One of the main intrigues of the entire regular season of the National Hockey League — All! The Eastern Conference has finally recognized all the standout heroes who will continue the season and enter the contention for the Stanley Cup. The last to jump into this bandwagon were the Washington Capitals, along with their permanent leader Alexander Ovechkin.
The fate of the second wild card ticket from the East depended entirely on Washington. Today the Capitals visited the Philadelphia Flyers and played their last regular-season match. To qualify for the playoffs, you just had to win. The worst case scenario is to concede outside of regulation time, but hope for the subsequent fiascos of the Detroit Red Wings and Pittsburgh Penguins. The Caps didn't take any risks. On the contrary, they forced Philadelphia to do it.
Even on the eve of the meeting, a number of journalists, and personally Washington head coach Spencer Carbery, highlighted their readiness to see a scenario in which Flyers coach John Tortorella decides to remove the goalkeeper in favor of a sixth field player long before the end of regulation time, if the “pilots” by this point won't keep score. This was important for Philadelphia, because in the fight for getting into the playoffs, they were only satisfied with a victory in regulation time and Detroit's failures with Pittsburgh. The Flyers achieved neither of these. But “Washington” dealt with it confidently and calmly. Although there was some luck involved:
Already in the first period, the leader of the Capitals, Alexander Ovechkin, again demonstrated his skills in playing on someone else's dime and sent the puck into the goal. For Ovi, this goal was the 31st of the season and the 853rd of his career in the NHL championships. There are 41 goals left before Wayne Gretzky's record is repeated, and Alexander will transfer this matter to the next season. Now he is clearly not thinking about records.
In the second period, the Flyers, not without the participation of Yegor Zamula, were able to equalize the score, but at the end of the third 20 minutes, the Flyers still had to remove the goalkeeper, although this made no sense, because in a parallel meeting, Detroit took the game to overtime and automatically deprived Philadelphia of its chances for the playoffs. Their empty net was immediately struck by TJ Oshie, who gave the Capitals an important victory.
Washington will play in the NHL playoffs for the first time since 2022. The capital's opponents in the first round will be the New York Rangers. Ovechkin vs Panarin — amazing poster! Alexander Mikhailovich, judging by his facial expression, is already in anticipation of a stellar battle.
And if the Caps avoided repeating the failure of last season, then Pittsburgh was unable to do so. The Penguins had a strong finish to the regular season and had every chance to break into the playoffs, but they didn’t make it. Mike Sullivan's team won't even be helped by the fact that they haven't played their game yet — if they win over the New York Islanders, the Penguins still won't get ahead of Washington. Thus, Evgeni Malkin and Sidney Crosby will spend the second year in a row without participating in the Stanley Cup. It was all leading up to this.
All pairings of the first round of the NHL playoffs from the Eastern Conference:
- «New York Rangers» — «Washington Capitals»
- «Carolina Hurricanes» — «New York Islanders»
- «Florida Panthers» — » Tampa Bay Lightning
- Boston Bruins — Toronto Maple Leafs