POSTGAME NOTEBOOK: Caps 3, Isles 2

Don't Bury Me 'Cuz I'm Not Dead Yet - For the first 10 minutes of Tuesday night's must-win Game of their first-round Stanley Cup Playoff series with the New York Islanders, things didn't look good for the Capitals.

Put on the penalty kill in the game's first minute, the Caps managed to kill the New York man advantage, but not the momentum the Islanders derived from that opportunity. Less than a minute after snuffing out that power play the Caps fell down 1-0 on a J-G Pageau deflection goal, and the Isles sensed blood in the water and moved in for the kill.

By the time Mathew Barzal scored at 9:16 to make it a 2-0 game, things looked particularly bleak for the Caps. They had yet to score more than two goals in any game in the series. They had been outscored 13-3 since late in the second period of Game 1. And in this must-win Game 4, they had as many shot attempts (2) as the Isles had goals. Meanwhile, New York had 18 shot attempts in just over nine minutes, and it had won eight of the game's nine draws to that juncture.

It looked like a rout in the making, but after Caps coach Todd Reirden called his timeout, the Caps settled down and settled in. Braden Holtby stopped each of the last 19 shots he faced, the Caps' penalty-killing outfit continued to get the job done despite being deployed far too frequently for the coaching staff's liking, and the Caps' fallow attack managed to score three times in the final 40 minutes to deliver a 3-2 win, buying Washington a couple more days of life.

Most importantly, the Caps seemed to find that "other level" to their game that they've been seeking virtually since arriving in Toronto. They generated offensive-zone time, drew penalties, won puck battles and held onto pucks over the final 40 minutes, displaying many elements of the game that enabled them to start the 2019-20 regular season with a gaudy 26-6-5 record.

"We know if we're going to play like that," says Caps captain Alex Ovechkin, "we have a pretty good chance to come back. But we're going to take it a game at a time. We got one, it's time to move on and start thinking about the next one."

The Caps still have a huge mountain to climb; they'll need to win three games in a span of four days to move past the Islanders and into the second round of the playoffs. But at least they know they're capable of delivering that other level against a structured and detailed Islanders team that had given them fits through the first 10 periods of the series.

"It's a matter of doing it continuously, more than just once every three or four shifts," says Reirden. "You have to you have to string together some shifts to create momentum, and I feel like that's even a bigger deal in dealing with playoff hockey in the bubble, because you have to create your own momentum on your bench as opposed [having] fans and the help that you can sometimes get from that.

"It's been a different element that we're getting closer to figuring out that just really drags everybody into the fight, is when we started to put together a few shifts of offensive-zone play where we were starting to play a more physical, heavier brand. And that's what I was looking for, was a physical engagement from this game tonight and we saw more of it than we had up to this point. But make no mistake, if we don't work that hard again then we're not going to have success. We need to match that work ethic and that compete that we showed in for sure in the final 50 minutes of the game."

Ride, Captain Ride - Ovechkin's two-goal game was his second of the series and the ninth multi-goal playoff game of his career. It also marked the second time he has delivered a multi-goal for Washington in an elimination situation; he also did so on April 21, 2008 in Game 6 of his first-ever Stanley Cup Playoff series, against the Philadelphia Flyers.

Ovechkin has 24 points (13 goals, 11 assists) in 25 career elimination games in the postseason, and his 13 goals are tied for sixth-most in NHL history. With his two-for-Tuesday performance, Ovechkin notched career playoff goals Nos. 68 and 69, moving past Gordie Howe and Sidney Crosby (68) for 18th place on the NHL's all-time list for playoff goals.

Next on the list ahead of Ovechkin is Steve Yzerman (70), who sits in 17th place.

Fifty Mission Cap - In his fourth attempt, Holtby notched his 50th career playoff victory in Tuesday's win over the Islanders. He becomes the 21st goaltender in League history to reach that milestone. Holtby ranks fifth among all active goaltenders in playoff victories, and he is now just one victory behind Boston's Tuukka Rask (51) and two behind Chicago's Corey Crawford (52) among active NHL netminders.

With 282 career regular season victories, Holtby's total of 332 wins in a Washington sweater is the most in franchise history, 11 ahead of Olie Kolzig's 321 (301 in regular season, 20 in playoffs).

By The Numbers - John Carlson led the Capitals with 24:26 in ice time … Ovechkin and Evgeny Kuznetsov led the Caps with four shots on net each, and Lars Eller led the way with eight shot attempts … Nick Jensen, Garnet Hathaway and Nic Dowd had four hits each to lead the Caps … Ovechkin, Dowd, Ilya Kovalchuk and Jonas Siegenthaler each blocked two shots to pace Washington … Dowd won six of 10 draws (60%) and Eller won 11 of 19 (58%). After losing 10 of the game's first 11 face-offs, the Caps rallied to win 24 of 45 (53%) over the remainder of the contest.