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1. Leaders Leading
Here’s a postseason cliché for you: in the playoffs, your best players have to be your best players.
Here’s a Game 5 truth: on Saturday night, the Caps’ best players were their best players:
- Nicklas Backstrom: 2 goals (including his third ”first goal” at home this series), 2 assists
- Alex Ovechkin: 1 goal, 2 primary assists, 11 (!) hits (and these numbers even undersell the game he had)
- Braden Holtby: 30-save shutout
- John Carlson: 2 assists
Someday, at least two and maybe all four of those names will hang in the rafters at Capital One Arena - they’ve been the most important players of the most important era of Washington Capitals hockey, with each taking down franchise (and League) records seemingly every game - and in Game 5, they imposed their respective wills on the Carolina Hurricanes.
Braden Holtby earned his seventh career postseason shutout to eclipse Olie Kolzig (6) for most in @Capitals franchise history. #NHLStats #StanleyCup pic.twitter.com/qiaJDldJAO
— NHL Public Relations (@PR_NHL) April 21, 2019
Connecting for a goal in his @Capitals blowout Game 5 win over the Hurricanes on Saturday, Alex Ovechkin passed an idle countryman for top spot on this all-time #StanleyCup Playoff list pic.twitter.com/t3TjZ4R50O
— StatsCentre (@StatsCentre) April 21, 2019
Dazzling so far for the @Capitals in their Rd1 series vs CAR, Nicklas Backstrom's 2G-2A effort Saturday made him the 6th name on this all-Swedish list of top notch playoff performances pic.twitter.com/IsQyk8tgXe
— StatsCentre (@StatsCentre) April 21, 2019
With John Carlson's assist, he's now at 41 career playoff assists, four shy of passing Scott Stevens (44) for the most in franchise history by a defenseman.
— CapitalsPR (@CapitalsPR) April 21, 2019
Throw in some key secondary contributions (Evgeny Kuznetsov’s two primary helpers, Tom Wilson’s goal and assist), the bottom-six’s first non-empty net scores of the series (Brett Connolly’s tally and Nic Dowd’s penalty shot) and some monster second-period penalty killing (shoutout to Carl Hagelin) and you’ve got the recipe for a Game 5 that made those two games in Raleigh seem like bad fever dreams.
The Capitals dominated all night long and took a massive 6-0 win in Game 5. Their powerplay was scorching hot and they generated more quality looks despite similar zone time to the Hurricanes. #ALLCAPS #TakeWarning #StanleyCup pic.twitter.com/V4NpFqPhXu
— The Point (@ThePointHockey) April 21, 2019
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Was Game 5 a perfect game? Let’s just leave it at “it was comfortably the Caps’ best game of the series, and an effort befitting the champs.”
Crushing the Hurricanes Saturday to re-take the series lead, the @Capitals 6-0 win is only bested by 1 #StanleyCup Playoff blowout win on this all-time franchise list of games pic.twitter.com/Y3zBHL2Qoy
— StatsCentre (@StatsCentre) April 21, 2019
Rest assured that whatever you feel the Caps needed to show you in Game 5, it pales in comparison to what they felt they needed to show themselves:
Braden Holtby, asked if this was a statement win by Caps: ""To ourselves, I think, to show that when we play that way we're going to be real tough to beat."
— Stephen Whyno (@SWhyno) April 21, 2019
Confirmed... or maybe the ‘Canes just stunk.
Brind’Amour: “Our whole game was terrible. We were bad from start to finish. We didn’t look like we were up for it for whatever reason.”
— Chip Alexander (@ice_chip) April 21, 2019
We’ll go with “a lot from Column A, a little from Column B” and hope that it continues the same way in Game 6.
2. T.J. and D.S.P.
The Caps didn’t have to look far for inspiration for Game 5, given the loss of T.J. Oshie (collarbone, btw)...
Caps dedicated Game 5 win to injured forward T.J. Oshie.
— Stephen Whyno (@SWhyno) April 21, 2019
Nicklas Backstrom: "Obviously this one was for him."
Here you go @TJOshie77 ...the @Capitals crowd is sending this one out to you! @1067theFan #ALLCAPS pic.twitter.com/gK9wiyqFDx
— Chris Russell (@Russellmania621) April 21, 2019
#OshieChug @RyanKerrigan91 style! pic.twitter.com/TuvXLpba1p
— Washington Capitals (@Capitals) April 21, 2019
Caps fans you guys are amazing!! Thanks for the chants tonight!! The boys played hard and were fun to watch. Looking forward to game 6. #ALLCAPS #BACK2BACK
— TJ Oshie (@TJOshie77) April 21, 2019
... and the recall of Devante Smith-Pelly:
Smith-Pelly meets the media. His teammates playfully broke in with clapping and "D-S-P" chants more than once. #Caps pic.twitter.com/Z42JTY45cj
— Adam Zielonka (@Adam_Zielonka) April 20, 2019
— NHL GIFs (@NHLGIFs) April 21, 2019
Seeing DSP in a Caps playoff hug... it just feels right.
Braden Holtby, asked if this was a statement win by Caps: ""To ourselves, I think, to show that when we play that way we're going to be real tough to beat."
— Stephen Whyno (@SWhyno) April 21, 2019
3. Dowd and Out
Alex Ovechkin, Nicklas Backstrom, Peter Bondra, Mike Gartner, Mike Ridley, Alexander Semin, Bengt Gustafsson, Dale Hunter... we could sit here all day naming Caps who had never scored a penalty shot goal in the playoffs for Washington because before Saturday night, no one ever had:
Of all the @Capitals skilled players, it was Nic Dowd who achieved a #StanleyCup Playoff first in @Capitals history in Saturday's 5 win over the Hurricanes (as shown here) pic.twitter.com/4SUtJGPohi
— StatsCentre (@StatsCentre) April 21, 2019
(Ugh... too soon on that Juneau fail.)
Anyway, Nic Dowd put the icing on the Game 5 win cake (before Ovechkin put a cherry bomb on top) this beauty:
Dowd converts on the penalty shot. #StanleyCup pic.twitter.com/7QoX9XXZby
— NHL GIFs (@NHLGIFs) April 21, 2019
This is what it sounds like (and looks like) when Nic Dowd scores on a penalty shot to make it 5-0 #Caps on @1067theFan #ALLCAPS pic.twitter.com/8SAwLlCiET
— Chris Russell (@Russellmania621) April 21, 2019
Dowd had never taken or scored on a penalty shot in the NHL and was 0-for-2 in shootout attempts in his career, and now he’s done something no one in franchise history ever had (and will win you bar bets for years to come).
Playoff hockey can be a lot of fun sometimes, can’t it?