Ovechkin's Late Goal Gives Caps 4-3 Win

Backstrom to Ovechkin.

Over the last decade, that combination has led to more than a couple of hundred red lights for the Capitals, but the duo combined for one of their biggest markers ever on Tuesday night in Pittsburgh.

Heading up ice on a two-on-one rush with just over a minute left in a 3-3 game, a relatively fresh Nicklas Backstrom fed a gassed Alex Ovechkin, and the Caps' captain scored for the fourth straight game to put Washington up 4-3 with just 67 seconds left in the game. The assist was Backstrom's third of the game.

"Well, they've scored a lot of goals together," says Caps coach Barry Trotz of his two marquee forwards. "They're pretty dynamic over a number of years. I had a good feeling."

At the time the red light went on, Ovechkin had been on the ice for 86 seconds; Backstrom just under a minute.

"It's a huge, huge, goal," says Ovechkin. "Obviously big for our team. We want to win tonight, and we did it. It doesn't matter who scored. We sacrificed, we played hard, and we have to do the same in Game 4."

Backstrom carried down the left side, and patiently waited to get below Pens defenseman Kris Letang, the lone man back for Pittsburgh. Backstrom slid the pass across, and Ovechkin's initial shot hit the post. But Ovechkin skated by and swatted the puck out of midair and into the net after it caromed off the iron.

"Backy got the puck; you know he is going to deliver it," says Trotz. "It was a world-class goal, obviously. Originally I thought it went directly in, and then I saw the replay and obviously [Ovechkin] got it out of the air - great hands, that's whay he has scored so many goals. Those two, they're dynamic together."

In successfully shaving those final 67 seconds off the clock, the Caps regained the home ice advantage in this best-of-seven set. Washington owns a 2-1 lead in the series, and Game 4 is here in Pittsburgh at PPG Paints Arena on Thursday night.

After a scoreless but penalty-laden first frame, there were lamplighters aplenty in the game's middle stanza. Washington started the second period with 50 seconds worth of carryover power play time, and the Caps drew first blood for the eighth time in nine postseason games on a John Carlson point drive with just two seconds remaining on that man advantage.

Pittsburgh scored the game's next two goals to take its first lead since the end of Game 1. Seconds after the Caps couldn't quite get the puck past their own line and safely out of the zone, Jake Guentzel made a neat deflection of a Justin Schultz shot from the left point, tying the game at 1-1 at 4:33 of the second.

The Pens then scored their first power-play goal of the series to jump out to a 2-1 lead at 6:49. Evgeni Malkin, playing his first game of the series for the Pens, carried out of the left wing corner and sent it to Patric Hornqvist, who neatly tipped it to the top shelf from the top of the paint.

Tempers boiled over some in the second period as the parade to the penalty box continued, and for the second straight game, Caps winger Tom Wilson laid a hit on a Pittsburgh player that resulted in that player not returning to the contest. This time, Pens forward Zach Aston-Reese was on the receiving end of the bodycheck, and he went directly to the Pittsburgh room after picking himself up off the ice.

Less than two minutes after that hit, Washington tied the game on a forechecking goal at 11:04. T.J. Oshie shook the puck loose from Pens defender Jamie Oleksiak in the left wing corner of the Pens' zone, and after Backstrom and Oshie made a quick exchange, Oshie fed Chandler Stephenson in front. Stephenson whipped a one-timer past Pens goalie Matt Murray to knot the game up again.

Caps defenseman Matt Niskanen prevented a Pittsburgh goal in the second, sweeping a loose puck out of the crease after a Malkin shot slithered through Holtby and wobbled in the blue paint.

The Pens regained the lead late in the frame during a stretch of four-on-four hockey. Guentzel made a dazzling play to stickhandle his way around Caps defender Dmitry Orlov, then sent a cross-ice feed to Sidney Crosby, who wasn't about to miss on his one-timer from the right circle, putting the Pens back up 3-2, at 16:27. Crosby's goal was Pittsburgh's second four-on-four goal in as many games.

Washington was unable to make good with 58 seconds worth of carryover ice time, but the Caps squared the score early in the third period, scoring a dozen seconds after the Penguins won a draw in their own end. Wilson won a puck battle in the right wing corner and pushed the disc out to Orlov at the right point. Orlov slid it across to Niskanen. The former Penguin fired from the left point, and his shot glanced off Murray's glove, popped up and went into the net to make it a 3-3 game at 5:06 of the third.

Both sides had some chances coming down the stretch, and after the Caps' carryover power play expired, the rest of the third was played entirely at five-on-five. The Pens had been pressuring the Caps hard in Washington ice for a minute or so when Pittsburgh defender Olli Maatta turned it over, starting Backstrom and Ovechkin on their fateful rush up ice.

"It's a big win," says Niskanen. "It was tough sledding out there tonight. It was a physical game. We battled hard and showed a lot of character to come back in the third and find a winner there at the end. We earned that one."

Pittsburgh dropped consecutive playoff games for the first time since Games 2 and 3 of the Eastern Conference final against Ottawa last spring.

"It's hard to win in the playoffs, and no one knows it better than this team," says Pens coach Mike Sullivan. "We played a hard-fought game tonight. That game could have went either way, and we just have to make sure that we put it behind us. We look to the next game and try to put our best game forward."