With no goalie in his way, he somehow found a way to clank the puck off the far post at 4:31.
"Honestly, I thought it was in," Holtby said. "Somehow, it didn't go in."
Much to the chagrin of Neal.
"At this stage, at that moment, it changes the game," Neal said afterward.
And, in Bowman's opinion, the entire series.
"That was what they call 'The Post.' Washington dodged one there," Bowman said. "If Neal gets Vegas an early one, they have some traction early. Instead, the Capitals rebound from the slow start, go on to win 6-2, and take a 3-1 lead. At that point, it's tough for a team to come back."
The Golden Knights could not come back and lost 4-3 in Game 5. As the Capitals lifted the Stanley Cup on T-Mobile Arena ice, Tuch, Neal and their Vegas teammates could only dream what might have been if not for a stick and a post.
"To call those the defining moments of the series, that's very accurate," Capitals general manager Brian MacLellan said. "I think this year, as opposed to other years, we got breaks we didn't before. In previous years, we historically didn't get breaks -- it was always some post, some bounce, some empty net made us lose. But these past four series, I don't know if it's karma, but we finally had things go our way.