In 49 career playoff games, Capitals star winger Alex Ovechkin has been held without a shot on goal just twice. Unfortunately, one of those games was Monday night in a 3-2 loss to the New York Rangers. That pushed Washington to the brink of elimination with Game 6 on tap Wednesday night at Verizon Center. The question: How to get Ovechkin going again with all of the attention paid to him by the Rangers’ top defensive pairing of Dan Girardi and Ryan McDonagh.
“Just got to try and work harder,” teammate Nicklas Backstrom said. “And you’ve just got to find a way to get pucks to the net, I think, and maybe go in front of the net and battle harder.”
Ovechkin didn’t speak with the media on Tuesday. Roughly 13 hours after a devastating loss to New York when a 2-1 lead slipped away in the final seconds and overtime, he watched video with his teammates and then went home to rest up for what could be the final game of the season.
For Ovechkin, it’s not just about producing points on Wednesday. In a single game luck will play as much a role as anything in whether a player buries his chances at the offensive end. Rangers goalie Henrik Lundqvist will have something to say about that, too. But Ovechkin only took two shots in Game 5 – one blocked, one missing the net. That won’t cut it.
“When he is not getting shots, you are not going to score if you don’t shoot the puck,” McDonagh told reporters on Tuesday. “It is a team effort. He has had some goals in this series, but we have kept him in check for the most part and we have to continue to do that here. A lot of it starts with the way we forecheck against these guys. We have held pucks in the offensive zone. With that offensive zone time, they are defending.”
Ovechkin has two goals and just one assist in the series, including a primary helper on Brooks Laich’s goal in the second period Monday. The other time he went without a shot was on April 15, 2010 in Game 1 of a series vs. Montreal. It’s not just on him, though. Laich’s goal on Monday tied the game at 1-1 after a crossing pass from Ovechkin clipped through several New York sticks and landed cleanly in the slot for a one-timer. And Marcus Johannson, playing right wing on the top line for most of the series, also needs to limit his turnovers and find a way to produce. In five games he has five shots total.
“I don’t think I had a shot on net either, [Monday]. I have to be better, too,” Johansson said. “I have to help the team win. Whether it’s scoring goals or blocking shots or whatever it is, we have to all do it together. We haven’t done it really enough lately.”
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