Victory, Buffalo’s defeat give Washington a berth It was a maddening journey. On more than one occasion it appeared the Capitals were destined to miss the Stanley Cup playoffs for the first time since 2007.
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But in the penultimate game of the season, Washington finally secured its spot in the NHL’s postseason party. Jay Beagle, Alex Ovechkin and Brooks Laich staked the Caps to a three-goal lead, and rookie goalie Braden Holtby, filling in for an injured Michal Neuvirth, made that advantage stand up in a 4-2 victory over the Florida Panthers on Thursday at Verizon Center.
The Caps qualified for the playoffs thanks to their own handiwork and the Buffalo Sabres’ simultaneous 2-1 defeat at Philadelphia on Thursday. The two teams had entered the day tied with 88 standings points, but Washington is now two points ahead and owns the tiebreaker. It still can win the Southeast Division and the automatic No.?3 seed in the Eastern Conference with a victory Saturday at the New York Rangers and a Florida loss at home to Carolina.
It was not at all how the Caps envisioned their season going last summer when general manager George McPhee drew widespread praise for his additions to a team that finished with the best record in the Eastern Conference the previous two years.
But despite the firing of former coach Bruce Boudreau, defenseman Mike Green and forward Nicklas Backstrom missing a combined 91 games and the Caps struggling to adjust to new coach Dale Hunter’s style of play, just making it back drew sighs of relief. But not too many.
“I don’t think so. No,” Beagle said. “I’m not going to, and I know these guys won’t, either. Now we got to keep playing our game and get ready for the playoffs. That starts in New York [on Saturday].”
Beagle opened the scoring at 5:42 of the first period. Teammate Troy Brouwer found room and whipped a hard snap shot toward Panthers goalie Jose Theodore (19 saves). But the puck hit Beagle and deflected to the ice, where he one-timed it home for the 1-0 lead.
In the second, Ovechkin and Laich scored goals exactly two minutes apart to put Washington up 3-0. In the meantime, Neuvirth hurt his left knee when Panthers forward Marco Sturm accidentally fell on him. He is listed as day-to-day. That brought on Holtby, who allowed a goal to Mikael Samuelsson at 15:41 of the second.
Florida cut that to 3-2 just 50 seconds into the third period when a knuckle shot by Ed Jovanovski was deflected past Holtby. Just like that the tenor of the game changed. But Washington kept the Panthers in check late. Florida managed just six shots in the third period.
“The two-way hockey [was encouraging],” Laich said. “Our identity has changed a little bit, where guys like Jay Beagle play a huge role. … It was a solid, solid team effort, and we’re going to have to keep that for the rest of the year to be successful.”
