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Both teams entered the game mathematically eliminated from the 2014 Stanley Cup Playoffs but that didn’t stop the Capitals from arriving on time and ready to do battle. The good play started early from Joel Ward and was carried throughout a sleepy middle twenty minutes by Braden Holtby‘s stellar (.947 SP) play for the entire sixty minutes. Washington’s third line deserved all three stars of the game for their nine point performance, but the two regulation points were really thanks to a competitive, gritty effort.
Eight more notes on the game:
The third line wasn’t done in the first period, Chimera picking up his 15th on the season a little more than halfway through the contest. All three members of the trio combined on the second goal as well with Fehr again getting the primary and Ward notching the secondary.
Washington wouldn’t stand idly by to begin the third either and, who else, it was the third line putting the puck into the net first. Fehr’s tally with seventeen minutes left lifted the visitors up three and completed the third line’s night – each player registering a goal and two assists – Hell of a game from those three.
Brouwer wouldn’t allow the third line to have all of the night’s glory, however, as he put his second of the game behind Khudobin a little more than a minute after Fehr’s and putting the contest out of reach. An stoppable shot that found daylight through the goaltender’s pads was the final nail in Carolina’s coffin.
Both teams are out of the playoff picture and tonight’s game played out much like you’d expect a meaningless early April contest would. Unlike the Hurricanes however, Washington showed up to play from the first minute of the game all the way through the final save Holtby would make late in the third period. It was a nice performance to watch unfold on the road, only being too little too late for this year’s team.
Game highlights: