Toronto rallies to defeat Capitals in OT

The Washington Capitals and Toronto Maple Leafs meet Wednesday in game four of the first round of the National Hockey League playoffs at the Air Canada Centre.

Matthews knocked in his own rebound for his first playoff goal at 14:08 of the first period to pull Toronto within 2-1. Defensively, the Toronto Maple Leafs are allowing 2.9 goals per game and are killing 82.5 percent of their opponents power plays.

Kevin Fiala scored on a backhander 16:44 into overtime, and Nashville rallied from a 2-0 deficit in the third period to push the Blackhawks to the brink of elimination with a victory early Tuesday morning in Game 3 of the first-round series.

Game 2 went to double overtime before Kasperi Kapanen scored the game-winning goal to even the series.

Winger Tom Wilson, Game 1’s overtime hero for Washington, said the Capitals can’t expect the hockey gods to favour them unless they’re driving forward against Leafs goalie Frederik Andersen.

Perhaps prompted by the shouts of Kasperi Kapanen, Brian Boyle checked his blindspot (to make sure that it was, in fact, the “higher percentage play”) and swung a feathered backhand drop pass to the cutting rookie, who popped the overtime victor inside the post Braden Holtby vacated to track Boyle.

The Maple Leafs have all the momentum right now. “We’re just going to play game by game, shift by shift, and going to do our best”.

“Whichever one is in, that’s why you have eight”, Babcock said. “We had some opportunities that we didn’t cash in”, Matthews said. “The Caps aren’t scoring the goals to win the series right now because the top line’s not where they need to be, and that’s on the ice”.

What if Alex Ovechkin hadn’t been stopped on that breakaway?

The opening game of the best-of-seven series also went to overtime last Thursday. “We can enjoy tonight but we still got a lot of work to do”. Matthews took a magic bullet shot off John Carlson’s foot, Schmidt’s body and then bouncing into the slot where he knocked it in.

“I love the way he plays”, Kuznetsov says of the Maple Leafs’ talented 19-year-old.

After playing from behind or tied for the vast majority of the first two games, Washington was happy just to have the lead after the first period Monday.

“There’s just not that much space, not much going at either end”, Matthews said after Game 1, which the Leafs lost in overtime. “But we’re going to Toronto, and we’ll see if we can do what they did to us”.

Even young legs were feeling the strain as the clock ticked away and fans at Verizon Center were warned about the Metro system closing at midnight.

“Obviously it’s tough, but it was fun”, Ovechkin said “It’s a fun moment. The guys on the Marlies are watching this game saying, ‘I can’t believe they’re giving this guy a seven-year contract, [he’s] minus-2 and he keeps playing'”. But I’ll tell you what, when you have the best goal scorer in hockey, and maybe the best line in hockey through the regular season, put ’em on the ice and let them do what they do. “I think that’s probably the biggest thing”. I thought we had confidence in game one because we showed we could play. So they’re not just a cinderella team in regards to the season but one in the entire playoffs.

The Maple Leafs twice faced two-goal deficits but battled back from 2-0 and 3-1 to force overtime for the third time in three games to begin this must-watch series.

Now everyone else realizes that, too.

“It’s always hard to come back [because of the] speed of the games”, Zaitsev said. “There’s no easy rounds”.

During 4-on-4 play when Justin Williams and Morgan Rielly went off, Nate Schmidt jumped in the rush to set up Nicklas Backstrom with the defensive pairing of Jake Gardiner and the returning Nikita Zaitsev looking flat footed.

When Washington was awarded a two-man advantage midway through the second and utterly squandered it, the game visibly turned after that and they would not score again.