 4 is scheduled for Wednesday at 7:30 p.m. They have assured themselves at least one more home game.

NHL should stick it to Alex Ovechkin

Rob Rossi

http://www.upgruv.com/

May 1, 2017

Pittsburgh Penguins' Sidney Crosby (87) takes a hit from Washington Capitals' Matt Niskanen during the first period of Game 3 in an NHL Stanley Cup Eastern Conference semifinal hockey game against the Washington Capitals in Pittsburgh, Monday, May 1, 2017. (AP Photo/Gene J. Puskar) 

Alex Ovechkin shouldn't play another game in these Stanley Cup playoffs.

He will.

And that is why very few people of reason take the NHL seriously.

The hockey world was damaged Monday night when the only hockey player most Americans know (Sidney Crosby) was driven from hockey's grandest stage by a crosscheck from Matt Niskanen. That the Capitals wound up winning Game 3 in overtime, snuffing the Penguins' rally from a 2-0 deficit in the third period, only added insult to Crosby's injury.

With no due respect intended to people who saw it differently, Niskanen's action was deserving of its punishment. He received a major penalty and a game misconduct.

It was a small price to pay considering Crosby also didn't finish a fairly significant hockey match.

Niskanen should receive an excused absence (autographed by the league's Player Safety department) for the remainder of the Capitals' best-of-seven series against the Penguins.

Even if he didn't mean it.

Though, based only by his previous behavior towards Crosby — in Games 1 and 2 of this series, but also Games 1 through 6 of Round 2 a year ago, and dating to his pre-Penguins tenure with the Dallas Stars — Niskanen cannot be rationally considered to have lacked intent to injure.

While playing with the Penguins, Niskanen was a sneaky, borderline dirty player. These days, he has opted to skate across that border.

For Player Safety not to look at Niskanen's history against Crosby would be the height of credulity.

Alas, the NHL being the NHL, credulity's peak is limitless.

Which is exactly why the NHL could — and should — throw the book at Ovechkin, who skated freely despite playing a big role in Crosby's injury.

Ovechkin was the reason Crosby only lasted three shifts in Game 3. He was the Capital most responsible for Crosby's injury.

He carelessly lifted his stick into Crosby's head, forcing the NHL's sturdiest skater to stagger into Niskanen. 

If Ovechkin hadn't gone that route, Crosby wouldn't have gone headfirst into a check.

Ovechkin, who never met a leap he wouldn't take, who holds high the stick he often swings at opponents, was the dirty-deed doer at PPG Paints Arena in Game 3.

Ovechkin, who can't beat Crosby on the ice, decided to remove him from it.

Makes you wonder what that closed-door meeting called by Capitals players was really about after their blowout defeat in Game 2, huh?

Not really.

If they say it wasn't about eliminating Crosby, the Capitals are liars. And if that sounds like an unfair accusation to make of the Capitals, then please consider my decade of experience covering a sport I love and a league I really, really, really want to give the benefit of the doubt.

(Or maybe consider their coach publicly saying hisplayers must go places they hadn't gone before?)

Sorry, but I cannot give the Capitals, or the NHL, any benefit. And I doubt very much there wasn't an intent to injure Crosby when this series shifted to Pittsburgh.

If you need to know why, go ahead and watch what has happened the past couple of postseasons when Crosby played for the Penguins against the Capitals.

The Capitals lost. And Crosby, as he usually has been, was one of the biggest reasons.

More than he is The Face of Hockey, Crosby is the Face of Fear for the Capitals. He's haunted them as if ordered to by the hockey gods.

He was on the haunt again in this series, too.

Had the Capitals lost Game 3, they were going to be swept from a postseason they had ticketed as their ride toward glory. They had ticketed last postseason similarly, and the Capitals arrived in Pittsburgh knowing full well this one was going like that one.

No Capital gripped that ticket tighter than Ovechkin, with understandable reason. He is arguably the greatest hockey player to never win the Cup.

He also is indisputably as filthy as his right-handed shot is ferocious.

And in a playoff game his reputation could not stand to lose, the dominant goal scorer of his generation resorted to raising his magic wand wildly in the direction of his historic rival's famously previously concussed brain.

Could describe what Ovechkin did many ways. Would not call it a "hockey play."

Neither would Capitals coach Barry Trotz after Game 3.

Will Graves 

✔@WillGravesAP

Trotz on @Real_RobRossi ? about Ovi's hit/Crosby: "I'm not going to defend anything. Want me to defend Alex? Is Kunitz's predatory hit OK?"

11:14 PM - 1 May 2017

See it however you want, folks.

From here, the view was obvious. Ovechkin went after Crosby's head.

If the NHL keeps allowing him to play in its hallowed postseason for having done that, it really is the "garage league," as Penguins co-owner Mario Lemieux infamously once deemed.

So please, good people of the Player Safety department, surprise me, shock mostly everybody else and do something significant in the name of your namesake and safety.

Rise up and stick it to Alex Ovechkin… just as he did to Sidney Crosby.