Dowd, Caps Down B's in OT, 3-2

Given the amount of adversity the Caps faced and overcame over the course of an abbreviated 56-game season, it should come as no surprise that they had another healthy dose of it in the opener of their best-of-seven first-round Stanley Cup Playoff series with the Boston Bruins. Nor should it come as a surprise that they fought through it for a Game 1 triumph in overtime.

Nic Dowd netted the game-winning goal at 4:21 of the extra session, tipping a T.J. Oshie center point drive past Boston goalie Tuukka Rask to give Washington and backup goaltender Craig Anderson a 3-2 victory in the series opener, a game in which the Caps never trailed.
"It just seems like another day," says Caps coach Peter Laviolette. "This is just the way it's been. The beginning of the year was this way, and we dealt with stuff. Certainly towards the end of the year, we had the same thing.
"I think our guys do a really good job of just staying focused. You ask guys to come out of position and they do it, and they do it well. It's just part of the business, I guess."
Anderson - who spent the bulk of the season on the taxi squad and played in only four of Washington's 56 regular season games - was pressed into service in the back half of the first period when starter Vitek Vanecek injured himself on the first Boston goal. Anderson started and won Washington's penultimate regular season game a week ago tonight, earning a 2-1 overtime win over the Philadelphia Flyers in that one.

"Getting into that game at the end of the regular season there," begins Anderson, "It had been a couple of months, and just to get that game I was able to stay a little fresh and jumpstart the engine there. It just reinforces the fact that you are one shot and one play away from being the guy in the net. That's just trying to fight through the mental battle all year of practicing hard showing up every day for the guys to make sure you're ready to go."
Sent out to take a defensive zone draw, Dowd stayed on the ice when Washington transitioned the puck in a northerly direction, went to the net and scored his second career Stanley Cup Playoff goal.
"It was just a one-timer from the blueline there," recounts Rask. "I think it was going over my head or at my head or something. And then it hit a stick and hit my chest, and somehow ended up in the net. I think I probably bumped it into my own net. I didn't really see the replay, but that's what I'm guessing."
For Anderson, who celebrates his 40th birthday on Friday, Game 1 was his first playoff victory in almost four years. He made 45 saves for Ottawa in a May 23, 2017 game against Pittsburgh, a win that forced a decisive Game 7 of the Eastern Conference Final series.
The Caps started strong, laying the body with regularity and spending time in the Bruins end. Vanecek made his first save just ahead of the five-minute mark of the first, thrusting out his left pad to deny Boston's David Pastrnak from just above the paint.
Washington jumped out to a 1-0 lead at 6:22 of the first, getting a good early break, quite literally. Boston blueliner Charlie McAvoy's stick exploded at the Washington line, and Daniel Sprong collected the puck and sent Oshie up ice leading a 3-on-2 rush with one of the two Boston defenders - namely McAvoy - sans stick. Upon arrival in the Boston zone, Oshie and Tom Wilson worked a give-and-go and the latter beat Rask from the bottom of the left circle.

The Caps killed off a Boston power play without incident, but the Bruins pulled even with a fourth line goal in the immediate aftermath of an offensive-zone draw win. Curtis Lazar won the draw, and Jake Debrusk collected it, fired and scored in a span of three seconds, tying the game at 13:10 of the first. Vanecek injured himself doing the splits in an attempt to make the stop, and he left the game at that point in favor of Anderson, who logged roughly five percent of Washington's total goaltending minutes in the regular season.
Soon after Anderson's entry into the crease, the Caps killed off a second Boston power play.
Just ahead of the midpoint of the second, the Caps regained the lead when they made the Bruins pay for an unforced error, an icing.
Although Boston was credited for winning the ensuing draw in its own end of the ice, it was Washington that gained possession after the puck drop. Anthony Mantha gained control and rolled it out to Brenden Dillon at the left point. Dillon put a shot toward the net, and it clicked off the stick of Bruins defender Jeremy Lauzon and went past Rask at 8:44, giving the Caps a 2-1 lead.
Seventeen seconds later, the Caps had their first - and as it turned out only - power play of the game when Lauzon issued several cross-checks to Ovechkin's upper body in the corner of the Boston zone. Washington got a couple of shots on net, but it was unable to expand its lead.
Boston answered back and knotted the game at 2-2 late in the middle period, pulling even on the third of its four power plays in the game. From the top of the paint, Boston winger Nick Ritchie scored on the rebound of a Pastrnak shot from the point, tying the game at 16:38 of the second.
The third period was scoreless and more free flowing. While the first 40 minutes featured a total of 50 face-offs, there were only 11 draws in the final period. The entire first 60 minutes were fairly even and tight in terms of time, space and scoring chances.
Early in the overtime session, the Caps put an end to the evening. Dowd was on with Oshie and Wilson, put out initially to take a defensive-zone draw some 36 seconds before he scored the game-winner.
After Dillon laid out to block a Kevan Miller shot, Dowd broke the puck out of Washington territory and sent Wilson into Boston ice along the right-wing wall. After gaining the zone, Wilson went laterally to Oshie at center point as Dowd drove the net. Oshie cranked a one-timer and Dowd deflected it; it trickled through Rask's pads and wobbled over the goal line at 4:21, making a winner of Washington and Anderson.
"I didn't see anything," says Oshie when asked about the game-winner. "All I know is Tom made a good play to throw it up to me. I don't know who was in front of me; I think it was [David] Krejci maybe. Someone was right in front of me, and I just tried to hit the puck as hard as I absolutely could, and miss him. And then all of a sudden, I didn't even see it go in, I just saw people skating toward me.

"I am glad that Dowder got it though. I thought their line was big for us tonight, and they're going to have to be if we're going to have success moving forward."
Washington managed to keep Boston's top six forwards in check all night. The Bruins got a fourth-line goal and a power-play goal, and were held to 26 shots on the night.
"We hung around," says Boston coach Bruce Cassidy. "Certainly, they were physical early on and so we battled through that. I honestly thought our top guys didn't seem to have it - couldn't find ice. Give Washington credit; we couldn't escape pressure and find the open guy on the power play. A lot of those guys who have been doing a lot of scoring for us just weren't able to get to their game tonight, or get the puck to cooperate or support each other enough to generate enough offense."