Pittsburgh, PA – The Pens’ rookie netminder gobbled up everything and stole the show during Game three of the Eastern Conference Semifinals featuring the Washington Capitals and Pittsburgh Penguins.
Despite the Caps playing “the best game of their series,” they couldn’t get past Matt Murray. He had a career high 47 saves against the Caps, which was a NHL career high for saves in a single game and the NHL record for most saves in a postseason regulation game by a rookie. He is the youngest goalie in NHL history to start a playoff game.
“I don’t think I’ve had that many shots in quite some time,” said 21-year-old Murray. “That was a busy one. I wouldn’t say it is any easier or any harder whether you face less or more shots. It’s all mental, I think, at that point, so they’re just different challenges.”
Murray held off the Caps for 48 minutes and over 40 even-strength shots on goal and 85 shot attempts of the game last night. He stopped a pair of strong chances from Caps Right Wing T.J. Oshie, and another from Caps Forward Evgeny Kuznetsov.
The Pens managed to game out on top in the only statistic that matters, the one on the scoreboard.
Murray was terrific, and managed to do well despite the Caps having the puck for the game, said Pens coach Mike Sullivan.
“Obviously that’s an area where in the first two games, we felt as though we had the puck for long stretches of the game. Tonight was a different story. I thought the Caps beat us to loose pucks, they won puck battles, they outplayed us in a lot of aspects of the game,” said Sullivan. “I thought the scoring chances we got, we were very opportunistic. They were high quality chances, but we were able to finish on them, and I thought our goaltender was tremendous.”
Caps Coach Barry Trotz had good words for the rookie goalie as well.
“I thought Murray was really good in the first. I thought he was good all game, there was no question,” Trotz said. “He’s the reason they had success, but our game reminded me a lot of our Game 3 [against the New York Islanders] last year. It took us a couple games to find our game, but once we found our game, I thought we were good.”
Despite Sullivan being displeased with the Penguins’ performance, the Pens were thankful that Murray would not be conquered by the Caps. They managed to get three goals in on Caps goalie Braden Holtby before the Caps scored their first goal in the third frame.
Washington’s first period in Game 3 was much better than in Game 2, but the results didn’t reflect the intention.
Pittsburgh got on the board first, scoring on its second shot of the contest at 6:37. The Pens got a line of traffic in front, and Pens right wing Patric Hornqvist was able to deflect Pens Defensemen Trevor Daley’s point shot past Holtby to put the Pens on top.
“I saw it all the way,” says Holtby. “It’s just that you can’t really do much off a deflection and a bounce, and it goes in.”
Precisely a minute later, the Pens added to their lead, marking the second time in the series they’ve struck twice within a minute.
Washington lost a draw at the Pittsburgh line, and after Caps forward Nicklas Backstrom narrowly missed intercepting a Pens Defensemen Kris Letang pass in neutral ice, the Pens instead came into the Caps’ end in a two-on-two situation with Pens centermen Matt Cullen racing down the left side. Cullen attempted to feed the puck to teammate and winger Tom Kuhnhackl. The puck instead ramped up Caps defensemen Matt Niskanen’s stick, hit Kuhnhackl in the back and fell into the Caps’ net for a 2-0 Penguins lead.
“I have to see the replay of whether I overcommitted to the shot,” says Holtby. “I thought I just had the shooter, and he tried to pass to the middle; maybe he saw that he didn’t have much of a shot there because I kind of took away the angle. It bounces off a few things and goes in.”
Pittsburgh got the game’s first power play on a Caps right wing Justin Williams interference infraction in the offensive zone less than a minute after the Kuhnhackl goal, giving the Pens a chance to blow the game wide open early. The Caps’ penalty killing outfit managed keep the Pittsburgh power play at bay, and they did so for the rest of the game. The Caps’ penalty killers are 10-for-10 in this series, and 33-for-34 in the 2016 Stanley Cup Playoffs.
Late in the first frame, Letang was sent off for interference when he knocked Caps forward Marcus Johansson in the head with his shoulder. Dazed and down, Johansson went to the room for examination and returned at the start of the second frame. He did mention after the game that his neck was still bothering him.
“I didn’t see him coming,” said Johansson. “I just looked at it. He obviously leaves his feet and hits me in the head. That’s the kind of plays you want out of the league. It doesn’t look good.”
Washington played Game 3 without defenseman Brooks Orpik, who drew a three-game suspension from the league for a similarly late, shoulder-to-head hit on Pens defenseman Olli Maatta in Game 2. Johansson expects that Letang will experience a similar suspension.
The Caps continued to play well into the second, but they were unable to shake Murray, or get luck with their multiple shots. Two strong and sustained shifts in the offensive zone ended when Caps shot attempts sailed wide and high, or rimmed around the glass or out of the zone. All of this gave the Pens a chance to change personnel without risking their game lead.
Late in the second period, the Pens added to their advantage with another goal. Collecting the puck behind the Caps net during a Pens shift in the attack zone, Caps defenseman Nate Schmidt softly backhanded a pass attempt to the middle of the ice.
Unfortunately for Schmidt and the Caps, the puck went directly to the Pens Phil Kessel, who quickly pushed it down low for teammate Nick Bonino. Holtby fronted Bonino, giving him nothing to shoot at, but Bonino made a great play to slide the puck cross-crease to Carl Hagelin, who buried it while Schmidt tried in vain to stop him.
When describing what would be the game winning goal, Holtby said that he had to tip his hate to the players.
“He made an outstanding play there. In a breakaway situation like that–a one-on-one–you just try to make sure that he doesn’t score. He makes a nice play,” said Holtby.
As they have done all season long, the Caps poured it on in the third frame in an effort to pull themselves back into the game. The Pens and Murray didn’t fall for their tactics.
After a neutral zone regroup, Alex Ovechkin launched a wrist rocket over Murray’s left shoulder and into the top corner of the cage, making it a 3-1 game at 8:02 of the third frame. The Caps weren’t able to score again until the final minute when Holtby was pulled for an empty net and an extra Caps on the ice.
Ovechkin rang a shot off, and it came right to Williams, who deposited it for the second Caps goal. The Caps still had 56 seconds with which to work at that point, and they made the most of it. The Caps forced three Pens icing calls in the final minute, and they gained possession. But fate was not in the Caps favor last night, coming up a goal short and falling down a game in the series.
Game 3 was almost the reverse of Game 1, said Oshie.
“I don’t even think we have ever played like we have tonight, not even in the post season,” said Oshie. “We were winning battles and playing great. It seemed like maybe they got the best of us in Game 1, and we came out with the win. The roles reversed I think tonight.”
Trotz was also pleased with his team’s performance, despite the loss.
“You do the right things and you keep pounding the rock,” says Trotz. “You pound the rock, and you’ll get results. You’ve just got to believe in your plan. I think we believe in our plan, we believe in what we’re doing and we believe in each other. We went into that third period, and we could have felt pretty deflated. You didn’t see any quit in the Capitals. What you saw was a very determined team. Our team has come back from three goals [down] a few times this year. The mountain never looks too big for us.
“We know that we’ve got a big challenge ahead of us. We’re playing a very good hockey team, and we’ve got to play our game. The type of game that we played today with our puck management, with our decision-making for the most part – we’d take a couple of those out – but for the most part we were pretty good. You look at the number of [scoring] chances, it was very high, very lopsided. We’ll continue. We feel good about where we went. The only thing I don’t like about it is the result.”
Pittsburgh now holds a 2-1 series lead. Game 4 will be played in Pittsburgh at Consol Energy Center Wednesday.
Jacqui Atkielski can be contacted at j.atkielski@thebaynet.com