Pens Nip Caps 3-1 to Even Series

It took almost 11 full periods and a Pittsburgh power play to make it happen, but the Pens finally got a goal from a forward who doesn't skate on their top line in Thursday's Game 4 of the second-round playoff series between the Caps and the Pens.

Evgeni Malkin nudged the puck just over the goal line on a goalmouth scramble with 2:29 left in the second period, and a couple of lengthy reviews later, it went on the board as a good goal, giving the Pens a 2-1 lead with 2:26 left in the middle period. There was still plenty of time left on the clock at that point, but there was very little time and space to be had on either side all night, and Malkin's goal stood up as the game-winner in a 3-1 Pittsburgh victory, enabling the Penguins to square the series at two games apiece.

With the win, Pittsburgh evens the series at 2-2 and ensures itself of another home game on Monday in Game 6. Between now and then, Saturday's pivotal Game 5 will determine which team will have the opportunity to close out the other on Monday.

"There was a lot that I liked in our game," says Caps coach Barry Trotz. "We were a puck away from being in the lead or a puck away from getting it tied up, and I thought we did a lot of good things."

After a scoreless first frame in which Pittsburgh had the lone man advantage opportunity, the Penguins opened up the scoring for the first time in the series, taking a 1-0 lead just ahead of the midpoint of the middle frame.

Jake Guentzel entered Thursday's Game 4 as the league's leading scorer (19 points) and tied for the most goals (eight) in the 2018 playoffs. Finishing off an offensive-zone shift, Guentzel tucked a shot to the far behind Caps goalie Braden Holtby to put the Pens up 1-0 at 9:21 of the first.

Two and a half minutes later, Guentzel tripped Caps center Lars Eller at the red line, giving Washington its second extra-man opportunity of the night. This time, the Caps cashed in to tie the score. Nicklas Backstrom surveyed patiently from the right circle, then sauced a high difficulty feed right to T.J. Oshie, who one-timed the shot past Pens goalie Matt Murray high to the glove side, making it a 1-1 game at 12:55 of the second.

The Caps had another chance shortly thereafter when Guentzel was boxed again for slashing, but with seven seconds left on that minor, Oshie was deemed guilty of interfering with Pens defenseman Brian Dumoulin high in the Pens' end. That halted the Washington power play and put the Pens a man to the good, setting the stage for Malkin's go-ahead goal.

After Matt Niskanen blocked his initial try, Phil Kessel delivered the puck to the net, and Holtby made the stop. Malkin got the rebound and his shot hit the iron, but Holtby was prone and unaware of the exact location of the puck. Malkin was able to leap headfirst and just get the puck over the goal line, between his blade and Holtby's blocker. A thorough video review showed that the puck had indeed completely crossed the line, and then the Caps threw up a prayer of a coach's challenge, alleging goaltender interference. Another review and another roar of the crowd later, the goal was affirmed and the Caps were down again.

"A deflected puck," says Holtby, in recounting the game-winner and the reasoning behind the review, "It was on top of my pad, and [Pens winger Patric] Hornqvist was whacking my pad, not even close to the puck. I'm not really sure why that's allowed. Then he drives himself right into my hip so I can't push up and defend the far side of the net."

Oshie took the blame on himself for taking the penalty that led to Malkin's goal.

"I think I shot us in the foot with that penalty there," says Oshie. "I was trying to make a smart play by taking away [Dumoulin's] stick, and it ended up being a dumb play by clipping his skate there. I think that was he turning point of the game, when they got that goal there when I was in the box. So I've got to be a little smarter than that."

Washington wasn't able to muster anything more in the third than it had in the first 40 minutes. The Caps generated just 16 shot attempts in the third, getting only three of them on net. At night's end, the Caps had just 21 shots on Murray, a goaltender who was struggling when the series shifted to Pittsburgh at the beginning of the week.

The Caps were strong in their own end all night, limiting Pittsburgh's chances as well, but Malkin's goal was the difference. Washington messed up any chance of pulling even late when it was guilty of a bench minor for too many men on the ice with 71 seconds left. Guentzel netted his second goal of the night into a vacant Caps cage to account for the 3-1 final. Guentzel now has four goals in as many games in this series. He and linemates Hornqvist and Sidney Crosby have combined to score eight of Pittsburgh's 10 goals in this series.

Washington got the victory it needed in Pittsburgh in Game 3, but it missed an opportunity to put the Pens in utterly unfamiliar territory - down two games in a playoff series - and on the verge of playoff extinction.

"I think it was just good defense," says Pens coach Mike Sullivan. "There wasn't a lot of room at either end out there. I think both teams are defending extremely hard. We went through a stretch of that third period where it was close to 10 minutes I think where we didn't have a whistle. So with the pace of the game and the physicality of the game, we tried to keep all four lines in it.

"We rolled four lines and I thought to a man we defended hard, we made pretty good decisions with the puck, we stayed above the attack and when we had opportunities, the opportunities that we did get were off our own defense. I think it was a solid third period. It's important in a tight game like that. As I said, there wasn't a lot of ice at either end of the rink."

Whichever of these two teams is able to win two of the next three games will move on to the Eastern Conference final to face the winner of the Boston-Tampa Bay series.

"I think the one thing that is very calming with our group is that they're resilient and they're confident," says Trotz. "We said we wanted to come here and at minimum get this thing to a best of three [series][. Well, we've done that. Obviously we would have liked to have tonight, no question."