Las Vegas: The Washington Capitals held on to beat the Las Vegas Golden Knights 3-2 on Wednesday, handing the upstart expansion club a rare home defeat to level the NHL Stanley Cup final at one game apiece.
Washington captain Alex Ovechkin scored the go-ahead goal in the second period as the Capitals knotted the best-of-seven championship series as it heads to Washington for games three and four on Saturday and Monday.
Vegas, who surged back to win game one on Monday, lost at home for just the second time this post-season.
The Knights had opened the scoring through James Neal less than eight minutes into the contest.
Washington answered with a goal from Lars Eller late in the first, and seized the lead with second-period goals from Ovechkin and Brooks Orpik.
Shea Theodore scored on a powerplay late in the second to pull the Golden Knights within one, but the Capitals — who lost leading scorer Evgeny Kuznetsov to injury in the first period — held on.
Goalie Braden Holtby’s 37 saves included a sprawling stop against Alex Tuch with 1:59 remaining to preserve the win.
“Obviously, these boards have been really true all the time and somehow it bounced out,” said Holtby, who reached back to save Tuch’s shot with his stick.
“It was the hockey gods,” said Caps coach Barry Trotz. “A great save with 1:59 left and you could see the emotion on our bench. I knew we were going to win the game after that.”
Earlier in the third, the Capitals penalty killers thwarted a 5-on-3 power-play opportunity for 68 seconds, and Holtby said that was a key to the contest.
“We have a really proud group of penalty killers,” he said. “They live and die by that. They did an amazing job. That was the turning point of the game.”
After Neal beat Holtby with a shot from the left face-off circle to put Vegas up 1-0 at 7:58 of the first period, Washington scored the next three goals. — AFP
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