The Washington Capitals entered their dressing room for what served as the first intermission of Saturday night’s game against the Tampa Bay Lightning rattled and needing to refocus.
Defenseman Nick Jensen had just been taken off the ice on a stretcher after a hit from Tampa Bay’s Michael Eyssimont sent him awkwardly into the boards, leading officials to send both teams to the dressing room with 1:31 left in the period. After the game, Coach Spencer Carbery said Jensen was “doing better” and had walked out of Capital One Arena with his family, but in the immediate aftermath of the injury, all the Capitals knew was their teammate had been hurt in an unsettling way.
Suddenly without one of their most steady defensemen in a game critical to their playoff hopes, the Capitals decided they were going to “play like Jensen” down the stretch, goaltender Charlie Lindgren said. It worked.
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A power-play goal by defenseman John Carlson with 11:31 left broke a tie, and an insurance tally by center Nic Dowd — a close friend and college teammate of Jensen’s — late in the period sealed a 4-2 victory and kept Washington’s flickering playoff hopes alive.
“After seeing what happened with Jensen there — very, very difficult to see,” Lindgren said. “We all know how hard he works, and so I think when that happened, we went to the room and kind of regathered ourselves a little bit. At the end of the day, we just wanted to play like Jensen — and that’s hard, and it’s the right way. I thought we did that.”
Washington (38-31-11, 87 points) jumped back into the second and final wild-card spot in the Eastern Conference — and remained there after Pittsburgh (86 points) lost to Boston later Saturday — with two games left, starting with a visit from the Bruins on Monday. Detroit and Philadelphia also have 87 points; the Capitals hold the tiebreaker (regulation wins) on the Red Wings, whose final two games are against also-ran Montreal, and the Flyers have just one game left — against the visiting Capitals on Tuesday.
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Lindgren stopped 32 of 34 shots Saturday; Andrei Vasilevskiy made 30 saves for Tampa Bay (44-28-8).
Before Jensen’s injury, the first period went back and forth, with two leads for Washington and two tying goals for Tampa Bay. Sonny Milano put the Capitals ahead at 9:56. After Max Pacioretty’s shot was blocked by Taylor Raddysh, the Tampa Bay winger inadvertently directed the puck directly to Milano, who had a half-open net for a backhand finish.
A deflection off Anthony Duclair’s skate in front of Lindgren tied the score at 13:06, but Milano was ready to respond. Another misplay by the Lightning — this time, Vasilevskiy attempted to sweep the puck away from his crease but put it right on Milano’s stick — led to another one-touch finish by Milano, who sent the puck through Vasilevskiy to give Washington its lead back only 54 seconds after Duclair scored.
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Brandon Hagel scored another tying goal for Tampa Bay with 3:36 left, finding space as he worked around Jensen to get off a backhander that Lindgren couldn’t stop.
After the teams returned from the early intermission to complete the first period and play the second, Washington quickly drew a penalty when Steven Stamkos crosschecked winger T.J. Oshie in front of the net. Despite firing five shots at Vasilevskiy during the man advantage, the Capitals couldn’t break through.
Midway through the period, Dowd fired up the crowd — and his teammates — by dropping the gloves with Eyssimont in response to the hit on Jensen. Eyssimont was booed every time he touched the puck for the final two periods, and a hit laid on him by winger Tom Wilson late in the third produced one of the loudest cheers of the night.
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Dowd had just two fights in his nine-season NHL career before Saturday, but it was evident he wanted to send a message.
“I think any of our teammates would’ve stepped up and done that. I just saw an opportunity,” Dowd said. “I think there’s obviously a bit of a code, and we were able to handle it and move on.”
Carbery singled out Dowd’s play, in the fight and in the rest of the game, as a crucial part of Washington’s ability to regroup.
“Nic Dowd steps up,” Carbery said. “Not the fight. The fight is — he’s sending a message with that, but just the way he played after that and the whole group. It’s just hard. When you see something like that and you’re playing in a game, then you start running through not only your concern for him but just playing the game of hockey and getting hurt like that, it’s hard to reset and go, ‘Okay, now I’ve got to be in right positions, and now I’ve got to do X, Y, Z to win a hockey game.’ That’s a difficult thing.
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“But what our group did, once again showing the character of the group, was they [decided], ‘Okay, as hard as this is, we’ve got to — because if we throw our season away, Jens would probably be saying: “You idiots! Don’t do that! Go out there and win a game for me, and I’ll get better.” ’ That’s what they did.”
The refocused Capitals couldn’t convert on a five-on-three power play, but a mere five seconds after it became a one-man advantage, Carlson found the net off a pass from Dylan Strome. The goal, the 150th of Carlson’s career, made him Washington’s franchise leader among defensemen, passing Kevin Hatcher.
And it was Dowd, in the waning moments, who scored the final goal to give the Capitals some much-needed breathing room. After Washington embraced playing for Jensen and working to win the way he plays — hard-nosed and dedicated on every shift — it was fitting Dowd scored to lock in the win.
“He’s a heart-and-soul guy,” Dowd said. “He’s a leader. It’s tough to say you want to go out there and win the game for Jens. … But I think we just had to understand the gravity of the situation and not let that play into how we need to finish the game. I think Jens would be happy with the outcome, knowing that we stepped up for him and we got the job done.”
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