Carolina goaltender Frederik Andersen stopped all 21 shots he faces on Saturday night at Lenovo Center in Raleigh, helping the Hurricanes to a 4-0 Game 3 victory and a 2-1 series lead.
Washington's best start of the series didn't lead to any lamplighters, and Carolina took over just past the midway mark of the contest.
“Clearly that was the key to our win tonight, was that first period where clearly they were on their game and we were a little on our heels,” says Carolina coach Rod Brind’Amour. “That’s what goaltending does; it kept us in the game. And then I thought we got to it in the second half of the game, but it could have been a lot different if we were chasing it.
“You’ve got to give it to Freddie; that might have been one of the better games he’s played for us, just with the actual magnitude of the game, what it means, and how that impacted it, the way he played.”
The front half of the game was as taut and tight as the first two contests in Washington were, but the Canes broke it open with a pair of goals in the back half of the second period and two more in the third.
“They strung a few shifts together, and you know that’s going to happen in a game like this against a good team,” says Caps defenseman Trevor van Riemsdyk. “We were doing good things, and we just slowly got away from it, and partially you’ve got to tip your cap to them; they put you in tough spots, they’re pressuring you, it’s tough to make plays. But you’ve just got to find a way to make the right ones.”
For the third time in as many games in the series, the first frame was scoreless. But the Caps weren’t without their scoring chances in the first; they just lacked finish. Tom Wilson, Nic Dowd and Anthony Beauvillier weren’t able to light the lamp with early opportunities from in tight, and Carolina goalie Frederik Anderson made a good stop on Taylor Raddysh. All four of those opportunities came in the first three minutes of the game as the Caps turned in their best start of the series and one of their best periods of the series as well.
Washington’s Logan Thompson rose to the occasion as well, denying Seth Jarvis on a shorthanded breakaway midway through the first, on a Capitals power play that produced only one shot late in the man advantage, a point drive from Rasmus Sandin.
According to naturalstattrick.com, the Caps owned an 8-1 first-period advantage in high danger scoring opportunities. Their failure to cash in on any of those chances came back to haunt them in the middle stanza.
“No question,” says Caps coach Spencer Carbery. “If you score on one of those opportunities early and get a lead – one or two nothing – it changes the whole outlook of the game. But we didn’t. It doesn’t mean you can’t find your way through that at 0-0 into the second period. We just needed to do a little bit better. Even when we get down 1-0 and even 2-0, it still felt fine about the game. It’s just that our puck play after that really slipped; we really struggled with it.”
Midway through the contest, the game was still scoreless. Right around that time, Brind’Amour juggled his lines. And on their second shift together, the newly cobbled Sebastian Aho trio – Aho with Andrei Svechnikov and Seth Jarvis – broke the stalemate just three seconds after an offensive zone face-off.
Caps center Nic Dowd won the draw, but Svechnikov leaned in and got to the puck first, firing it high past the blocker of Thompson from in tight at 12:34 of the second, staking Carolina to its first scoreboard lead of the series.
Late in the frame, the Canes doubled down on the power play, gaining the earliest multi-goal lead for either team in the series. Carolina’s Jack Roslovic made it 2-0 when his left dot wrist shot snuck past Thompson on the short side at 18:57.
The Caps got a break seconds later when Carolina captain Jordan Staal was boxed for a phantom hi-sticking call on Trevor van Riemsdyk, giving the Caps a carryover power play that bridged the final two periods. Once again, Washington was held to a single shot, from Dylan Strome.
Carolina extended its lead on a snipe of a shot from Eric Robinson early in the third. Robinson went wide left around John Carlson off the rush before tucking a shot high to the far side of the cage to make it a 3-0 game at 3:14 of the third.
On a late Carolina power play, Jackson Blake slipped a short shot around the left post at 16:44 of the third to account for the 4-0 final, the Canes’ second power-play goal of the night and third in as many games in the series.
“I liked our start,” says Carbery. “I thought we were playing well through the first period for sure, first half of the second period. Then we lose momentum there for a stretch, and they score the face-off goal, which sort of brings the building alive. And I thought we were just okay through that. And once we get down, it’s a tough spot for us as a team. It gets off track after that, and our puck play wasn’t great.”
