The first inclination the Capitals would have to counter the Leafs' momentum coming off Game 3 would be to unleash the same flurry of big hits in Game 4.
Tyler Bozak's goal, a point-blank deflection that gave Braden Holtby scant chance at a save, was a thing of beauty, sending Leafs fans into an unfamiliar frenzied state of euphoria courtesy of a 4-3 OT win and 2-1 series lead. Then, obviously, you go down 3-1 and you've got the 5 on 3... it's a big moment in the game.
"We mention (Matthews in game planning), but we are not going out of our way to shadow him or anything ridiculous like that", Capitals defenceman Matt Niskanen said of Matthews. Nicklas Backstrom, who led the team in points in the regular season, opened the scoring in the game and assisted on Ovechkin's tally.
Doubt was the word coming out of Washington following Saturday night's Game 2 loss to Toronto.
Matthews knocked in his own rebound for his first playoff goal at 14:08 of the first period to pull Toronto within 2-1. That meant the prospect of lining up three rookies - Auston Matthews, William Nylander, and Zach Hyman - on the very same line. But it went beyond just tactics for Babcock.
The Maple Leafs first home playoff game of their much-hyped second century belonged to the kids.
Oshie got the first one for the Caps when he capitalized on a Nate Schmidt point shot sent purposefully wide of the net. He's changing their players, when you look at what's going on, with the line deployments. "Their jokes maybe aren't the best, but it's nice to be around them".
Corey Perry scored at 1:30 of overtime as Anaheim overcame a 4-1 deficit to win the game and take a 3-0 lead in their Western Conference first-round playoff series. It seems as if Kapanen is making a name for himself as a clutch goal scorer; let's hope he can keep it up as the series is far from over yet.
AAP pays tribute to CRPF troopers killed in Maoist attack
That incident was reported in the dense forests near Kottacheru village, around 450 km away from the state capital of Raipur . The soldier said that it will enable the troops to deal with the Naxalites in this region which is prone to such attacks.
Tyler Bozak scored the overtime victor and Auston Matthews had a goal and an assist as the Leafs pulled in front 2-1 in their best-of-seven series with Washington with a 4-3 win on Monday night. I think [Matthews] has been good right through, I thought this was Willy's best game and the best legs he's had, Hyman's just the same every day.
At 4:49, Ovechkin made it 2-0 when he hammered a shot from the high slot for his second goal of the playoffs on a setup from Backstrom.
On top of Toronto's best forwards catching fire, the Leafs' penalty kill snapped out of a playoff-worst funk, one that allowed the Capitals to score at a ridiculous 37.5 percent clip on the power play.
"He's been a real good player for us all year", Leafs coach Mike Babcock said. This was the 11th game decided in overtime through the first 22 of the playoffs.
"I think it's going to be fantastic", said Trotz, who added it is up to his team to take the fans out of the equation.
Tyler Bozak's game-winner Monday was just Toronto's third since National Hockey League expansion to come on a power play, joining Mats Sundin and Mike Gartner. Frederik Andersen made 23 saves. The game is scheduled for a 7:00 p.m. start time and it will be televised nationally on the NBC Sports Network. In about a one-minute period in the first period, Marner was involved in two different 2-on-1 breakaways, one with James van Riemsdyk, the other with Bozak. The team got another break when a bench minor was called on the Maple Leafs for having too many men on the ice less than a minute after the five-on-three expired. I think we have plenty of chances to score, but we didn't. Kapanen's goal beat that deadline to end a wacky game that featured 12 minor penalties, several post-whistle scrums and an overtime slashing penalty on Holtby.
"We didn't compete hard enough", he said.
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