Crosby was diagnosed with a concussion following the game and was ruled out for Game 4. He also made short work of fears that the Capitals would roll over a Penguins team down not only Crosby, but also their best defenceman Kris Letang (gone for the season after neck surgery) and last year's unlikely netminding hero Matt Murray (not dressed after doing up in his knee before Game 1 in the opening round against Columbus).
Niskanen sounded a little more regretful than Ovechkin. That's the way they like to play. They've been so accustomed to dealing with injuries that there is not a team in the National Hockey League that is better equipped to deal with the loss of key personnel than they are. The Penguins took a 2-0 lead early in the second period on goals from Patric Hornqvist and playoff dynamo Jake Guentzel, who has eight goals in nine games, only to have the Capitals tie things up later in the period.
Edmonton, which rallied to tie Game 4 on a last-minute, power-play goal from Drake Caggiula, can not be happy about such a sudden series turnaround.
Unfortunately for the Capitals, they got hit with the latter in Game 4 on Wednesday night. Washington finished with a 38-18 edge in shots on goal, but the Penguins held a lead entering the third and didn't let it slip away.
As Sullivan and Washington's Barry Trotz pointed out, there isn't a coach around who will tell a player to get out of the way. "We'd like to spend less time in our end zone, we'd like to make sure that we hang on to pucks in the offensive game, we establish a puck-pursuit game, we try to get out of our end zone clean with our breakouts".
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"I thought it was a gutsy, gritty, scrappy game for our group", Penguins Coach Mike Sullivan said. A close friend of Crosby's, he had been emotional when the Penguins captain suffered yet another concussion. How long it takes to get back into the lineup, who knows, and I would certainly temper any exact expectations but skating today certainly is better than not skating today. The Capitals survived when Kevin Shattenkirk flipped a shot from the point by Fleury 3:13 into overtime.
"Sid skated this morning". That's the 20th two-goal comeback in these playoffs so far, and we haven't even had a Game 7 yet as we approach the end of round two.
The defending Stanley Cup champions lead the series 2-1, an advantage they built thanks in large part to Crosby. But the Penguins were the only team to take advantage of those man-advantage minutes.
In this edition of the hotstove, we discuss whether or not the Capitals still have a chance of beating the Penguins and advancing to the conference finals. The third was on a power play created by one of six Capitals offensive-zone penalties in the game.
We'd all love to see him back sooner rather than later. The difference was that it glanced off Capitals defenseman Dmitry Orlov's skate. Overall this postseason, he's tied for fifth in goals with four (in 10 games) and 15th in points with seven.
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