Washington Capitals 2-5 New York Rangers
Washington nearly lost his mathematical chance to make the Stanley Cup playoffs after losing to the Rangers, who continued to chase the New Jersey Devils (Devils have 104 points, Rangers have 101). It’s important for New Yorkers to get ahead in order to have the home advantage in the first-round series against their neighbors.
Already in the first period, Artemy Panarin started a combination that ended with an accurate shot (1:0) from defender K’Andre Miller. This assist was the 60th for the Russian goalscorer of the season and is far from being the last of the game.
Alexis Lafrenier doubled the visiting team’s lead even before the first timeout (2:0), one minute after the start of the second period Kaapo Kakko scored the third goal (3:0).
Only after that the Capitals managed to upset Igor Shesterkin for the first time in the match, and the puck turned out to be as curious as possible. Peter Laviolette’s wards responded in positional defense and counterattacked.
Alexander Ovechkin took the puck in the midfield, slowed down in front of the blue line and handed it to Dylan Strome, who was gaining momentum. The Canadian striker rolled onto the field, took the lead and shot from the negative angle, so the puck crossed the goal line by hitting the goalkeeper’s shield (3:1).
Return development was not followed. This is because a group of Russian “blue shirts” attacked. Panarin started another goal attack and Vladimir Tarasenko smashed Darcy Kümper (4:1) with a spectacular shot from the left rim of the kick-off.
Belarusian striker Aleksey Protas once again reduced the backlog of “Washington” (4:2), but soon Mika Zibanejad converted the majority and, as it turned out, set the final score at 5:2. And in this combination Panarin got an assist, which eventually became the second star of the meeting. Now Artemy has 87 (25+62) points in 77 games.
Well, then the “fun” began. Alexander Ovechkin got angry and hit Barclay Goodrow with a stick, after which he did not calm down and got into a fight with an opponent who did not particularly want to settle things.
This led to a big fight against everyone on the ice, after which the Caps captain was given a 2+10 penalty and left the ice less than four minutes into the game.
Rangers have reached 100 points at the table and are now three points behind New Jersey, while Washington is only ten points in the remaining five games, while the wild card closing zone is nine points behind Pittsburgh. And it must be won everywhere.
Pittsburgh Penguins 4-2 Philadelphia Flyers
Important for Pittsburgh in many ways was a meeting with Philadelphia. The Penguins continue to fight for a spot in the Stanley Cup, with the opponent already demoralized. But this confrontation is considered a kind of derby, so the matches are always very intense.
Although everything was pretty comfortable overall, according to the host’s score, this time it did.
Taking the lead with two goals in the first period, Pence found another goal in the second period. These goals resulted in two assists from team leaders Evgeni Malkin and Sidney Crosby.
Along with Chris Letang, who spent the anniversary meeting in the NHL regular championships, they became the first trio in NHL history to play together in a thousand meetings for a team. Crosby and Malkin reached this milestone sooner.
Brian Rust, who scored the winning goal, also played his 500th game in the league. The game’s third winning puck was after the Flyers minimized the lead with two good shots in the third period. But they weren’t enough for more, and Ryan Peling hit the empty net to score an important win for Mike Sullivan’s team.
However, Malkin eventually “distinguished himself” once again by playing extremely rudely against Denton Heinen, for which he was immediately penalized by 2 + 10 minutes and was ejected from the game until the end of the game. In total, he won 28 minutes of penalties per game, which is his personal anti-record.
In addition, Malkin is currently the club’s all-time leader on penalties – recording 1,090 minutes in 1,058 games for Russian Pittsburgh.
Other matches
Louis Blues – Boston Bruins – 3:4 B
Carolina Hurricanes 2-1 New York Islanders
Columbus Blue Jackets – Ottawa Senators – 4:3 Overtime
Winnipeg Jets 6-1 New Jersey Devils
Toronto Maple Leafs 2-5 Detroit Red Wings
Vancouver Canucks 1-4 Los Angeles Kings
Calgary Flames 5-4 Anaheim Ducks
Kirill Marchenko smashed Columbus to victory over Ottawa in overtime with an accurate shot and updated the club’s record for newcomers ahead of Pierre-Luc Dubois. Marchenko already has 21 shots on target this season.
Nikita Zadorov stepped forward by scoring his tenth goal in the championship, helping Calgary beat foreign Anaheim as they struggled to qualify for the playoffs.