Evgeny Kuznetsov smiled about getting four assists. He tried not to smile too much at the thought of being one win away from the Stanley Cup.
With Kuznetsov and goaltender Braden Holtby leading the way, the Washington Capitals are on the verge of capturing the first title in their 43rd season, after routing the Vegas Golden Knights 6-2 on Monday to take a commanding 3-1 series lead.
Alex Ovechkin and the Capitals are to get their first chance to hoist the Cup in Game 5 tomorrow in Las Vegas.
Photo: AFP
“I’ve never been there,” Kuznetsov said after just the fourth four-assist game in Cup Final history. “And I don’t really care about that yet, so it’s kind of easy for me.”
T.J. Oshie, Tom Wilson and Devante Smith-Pelly all scored in the first period to get the Capitals rolling against a determined Vegas team who have not found consistent answers against Holtby, who stopped 28 shots in another strong showing.
The Golden Knights out-chanced the Capitals by a wide margin, but fell apart after James Neal clanked a shot off the post instead of hitting a wide-open net early.
“It probably changes the game,” Neal said. “It’s probably a different game after that I had a wide-open net, and then I just hit the post.”
John Carlson, Michal Kempny and Brett Connolly also scored as thunderous chants of “We want the Cup! We want the Cup!” rang out from the crowd. No team since the Detroit Red Wings in 1942 has blown a 3-1 lead in the Cup Final.
The Capitals seem to be getting enough bounces to make up for nine previous first or second-round playoff exits in the Ovechkin and Nicklas Backstrom era — and plenty of disappointments in the previous decades, too.
While Vegas rang several shots off the posts, the Capitals seized just about every opportunity.
Fleury called the loss “frustrating and demoralizing.”
Coach Gerard Gallant was quick to absolve his goaltender of blame.
“At least five of the six goals were wide-open nets,” Gallant said. “Nothing he could do on them.”
Kuznetsov leads all playoff scorers with 31 points, Ovechkin is tied for the goal lead with 14 and Holtby showed again his ability to alter the course of a game.
Holtby got some good fortune from the post on shots by Alex Tuch, Neal and Brayden McNabb, but he also had not allowed a goal in more than 62 minutes stretching back to Game 3.
“We obviously got some breaks at the start of the game,” Holtby said. “Honestly, I thought [Neal’s shot] was in, my angle, and somehow it didn’t go in.”
Somehow, the Capitals have turned around their results at home, winning their past three in Washington after losing five of their first eight.
This one got chippy at the end, when Oshie broke Vegas defenseman Colin Miller’s nose on a hit and was given a game-ending 10-minute misconduct along with Golden Knights forwards Deryk Engelland and Ryan Reaves.
“It is not ideal, but it is the Stanley Cup Finals and everyone wants to win,” Backstrom said.
Pierre-Edouard Bellemare said he and his Vegas teammates cannot win three games in one night, so they have no choice but to focus on the next opportunity to stave off elimination.
Coach Barry Trotz wants his players to relax and not think too much about the chance facing them.
“You have the opportunity to do something special as a group, but it’s going to be the hardest thing to do, the hardest game to win, because there’s a very good team on the other side, a very proud team,” Trotz said.
Bayer 04 Leverkusen go into today’s match at TSG 1899 Hoffenheim stung from their first league defeat in 16 months. Leverkusen were beaten 3-2 at home by RB Leipzig before the international break, the first loss since May last year for the reigning league and cup champions. While any defeat, particularly against a likely title rival, would have disappointed coach Xabi Alonso, the way in which it happened would be most concerning. Just as they did in the Supercup against VfB Stuttgart and in the league opener to Borussia Moenchengladbach, Leverkusen scored first, but were pegged back. However, while Leverkusen rallied late to
If all goes well when the biggest marathon field ever gathered in Australia races 42km through the streets of Sydney on Sunday, World Marathon Majors (WMM) will soon add a seventh race to the elite series. The Sydney Marathon is to become the first race since Tokyo in 2013 to join long-established majors in New York, London, Boston, Berlin and Chicago if it passes the WMM assessment criteria for the second straight year. “We’re really excited for Sunday to arrive,” race director Wayne Larden told a news conference in Sydney yesterday. “We’re prepared, we’re ready. All of our plans look good on
The lights dimmed and the crowd hushed as Karoline Kristensen entered for her performance. However, this was no ordinary Dutch theater: The temperature was 80°C and the audience naked apart from a towel. Dressed in a swimsuit and to the tune of emotional music, the 21-year-old Kristensen started her routine, performed inside a large sauna, with a bed of hot rocks in the middle. For a week this month, a group of wellness practitioners, called “sauna masters,” are gathering at a picturesque health resort in the Netherlands to compete in this year’s Aufguss world sauna championships. The practice takes its name from a
When details from a scientific experiment that could have helped clear Russian figure skater Kamila Valieva landed at the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA), the leader of the organization’s reaction was unequivocal: “We have to stop that urgently,” he wrote. No mention of the test ever became public and Valieva’s defense at the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) went on without it. What effect the information could have had on Valieva’s case is unclear, but without it, the skater, then 15 years old, was eventually disqualified from the 2022 Winter Olympics after testing positive for a banned heart medication that would later